Cher has recorded over 30 studio albums stretching over five decades, a fact that is making it harder and harder for her former critics to keep dismissing her as a bona-fide musical presence.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Respect for Cher musically is in an interesting flux. At the turn of the century, Cher started appearing on many retrospective best-of lists on TV shows and in magazines. She is moving from being merely cited as a footnote in texts about women in music (She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul by Lucy O'Brien -1995 and Women and Popular Music: Sexual, Identity and Subjectivity by Sheila Whiteley - 2000) to being showcased as an influence and presence of substance (We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock by Gerri Hirshey - 2001). Read more details about this phenomenon in the introduction of my second Cher Zine, Cher: Critically Revised.
Start with a breakdown of Cher's studio and live recordings.
Read Cher Scholars Top 10 Song Picks.
Read blog posts on current music events.
Thesis Ideas
Musically, we can deconstruct Cher product through these prisms:
- Rare vs. hits: the top ten hits vs. the b-sides and bootlegs
- Decade by decade evolutions
- Cher singing in French and Italian
- Lyric themes: for instance, the unwed mother in 60s folk songs vs. the jilted, pregnant lover in the 70s narrative ballads
- Genres: pop-folk, narrative ballads, standards, disco, dance, 80s-hair pop-rock
- The major producers: Sonny Bono, Snuff Garrett, Jimmy Webb, Jerry Wexler to the one-offs of Ron Dante and the results of song-by-song production in her 80s, 90s, and modern albums.
Cher's discography and album details on Wikipedia.