The great Cher train rolls on! Cher maintained her top ten status for week two (#8) with her album and then fell to #11 last week. My Billboard-watching friend thinks she can get back into the top ten next week. He says there was a barrage of new albums debuting last week she had to compete with.
Last weekend I went to the Chiefs game in Kansas City with Mr. Cher Scholar. He is a huge Chiefs fan and recently commented on the fact that both of our obsessions begin with "Ch." This is why I love him. Anyway, as he is so supportive of my freakish Cher obsession, I am committed to supporting him with his Chiefs obsession. Although I know nothing of football, I take it the game went very well by all the hollering and the Chiefs, now 6-0, did something I was told was extraordinary by pushing back the Oakland Raiders to a 3 and 48 which (don't laugh too hard if I get this wrong) means that it was their 3rd down and they had 48 yards to go.
Anyway, of note to Cher fans, the Chiefs cheerleaders did a cheer set to a large chunk of Cher's "Woman's World" and it was a pleasure to see fat, drunk men in the row ahead of us doing some girly dance moves.
I also
heard Cher in the supermarket yesterday and I almost couldn't place the song! This was because it was her "Bewitched" duet with Rod Stewart which I have never listened to fully because I am allergic to Rod Stewart.
Cher's special video, Dear Mom, Love Cher, also came out last week. There is 20 minutes of extra footage being Cher's original birthday video for Georgia. Much is clarified in this extra footage, Georgia's experience in Oklahoma bars, her father's struggles with her in Los Angeles. There are many, many more family photos here. I really enjoyed them, especially the Cher and Georgia beach photo marked "Cher was afraid of the ocean."
Cher also talks about her favorite tracks from Georgia's album and listening to their duet I finally hear a younger Cher voice circa late 1970s/early 1980s. Cher is amazed she can't remember cutting the duet in light of the fact that she remembers everything, like falling off the stage. When did this happen?
I also enjoyed Cher talking about country music with her mom. When they hug, Cher does Cher-tapping. Cher also does this when she hugs contestants on The Voice. In Cher Zine 1, I talk extensively about Cher tapping.
The Perth Now interview was good. Cher talks about listening to old albums and songs, twitter haters, her love of Pink's "Dear Mr. President," her support of still using auto-tune, and her appreciation of Cher impersonator Charlie Hides.
In the iTunes fan interview Cher talks about why she sequenced the album the way she did. She doesn't like albums where the slow and fast songs are intermixed. And although I do prefer that, I appreciate Cher's intentions for the sequencing. She talks more about her plane crash but not when it was.
I tracked down the Gianni Morandi video on Cher's forum and it wasn't that great. However, the German appearances were:
I love, love, love that Cher prop on the Wetten Dass performance, the whole set was gorgeous. Listening to a translated interview was too hard and early on I dismissed the old guy sitting next to her as some grumpy German. This turned out to be Harrison Ford.
My friend Julie sent me this interesting Q&A from Mail Online. Cher talks about something very mean Sonny said to her when they split. Sonny was so complicated, it's frustrating to either like him or dislike him. She talks about getting lost in the woods as a child, her love of Alfred Molina (I'm so there), her longtime fear of being poor and ending up in a sad LA apartment, and her feelings about Downton Abbey.
If you haven't seen this video, go there right now: Australia’s Sunday Night interview with Rahni Sadler. It's a great, long interview in the vein of Barbara Walters.
I finally read the Readdit interview. It was mostly annoying navigating her answers around all the inane chatter. She talks more about saving someone from a mugger with Meryl Streep, her feelings about Madonna, about Sonny as a ghost, about loving her Richard Avedon and Normal Seeff photos and her Estudio Machado and Cicala Morassut photos (see beow), why Elvis was an inspiration, about motherhood and what isn't "all about me" in Chaz's transformation, among many other fly-by topics.
Lastly, Cher was on two segments of The Voice last week. I was on the road Monday and missed that episode. But you can always catch them on Hulu, along with this extra clip. You can also see Cher's mentoring interview here.
First of all, Cher looked great. I thought she was edited a bit school-marmishly cross, especially in the teasers.
Rolling Stone accused her of chewing out contestants and scolding them:
"Cher is not messing around when it comes to being an advisor to Blake Shelton's team on The Voice. After meeting bluesy Monika Leigh and single dad Ray Boudreaux, the iconic singer dug into them during rehearsal for the second night of the battle rounds.
When Ray's voice cracked on a high note and he said he "hoped" he could hit it on the day of the big performance, Cher sternly replied: "You shouldn't have to worry about, on that day can you do it? You should be able to know that you can do it."
And the tough love didn't stop there. When Monika sang the pairing's battle song, "Some Kind of Wonderful" by Grand Funk Railroad, differently than rehearsed, Cher called her out on it: "If you're gonna riff, make sure you know where you're gonna end up." When Monika asked for an example, Cher snapped, "Well you sing it different every time. I don't mean to play it safe, but you've got this one chance – be secure before you go there."
I think this editing led to the brouhaha about a tiff between Cher and Blake as seen in the supermarket rags this week. Cher is intimidating. She gives you that crazy Cher stare. I wonder if she picked this up from the crazy Sonny stare. And I admit to never wanting to be on the scolding end of it. I got scared when she used that stare in the tennis scene from Witches of Eastwick! Watch the full scene.
But Cher and Blake have professed their mutual love to each other in various interviews. And Blake gives it back plenty. My favorite was when he asked her to list her favorite Adam Levine songs. I want to talk more about her advice later on, after more episodes air. She gives good tough-love and contestants really seem to take her words to heart.
Would I ever sing in front of Cher? Hell to the no.
More Cher news I have yet to consume:
from Cher News:
from Cher World:
Enjoy chickadees!
New Estudio Machado photos:
New Cicala Morassut:
Cher is asking her fans to help her save Billy the elephant from the LA Zoo. She has offered half-a-million dollars to help get him released to an animal sanctuary in San Andreas, the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS).
