Cher - Dark Lady

If you've been paying attention, then you know i've accepted my own challenge Carey Elwes style (you know, Men in Tights metal gauntlet across the face) several times already. So let's see if i can defend a Cher album that doesn't actually excite me much.

Now that's an album cover. Those of you in the know will be well aware that about a decade later, the gatefold photo of Thriller features Michael Jackson lying down with a tiger cub on his leg. Those songs i hated from Thriller? Pretend you're back in high school english and write an essay about how they are actually responses to the songs on this album. Does it really matter if that connection is real, or collectively subconscious, or completely coincidental? No, it doesn't.

This is a deep cut Cher album; not so much radio single material as character development. Cher is a "cult of the voice" singer, and i personally can't think of anyone else who could really sing these songs. Go right to the opener of side b, it's overtly vaudville, right? So, this is the flip side of my critique of Maureen McGovern; Cher IS a pop star who can also pull off the broadway schlock because her personality, accent, phrasing, etc. define her character.

The best part of this post is that as i write it i like the album more than when i started. By the time you get to her version of "Rescue Me" you know full well she doesn't need you to rescue her. That's a dare. Then she makes a real aside, and you recognize the album for the imaginary musical it really is. And the album closes with a difficult sentiment for modern audiences to interpret: you're just like your mother, wink.

The hard part about this album is that it's actually a real song cycle (the kind Schubert and Beethoven and Brahms wrote). You have to hold the whole thing in your brain as a complete unending circle. You have to flip it over again and listen to side a, and on and on and on until you see how all the songs connect to each other like the spokes of a wagon wheel (Cher's a "gypsy," duh.)

There, i think i accomplished my goal. I took this album from "meh" to "bravissimo" in like 45 minutes, and all i had to do was insult Michael Jackson and Ten Years After at the same time. See what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it?

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