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Category: Music (Page 22 of 35)

Best National Anthem Singers

CherIt’s Super Bowl Sunday this weekend and Alicia Keys is slated to perform the National Anthem.

OK! Magazine has just done a review of their favorite performances of the National Anthem: http://www.okmagazine.com/news/top-10-super-bowl-national-anthem-performances-cher-kelly-clarkson-carrie-underwood-more

Their list:

  1. Whitney Houston –1991—what a wowee that was. I bought the single cassette!
  2. Faith Hill—2000
  3. Kelly Clarkson—2012
  4. Jennifer Hudson—2009
  5. Carrie Underwood—2010
  6. Jordin Sparks—2008
  7. Mariah Carey—2002
  8. Cher—1999
  9. Beyonce—2004
  10. The Dixie Chicks—2003

Note the FOUR American Idol singers (three AI winners) in this top ten list. Cher’s inclusion is striking because she’s not the same kind of singer as the others (with the exception of maybe the country sangers). Many would make the case that she’s the weakest singer on the list (if you split vocal hairs about this sort of thing). I chalk up her inclusion on all these favorites listings to the fact that Cher has become, not only a real American idol, but a national treasure.

Rolling Stone magazine’s list: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/the-most-memorable-super-bowl-national-anthem-performances-20120130.

  1. Whitney Houston
  2. The Dixie Chicks
  3. Faith Hill
  4. Beyonce
  5. Cher
  6. Carrie Underwood
  7. Jennifer Hudson
  8. Aretha Franklin, Aaron Neville & Dr. John (in a New Orleans Tribute)—2006
  9. Garth Brooks—1993
  10. Mariah Carey
  11. Luther Vandross—1997

They say about Cher:

She left the Bob Mackie headdress at home, but Cher's throaty take on "The Star-Spangled Banner" still had the pop icon's unmistakable style – not to mention some impressive notes.

Rolling Stone, still hating on the idea of spectacle (at least when it occurred in the 1970s). Get over it, Rolling Stone!

The site The Week also posted their list recently: http://theweek.com/article/index/239018/the-10-greatest-national-anthem-performances-in-super-bowl-history

  1. Whitney Houston
  2. Luther Vandross
  3. Jennifer Hudson
  4. Cher
  5. Jordin Sparks
  6. The Dixie Chicks
  7. Beyonce (tie)
  8. Carrie Underwood (tie)
  9. Mariah Carey
  10. Vanessa Williams—1996

Their comments on Cher:

Cher can sing? Holy crap, Cher can sing! This was great. No complaints about Cher. The interpretive dancers were kind of weird, though. The Week's multimedia editor Lauren Hansen nails it: "Cher was surprisingly impressive, but like Mike Bloomberg with Lydia Callis, her spotlight was stolen."

Arbitrary diva rating: 90.4 percent Barry

This site also recommends Barry Manilow’s performance from 1984. I would heartily recommend his pitch perfect rendition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A795MW-Qpow

I would also recommend Marvin Gaye’s brilliant and chill-inducing performance from the 1983 NBA All-Star Game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A

Marvin   

The Bittersweet White Light Photos

BwlI've always been fascinated by the album artwork for Cher's album Bittersweet White Light, the album of modernized torch songs from 1973.

I always found Sonny's photography of Cher on the cover to be enigmatic. The depressing panels of their house on Carolwood Drive. The crazy lights twinkling blurred in the foreground, Cher's fat fur, the head feather apropos of nothing and the shadow halo on her head. I just don't get any of it.

The rainbow Cher font?? Is that:

  •  "so gay" or
  •  "just gay"?

Cherthree

Then we move to those Neil Brisker photos on the back cover. Cher looks great but this is despite the fact that she's wearing crepe paper. This is some kind of artistic study of the seam.

Why is this yellow, orange and green stripped skirt dragging on the floor? Why does this bother me so much?

Cher could always make a halter-top work but all three photos show too much rib bone. We know she wasn't eating enough right before she left Sonny. Is this the evidence of her emancipated emaciated-ness? Why draw attention to it with this dress?

And surely we were all used to Sonny Bono Blather on the liner notes of Cher albums but swan song goes beyond the pale:

I was asked to describe this album in words. I don't know if I can, I'll try. A singer should make you feel. Every time I listen to Chér sing on this album I feel sad, I feel happy, I feel lonesome, I feel love but most of all I feel. For the ten years I've known Chér she's always wanted to make people feel. She did it this time. SHE DID IT ALL THIS TIME.

Sonny 

I'm telling you, I don't know what the hell I feel right now. Not sad, happy, lonesome or love. I feel slightly irritated with a hint of mystified. Was the creation of this little paragraph really necessary. Keep your feelings to yourself, Sonny.

To Sonny's credit, I actually like this album. I wish she had made ten more just like it. Torch with some 'tude.  

    

David Geffen, Joni Mitchell & Cher

JonicherSince the David Geffen PBS special last year I've been thinking about the ladies in Geffen's life. Although he gave them expert help and guidance, many of them broke his heart, including Laura Nyro, Cher and apparently he was dismayed by Joni Mitchell's "Free Man in Paris" and how it exposed his private life.

Geffen had better luck mentoring men: Jackson Browne, The Eagles, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits,  Warren Zevon, J.D. Souther–all at Asylum. Most of the Geffen label successes were male: John Lennon, Asia, Elton John, Sonic Youth, Aerosmith, XTC, Peter Gabriel,  Blink-182, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana and Neil Young.

Linda Ronstadt and Lone Justice being exceptions.

Around the time of the special, a few Cher scholars alerted me to Joni Mitchell songs of the mid 1970s that might have lyrics referencing Cher. This was the time she was living with David Geffen and he was dating Cher.

Check out the lyrics and tell me what you think:

Rob alerted me to this line from "Off Night Backstreet" on the album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977):

Who left her long black hair
in our bathtub drain?

Dishy alerted me to the Joni Mitchell song "Love or Money" from the live album Miles of Aisles (1974)It's lyrics are a bit more vague.

According to the the "Big Yellow Taxi" page, Cher's version (from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour??) is available on a recording called Live And Loud, Volume II from 2005 although I can't seem to find any information about this album. Has anybody heard of it?

  

Cher’s Self-Penned Album Not.com.mercial Is Available Again Online

Notcom

In 2001, Cher independently released a record of music she either wrote herself or co-wrote while at a songwriter's retreat
outside of Bordeaux, France, with the likes of Patty Smyth. She recorded the resulting songs with David Letterman's band and released the album on what was then Artists Direct under her Isis brand.

The name "not.com.mercial" was a play on the phenomenon of the Internet at that time and all things being ".com" which allowed Cher to release her music directly to her fans and the fact that Warner Bros., her label at the time, refused to release it with the critique that it was "not commercial enough." So I'm prejudiced apparently but I think Cher could spit on a street corner and that would be commercial enough.

From Cher Scholars' Online Review:

The tracks were recorded between
Love Hurts in 1991 and It's a Man's World in 1996 and the music serves as a bridge, sound wise, between the bombastic late 80s material and
the mellow late 90s material. Cher tackles beefy themes such as her feelings
about the Catholic Church of her childhood (in the controversial "Sisters of Mercy"), American
military veterans (in the tight "Fit to Fly"), a kind of restlessness
which might explain her need to buy new houses every two years ("Runnin"),
the problem of homelessness ("Our Lady of San Francisco" which
contains the unfortunate Bob Dole line that everyone gave her shit about), showbiz advise to Chaz's old girlfriend ("Disaster
Cake"), general heartache ("Still") a song that would
have broken up the monotony on any shlock-rock 80s album ("With or
Without You"), and finally, a cynical song about Kurt Cobain
("The Fall"). It's good Cher-speak for unbelievers.

Cher News posted the link to the new Cher shop: http://cher.shop.bravadousa.com/.

You can buy a t-shirt too.

Reviews of New Single

SingleI still have high hopes for the new Cher album, which is now rumoured to drop in late March. We shall see. I guess this might also mean the new Cher biography, Strong Enough (not being strong enough itself to avoid being strung along all year by recurringly-delayed album release dates), will be published next year as well.

And…I'm also hopeful the album is being described by Cher as "eclectic."

Reviews of the first single aren't terrible. They just aren't great.

Cher scholar Dishy forwarded to me the Entertainment Weekly review:

“Cher’s voice still has enough seismic boom to knock out a power grid, but the new dance-the-heartache-away jam from Our Lady of Perpetual Comeback suffers from a tinny club beat and lame lyrics about ‘dancing so low in the dark on the club floor’—both of which already sound more dated than anything in her 1998 Auto-Tune anthem ‘Believe.’” C+

At least EW likes her voice these days.

My friend Christopher (if not a Cher fan, someone I would describe as "Cher positive") had this to say:

I've listened to it three times now.  It's okay–not terrible, but it's a little bit repetitive, and there's nothing new or exciting about the music–it sounds like mid 90s house music, especially the thump-thump at the beginning. 

It's too bad that she isn't leading the album's release with a song that has a more pop feel to it.  There's no way this track–which is very club-oriented–will crossover to the Top 40.  Though I can totally see a club full of shirtless gay guys jumping up and down and belting out the lyrics.  By the way, the lyrics are very generic.  And how many more "I'm strong enough to rise above" songs do we need from her?
 
I think what I like best about it is the gusto of her singing.  She sounds committed.
 

Diva Incarnate

Cher scholar Dishy recently alerted me to the site Diva Incarnate which has some very well-written reviews of Cher performances on older albums AND some rare little publicity shots. I love the way the writer categorizes her oeuvre: "a mix of poppers o'clock dance tracks, soft-core cougar rock and sleepy torch ballads."

For the page on Bonnie Jo Mason (1964):
Bonniejo

"Forty-five years later the track still sounds fresh and remarkably intense…deliberately borrowing ideas from The Beatles' 'She Loves You.'"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the pagStars2e on Stars (1975):

  • The site calls the album a "torch song bender" and a masterpiece, one very special album and "her real Oscar winning performance, a souring artistic triumph of alarming beauty, disarming characterization and profound dignity…Cher puts one on a gripping journey…the album displays a poignant maturity she is rarely given credit for. This album is her real autograph."
  • "Bell Bottom Blues" is "a gorgeous battle against downtrodden, drunken piano-laden sadness. Cher sings with rare grit and passion that someone like Pink would saw her dick off for…[it's sung] like a shooting star with an exhaust pipe."
  • "Love Enough" is "a thing of whimsical beauty…so swoonsome and cradles your heart with horrific tenderness."
  • "These Days" [has] "a wilting orchestra that folds over like lace curtains inside her gypsy caravan…Cher's voice glides like flowing ribbon."
  • "Just This One Time" has "a choir that threatens to steal Cher's thunder before the dark lady brings out her rare and privileged falsetto. Cher's mountain climb of a vocal is jaw-dropping."
  • "Stars" is "a gorgeous finale, sung with private grace…desolated loneliness."

For the I'd Rather Believe in You (1976) paIdrather5ge:

  • "Cher's voice is a throaty elixir of hot lead and ash."
  • "The title track is the album's real winner: sad and joyful in equal measure, the gorgeous piano rouses Cher's authentic 'yeah oh yeah.'"
  • "A fine record but not an exceptional one…the vivid emotion conveyed on Stars is sorely longed for."
  • "Cher is a cement-cracking architect of her own material, despite hardly ever writing any of it; she wastes no time with uncertainty, and her 'deadpan' portrayal is what makes her so real." [Check out Cher Zine 2 for complete explication of Cher's deadpan strategy from variety TV to film to music.]

The page of mid-1970s Phil Spector singles:
Hair

  • "A Woman's Story" is "a slow burning candle, a languid brewing stew, and the results are dense and hotter than a Turkish bath….the seething and cutaneously operatic backing vocals blister with burning inferno whilst Cher flatly grimaces 'hell no.'"
  • "Baby I Love You" is "crestfallen and dewy, oozing into hibernating meditation. Cher draws out new-found tenderness to the lyric, usually full of so much joy."
  • "A Love Like Ours" has "over-yelping and [is] slightly out of key as she belts 'knock knock knocking every day.'"
  • "These lingering recordings…pack more heat than all of her oil-gargling cougar schlock-rock from the mid-80s to early 90s."

For the Black Rose (1980) Page:
Br6

  • This album served "as basic training and skid-marks the debut of the leotard."
  • On "Never Should've Started" her "chainsaw vocals rip the material to shreds…with a witch-crackling hostility… and ballsy performance."
  • "Julie" is "heavy chugging."
  • "88 Degrees" is "more 'tart with a heart' rhetoric but they are tying themselves in knots with this train wreck."
  • In "You Know It" it is "always great to hear Cher sing alongside a man, usually emasculating them."
  • After "Fast Company" "someone give her a made-up phone number already! Doo-wop backing vocals hurry her out the door. Lord knows who with."

For the I Paralyze (1982) pagParalyze7e:

  • "Cher Paralyzes Her Chart Positions"
  • "It
    was the first of 4 schlock rock affairs and by far the best…her next
    three albums would rely heavily on their boxer-in-the-ring style
    singles."
  • "It has been argued that her voice was simply too big for the lead single, the 60s girlband pastiche "Rudy."
  • On "Games" she "sings so deep it's hard not to wonder if she's deep-throating the microphone."
  • "I Paralyze" is "pure Elvis…so visceral it's a wonder her vocal chords aren't sharp enough to shred timber."
  • "When Cher quips 'you're as real as a dollar bill' her innate pronunciation manages to make the couplet rhyme."
  • "Book
    of Love" is "worth a million bad album tracks for the throwaway lyric
    'hey-ho' inadvertently being one of the familiar quirks used to
    impersonate her.

For Believe (1999):
Believe

  • "The exotica heavy-breathing of "The Power"…its bridge is gorgeous, one of parental disdain and caution."
  • "The female Elvis sound sensual on the sturdy hell-no anthem "Strong Enough" but this is throwaway stuff."
  • "The sumptuous fast-lane craziness [and] mesmerizing poetry of "Taxi Taxi" and the sensual aroma of "Love is in the Groove" [has] pulsating elegance….[both] are floating and sublime and I just love their dreamy lyrics."
  • "The euro-pop of "All or Nothing" is incredibly cheesy (and wonderfully so) but she injects so much euphoria into it, as do those tremoring guitars."
  • "Takin Back My Heart" is "weak (Diane Warren has a lot to answer for)."

For Living Proof (2001):

  • "The Music's No Good Without You" is "a monotune affair
    Whitehairwith expressive verses and an emotional soliloquy she wrote herself. I wasn't completely sold. That is, until I saw her music video, which was a tribute to Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings and I felt better."
  • "The unyielding pathos of "You Take it All"…is mesmerizing and emotional to say the least (the middle eight is heroic)."
  • "When the Money's Gone" is "basllsy kitchen-sink Hi-NRG….[and] just daft fun."
  • "Real Love" sounds "like a robot with bulimia."
  • "This will hopefully be the last dance album from Cher of this kind; the album proves there was little for her left to do in this genre…What the album does have is coherent and plaintive elegance."

I loved reading these takes on some of Cher's great albums and definitely think 'tart with a heart' is a very common Cher meme we could really explore further.

 

Woman’s World Single Released

WomansworldI spent Thanksgiving weekend in New York City, seeing The Book of Mormon on Broadway (totally awesome!) and viewing Katharine Hepburn's costumes in a show at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts (also awesome), visiting my friends (more on meeting Cher-scholar Dishy once I download my photos this weekend), Sarah Lawrence College, the city itself and enjoying some good good food (bagels, pizza, knish, Chinese food for Thanksgiving in Chinatown).

I'm sitting in the lobby of MOMA on Friday, waiting for Mr. Cher Scholar to find a bathroom, when I see this Billboard.com headline on my iPhone: Cher's 'Woman's World': New Single Gets Early Release. It seems the constant leaks of the song somewhat encouraged a hasty release. But dammit! This was not a good time to mosey on over to YouTube to hear the official song. That would have to wait until Friday night back at our hotel, the brownstone Chelsea Lodge.

This was my first Cher release on an iPhone. That was exciting but sadly, neither me nor Mr. Cher Scholar were blown away. In fact, he called it "boring." Ack! I was more troubled by the inane lyrics. Dishy and I commiserated over this the next day. He gave me a printout of the lyrics. At my most generous I want to say the song is a double-play of words (the word "woman" being a nod to both feminists and gay men). Women don't need no stinkin' men. We're strong, love hurts, etc. etc. A pretty empty girl/gay mantra at the end of the day. After all the smart, poetic imagery found in material on Believe and Living Proof and the unreleased song "Human" from Stuck on You, this fails to get under my skin the way Janelle Monae has been doing. It's also too close to covered ground.

That said, I didn't like "The Music's No Good Without You." I didn't much like "Just Like Jesse James" or "Half Breed." Hell, I didn't love "Believe." And clearly the masses disagree with me. My favorite songs to date are decidedly non-hits. So Cher has nothing to worry about. This may be another cash cow.

So far, the song has been getting positive feedback out there:

  • Atlanta Constitution Journal Blog called it a "a festive call for unity and female empowerment."
  • Idolator calls it a "balls-to-the-wall dance jam."
  • Only a writer for NewNowNext asks the question: "Cher’s New Single: Is It Good?" And in the end, he's ambivalent:

So at this point, I don’t know if her singles can feel like events
anymore. Cher releasing an good new song is like Meryl Streep delivering
another great performance: It’s what you expect. You’re happy about it,
but it’s what you expect. It would only be news if Meryl Streep sucked
or the Cher song was really bad.

But hey… consistency isn’t a bad thing. It’s pretty amazing,
actually. With the possible exceptions of Paul McCartney and Barbra
Streisand, Cher is the only pop star of the 1960s who is still releasing
new music that people care about. And of those three, she’s the only
one who can reasonably expect her new songs to reach across multiple
generations. If we take her excellence as a given, then that’s just
proof that she rules.

The song was set to appear on iTunes this past Monday or Tuesday, but as of today, Saturday, it has yet to appear. You can, however, search "Woman's World Cher" on iTunes and find a free podcast copy of the "Let's Stop Misogyny Bootleg Club Mix."

 

Four Videos for November

PsaIf you are intent on voting a Romney ticket, you probably won't enjoy these first three videos. Here we are the weekend before somewhat of an historic election in the United States. And although Cher has not been guesting on talk shows such as she did in elections past, she's been busy tweeting. And now she and Kathy Griffith have posted an election PSA spot on the YouTubes. Message aside (you had me at hellooo), I think Kathy and Cher could take this act on the road, or at least to a new TV variety series.

 

LesmisMy cousin also sent me this good election PSA (billed as a paradoy of Les Miserables but it's not very ha-ha-funny as you find most parodies) but it's pretty inspiring nonetheless.

 

 

YoudontOne of my favorite election PSAs this year is from Leslie Gore done to her song "You Don't Own Me."

It's full of lady-power and confidence! Riot Grrls come to roost.

 

 

 

LpUnrelated to the election (is that possible?), my dad is now into an artist named LP and he sent me her video link from a recent performance on David Letterman.

She's awesome! I plan to dig more into this!

 

 

Leaks, X-Factor, Val Kilmer and Cher’s Sex Cult

ValkilmerUgh. So I said I wouldn't talk anymore about this phantom album of Cher's…but then things blew up last week when a version of a song called "Woman's World" was leaked.

It was 15 seconds of speedy dance Cher-shouting. It was all over for a day or so and has since evaporated.

Cher expressed displeasure.

Queerty.com pooh-pooed that saying Cher had no reason to be upset:

"Unfinished or not, this shit sounds amazing. There’s no better way to
start your day/week/the rest of your life than a good ole-fashioned diva
comeback single."
http://www.queerty.com/cher-leak-womans-world-20121022/

Meanwhile, there's a rumor Cher has been signed to appear on the season finale of X-Factor on December 9. 

ChairAnd Cher tweeted a picture of herself and one-time boyfriend, Val Kilmer (above), after seeing him do his one-man show about Mark Twain called "Citizen Twain" at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. Apparently he had to cancel his second of two shows due to a knee injury. Why didn't he just do Val Kilmer doing Hal Holbrook doing Mark Twain and perform from a chair.

By the way, Mark Twain is my patron saint. I did a photo shoot earlier this year (for an upcoming book) that was an homage to one of Twain's famous photographs:

CultLast but not least, one of the goofiest of Cher tabloid covers appeared this week, Cher Sex Cult Scandal! Torture, Brainwashing, Abuse…Stupid.

On the bright side, the tabloids are still hot for Cher.

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