Featuring interviews with some of her well-known fans, including Ru Paul and Sean Hayes, this is a celebration of the album where Cher challenged the ageist pop industry and re-solidified herself as a force to be reckoned with.
By 1998, Cher seemed fated to fade off into the pop sunset. Her time of being half of pop musics It couple, of releasing chart-topping singles, of having her own TV show, in starring in box office breaking movies, was coming to an end. But then Believe and a new invention called auto-tune changed everything.
Pop has always been a young persons game, especially for women, and a new dawn of that obsessive youth was in full swing in the late 90s. But Chers return to inescapability at 52 years oldmaking her the oldest woman to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100was a refusal to accept that model. Full of fire, cutting edge choices, and a strong advocacy for ones self, Believe was her giant musical middle finger to all those assumptions.
The album confirmed her place as a pop icon, a queer icon, a feminist icon, and reminds us that everyone should believe they can be strong enough.
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A celebration of the album where Cher challenged the pop industry and resolidified herself as a cultural force, an empowered experimenter, and a feminist and queer iconand still somehow put out a chart-topping record just before the turn of the millennium.
Introduction: If You Could Turn Back Time
1. All I Really Want To Do
2. Mom, I Am a Rich Man
3. And I Cant Break Through
4. Cher, the Mathematician, and the Dance Floor
5. What Am I Supposed To Do? Sit Around and Wait For You?
6. Strong Enough
7. And Theres No Turning Back
Lior Phillips is a South African music and culture journalist originally from Cape Town, now based in Chicago, USA. She writes about music, film, art, and more for international publications, including Dazed and Confused Magazine, The Recording Academy, Variety, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The Quietus, NPR, The Guardian, Consequence of Sound, and GQ South Africa. In addition, she is the creator, producer, and host of This Must Be the Gig, a podcast dedicated to artists vital memories of their first gigs and passion for live music and performance. She is the author of South African Popular Music (Bloomsbury 2023).
