CHER: BELIEVE (1998)
1)
Believe; 2) The Power; 3) Runaway; 4) All Or Nothing; 5) Strong Enough; 6)
Dov'e L'Amore; 7) Takin' Back My Heart; 8) Taxi Taxi; 9) Love Is The Groove;
10) We All Sleep Alone.
Undoubtedly, the main question of 1998 was not
"how do we stop the Congo War?" or "do we impeach President
Clinton or not?" — the main question of 1998, which each of us who was old
enough to have ears must have heard a million times, was: "Do you believe
in life after love?". I'm pretty sure that more people on this planet of ours
have pondered over this question than there are people for whom the name
"Cher" means anything — I do believe myself that I lived through at
least three solemn promises to find and strangle the singer before even
learning who that was (I knew about the existence of Cher, of course, but it
never occurred to me to equate this Vegas relic with the autotuned monstrosity
that Genghis-Khanned its way all over the radiowaves).
Since the record-buying public would not want
to pay serious attention to the slowly unfolding and ultimately not very
rewarding soulful intricacies of It's A
Man's World, it seemed inevitable that we'd soon begin the next loop —
after a commercially failing «artistic» album, the world should brace itself
for an artistically failing «commercial» album, what with retirement not being
an option in an age where the triumphant march of female empowerment can always
be bolstered with a little plastic surgery. And it's no big secret that the
direction in which she went with Believe
had everything to do with the success of Madonna's Ray Of Light — the advent of electronic techno-pop suddenly gave
«Divas» all over the world a new style where they could succeed without
breaking too much sweat and stay
unquestionably modern and trendy. Of course, she'd never really worked in the
electronic field before, but it's not about electronica, really: it's about a
dance-pop groove, and how could somebody with ʽTake Me Homeʼ behind her belt
fail at that, if she really put her mind to it?
Well, technically speaking, she does not fail.
The record, masterminded by British producers Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling
(whose clientele before and after has also included Enrique Iglesias, Britney
Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and One Direction, if you really want to know more) and
with significant songwriting input from Paul Barry (also a wholesale supplier
for Enrique Iglesias), became her largest success ever, and ʽBelieveʼ became
her signature song — probably the only such case in pop history, when it took
the artist more than thirty years in the business to produce a signature song
(and I'm fairly sure that youngsters all over the world went into a state of shock
upon discovering that the very same person who really didn't think we were
strong enough now in 1998 had said that all she really wanted to do was to be
friends with us back in 1965 — I mean, at least the ones who could actually be
prompted to discover anything).
Grinding my teeth and cursing God's name, I
have to admit that ʽBelieveʼ does display genius craftmanship — nothing else
could explain its mystical hold over the world. Its main hookline is one of
those anthemic-rhetoric questions that can hook up to your brain like a
well-polished political slogan, and when combined with the techno beat, it
probably does constitute the ultimate in clublife experience (not that I'd know
much of that). Then, of course, there's the vocoding bit: as everybody knows,
this is the first well-popularized use of autotuning on the vocals, and as
heavily as the practice became abused immediately after that, this particular
first time actually works — the vocal effect was not there because Cher needed autotuning (her vocal powers are
still fairly intact at this point), but because the producers thought it would
be fun to have her sing like a robot for a bit (alternately, it may have been hard for her to hit that
little melismatic bit on "so sa-a-ad that you're leaving", except we
never ever get evidence for that because there does not seem to be even one
version of the song in existence, studio or live, without the effect). Just a
little creative fun, and look at all the damage it did to the music industry.
The problem is, of course, that it will take at
least ten thousand years for the song to return to a reasonable reputational
level — the one of a fluffy fun dance-pop throwaway, rather than a «pop epic»
of catastrophic proportions — and that the process of leveling has not even
begun yet, as I still get shudders and shivers every time I hear the damn
thing. And then there's another problem: most of the rest of the album, though
consistently delivered in the same vein, is just crap. Techno crap, disco crap,
adult contemporary crap — song after song of tasteless, meaningless,
corporate-formulaic drivel that makes even the late-Eighties «glam trilogy»
seem like a strong musical offering in comparison. Oh, it's catchy all right —
the choruses are repetitive enough, so if you hold out for two or three
listens, musical viruses such as "baby, it's all or nothing!...",
"now I'm strong enough to live without you!", "love is the
groove in which we move", and even the accursed "taxi, taxi, give me
a ride" will infiltrate your DNA and begin a corrosive process of mutation
that can only be stopped with a good cleansing (I recommend Metal Machine Music, if you're man
enough to take some rough treatment). But taken as a whole, the album is
perfect proof that you don't really need Autotune in order to sound like a
crudely assembled robot.
The few non-techno songs on the album are even
worse than the techno ones: ʽDov'E L'Amoreʼ, for instance, is the most clichéd
take on the "Latin love song" that could be thought of, with
restaurant-level flamenco guitar and horrid Italian-English lyrical
hybridizations ("dov'e l'amore, dov'e l'amore, I cannot tell you of my
love, here is my story" — bathroom, please), and ʽTakin' Back My Heartʼ
almost mockingly starts out with a guitar lick copped from ʽStayin' Aliveʼ, as
they try a generic old disco revival for a change, only to actually make us
feel nostalgic for the real thing,
when disco music could actually be creative and even feature excellent
musicianship. Some are hideous hybrids — ʽTaxi Taxiʼ tries fusing an old disco
bass line with a modern techno beat, but since the main melody consists of
something like one synth note, the «experiment» goes very wrong from the
beginning. And then there's the idea of fighting fire with fire — take an old
glam-pop turd (ʽWe All Sleep Aloneʼ) and reinvent it as a new techno-pop turd,
just, you know, to prove that the old flame can still burn bright in a new
vessel. Which doth remind me of a great answer found on the Web to the
important question "How well does
poop burn?" — "If you find
some month old elephant dung, it can be a great firestarter since they
exclusively eat plant matter. However, if your dog's asshole is leaking
diarrhea from that left over taco bell you gave him, it will most likely not
ignite." Kind of reminds me of the current situation.
Again, it is, of course, all a matter of (good
vs. bad) taste, and since the choruses are catchy and all, brings us back to
the eternal question of whether there is such a thing as a «bad hook», or if a
hook is a hook, and if you can get hooked up, that's a good thing in itself...
but instead of having this discussion, let's all just be good boys and girls,
agree that Believe is a thumbs down
turd that has no place in the musical garden of Eden, and move on to a safe and
happy future in which there is no life after love, and Cher is remembered more
for Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves and
even I Paralyze than for the amazing
feat of trivializing the already not-too-complex musical values of Madonna.
Finally something by Cher that I've actually heard. Not by my own will, of course.
ReplyDelete"South Park" did it better.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8tU7RIHM6qs
Ah, the benefits of getting older ..... in 1998 I was 34 and had learned to neglect radio and MTV. Sure I've heard Believe before, but only now I learned that it was sung by Cher. For me it never has been more than just fluf and I don't see why that would change now in 2016.
ReplyDeleteWhat I actively hated in 1998 was Destiny's Child. What I listend to was Church of Noise.
I always liked this album. One of the best 90s pop albums in my opinion. Amazing and unexpected triumph for Cher. I think nobody expected such a monstrosity of a hit record from her.
ReplyDeleteI assume that in sophisticated circles Believe would be considered a manifistation of 'bad taste', but I beg to disagree. Half, maybe two thirds of its songs are nothing special, but three stellar numbers make the record.