It's good that the whole Israeli-Palestine thing finished when it did, because it was about to be overshadowed by an even bigger news event. Nobody was going to care about that when they heard the story that everyone on the planet had been waiting for. Hillary Clinton must be a Cher fan, because she got that Middle East shit sorted just in time for the premiere of Her Cher-ness? new track ?Woman?s World?.
Now, the majority of the cynical press – of which I consider myself an integral member – will delight in the fact that a woman of sixty-six is still releasing pop music. They will call her ?old?, ?crusty?, they might even call her ?saggy vagina?. Either way, I doubt that many will look past Cher?s age, facework and sparkly wigs and just comment on the music.?
I have a fairly different opinion. I come from the school of thought that goes something along the lines of ?She's Cher, and she can do whatever the fuck she likes.? Now, I don't consider myself a fan (I don't have any of her music on my iTunes), but I don't quite understand why she has been written-off all of a sudden. Do you really have to be young and hip to make good pop songs?
It's not as if she's the only older lady who is still making dance records. Debbie Harry and Cyndi Lauper are still at it, and they seem to be doing well for themselves. Furthermore, 54-year-old Madonna just released an album earlier this year. You may not have noticed, because it didn't produce a single listenable song. However, I'm guessing that has more to do with the fact that Madonna is an insufferable narcissist and attention-seeker, and less to do with her age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXAZ-wvNtU
In any case, surely we can trust Cher to make decent music; she's been around long enough. Like her or not, I challenge anyone not to sing along to ?I Got You Babe?. It's a fucking classic. I know every single word of ?Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves? without ever having listened to it voluntarily. Her music just has a way of getting stuck in your head.
Most importantly, we mustn?t forget that every current musical artist is indebted to Cher. Why? Because with the release of ?Believe? in the ?90s, she introduced the world to auto-tune; a device that can turn terrible singers into fairly listenable singers. Nowadays you can't turn on a radio a television a computer without hearing some robotic voice singing about wanting the DJ to do something.
How does ?Woman?s World? sound anyway? It sounds like a Cher song for the time. It's big; it's loud and it makes no apologies for what it is. It's a feminist anthem with a simple hook (?Tell the truth, This is a woman?s world!?) and a beat that may have you tapping your feet in a guilty-pleasury way. It will go down well in gay clubs (obviously), but I doubt it will have any chart success. To be honest, it probably isn't even the aim.
She may not be your cup of tea, but Cher has made a fairly good song without rocking the boat. She is a legend, and we have to respect that. I mean, I enjoy deriding celebrities as much as the next guy, but is this one really necessary? I mean, if you're going to hate anyone; hate someone who deserved it. I'm sure Dina Lohan and Donald Trump merit a little hate more than Cher. So can we just leave her alone and decide whether we want to listen to the music ourselves? That would be nice.
Matty says
Well written!