Kat's Korner: Cher demonstrates this is far from over

Kat: Cher's smiling from the cover of the current issue of Vanity Fair and you'd be hard pressed to name ten other music performers who were charting in 1965 who could make the cover today without being charged with a crime or suffering from an illness. Krista Smith's cover story notes:

Cher, who has been in show business for 46 years, has had a No. 1 record in each of the last five decades, from "I Got You Babe," in 1965, to "Song for the Lonely," in 2002. She has won an Oscar for best actress in Moonstruck (1987), three Golden Globes for her performances in The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1973), Silkwood (1983), and Moonstruck; an Emmy for her 2003 Farewell Tour special; and a 2000 Grammy for best dance recording, "Believe."

Or, to put it more simply, the woman who often sat opposite Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show was Jay Leno's first guest on The Tonight Show last night. First guest. It's called staying power.

Through the ups and the downs, Cher has endured. And the 90s demonstrated that better than any other decade. Cher ended the 80s riding high in music and film. In a few short years, she'd pretty much disappear from the music charts and the big screen.

"Just Like Jesse James" and "Heart of Stone" from 1989's Heart of Stone would continue her chart run as would "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)" from the Mermaids soundtrack (which also continued her big screen run). But how quickly things change.

Cher's biggest strength can also be her biggest liability: She does what she wants.

Having finally established herself in the world of rock, she released Love Hurts in 1991. It wasn't a radical departure from her previous work and one of the biggest complaints was the sameness of the project when compared to her previous two Geffen albums. Sameness doesn't have to hurt you at the charts. And it's not what made Love Hurts -- a huge hit everywhere but in the US -- such a poor seller.

The wig.

The red wig.

The album wasn't even out and it was a problem, there was a Cher problem. I was at a party and a hefty guy was pontificating on how "fake" and "plastic" Cher was and pointing to her new red wig as proof. Rock and roll, as most girls and women understand, is all about dress up. But there are lines drawn all the time and if you're someone who has just fought a hard won battle, you find that for every line you broke, three more got drawn in. Probably six if you're a woman.

The title track went top twenty while the follow up (the superior "Save Up All Your Tears") barely cracked the top forty and would remain Cher's last US top forty (Hot 100) hit for years and years.

There are a million and nine reasons offered for this but it really does just come down to the wig. Cher's spoken of the debilitating effect of Epstein Barr during this period and has noted she did a hair infomercial for her friend Lori Davis which got her slammed. And that's certainly true and it effected her screen career. However, I argue it's the wigs that effected her run on the music charts.

A successful woman breeds a certain kind of hate in some. I saw it at the party as the hefty man was trashing Cher, stating outright that she was inauthentic and offering the subtext that only gay men listen to her and that there is something wrong with gay men. It's the same homophobia that Lynn Crosbie tried to push earlier this week.

Cher does have fans who are gay and always has had them. She's also has fans who are straight, who are this race or that race or this or that ethnicity. She's a global phenomenon and her audience is huge as her sold-out tours demonstrate.

This homophobic line of attack is used on female artists very often -- most notably on Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand -- but it's rarely applied to male artists which always leads me to wonder, "Do these people really think the Rolling Stones' audience is 100% straight? Do they really not know what 'When The Whip Comes Down' is about?"

The basic premise of the homophobic attack is that gay people aren't real people, they're artificial and they respond to artifice and, therefore, the music they enjoy isn't real music, isn't real art.

And, as I pointed out, that homophobic attack is forever aimed at the women. Though Bon Jovi has a large following among gay men, no one frets that their move towards country is 'artifice' or accuses them of being fake. Apparently, there's nothing more genuine than a bunch of New Jersey cowpokes.

Grasping that successful women will be attacked as fake and artificial -- which, as with the use of homophobia, is an attempt to say that the people involved are mutated or deformed, you can better understand my wig theory.

But let's jump ahead to 1998 when Cher released what would become the biggest charting hit of her career, "Believe." The song topped the charts around the world but there was resistance to it in the US and only after Cher performed it on the America Music Awards did radio stations in this country begin adding it to their playlists. Once added, they found out what everyone else already had: There was no escaping the song.

And it was the kind of monster hit that should guarantee the next album at least gets a listen but when Cher followed it up with 2001's Living Proof, that wasn't the case. She'd notch up three number ones on the dance chart, she'd debut at number nine on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart, but pop radio didn't want to know from her.

Cher had gone from survivor ("Believe") to persona non grata in record time and, check out the Living Proof album cover and the videos, the only real change she'd made was wearing a blond wig.

Cher does what she wants and pays the costs. She does it without whining or carping. She's the ultimate rock and roller. As she sings in her just released single from the Burlesque soundtrack:

Feeling broken
Barely holding on
But there's just something so strong
Somewhere inside me
And I am down but I'll get up again
Don't count me out just yet

And it's the story of Cher's career.

It's why she's had hits in every decade. It's also why a gem like 1995's It's A Man's World (featuring some of her most gorgeous vocals) get ignored. It's why she had to release 2000's not.com.mercial herself, truly one of her greatest albums. Those are the two albums of the last two decades to check out if you're a Cher fan. After that, try to get a hold of Cher's only live album so far, Live! The Farewell Tour which suffers only from not including the song Cher made her own during her late 80s and early 90s tours: "I'm No Angel."

The career's had highs and lows but it's been done her way. She's more successful than any of her 60s peers or 70s peers or . . . And that's true by the standard of ticket sales -- she set the record for women on tour with her Farewell Tour -- or by the standards of chart hits for singles or albums, or chart runs or what have you.

But in the end, when I say she's more successful than any of her peers, I'm referring to that fact that she does things her way. The lows and the highs, she owns them all. She makes smart decisions, she makes dumb decisions -- and she owns them all. It's why some people have a few hits but she's got a career. It's why some people sample fleeting fame but she's a legend.

And that is why it's so appalling that she's not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This year, Dr. John is nominated as a performer and Cher's not. Dr. John. As a performer. As a rock and roll performer. Dr. John.

In the Vanity Fair article, Cher states, "Sonny and I still aren't in the [Rock and Roll] Hall of Fame, and it just seems kind of rude, because we were a huge part of a certain kind of music, and we lasted for a very long time. . . . I have so much of everything that I want that those things don't usually bother me. It bothers me a little bit more because Sonny was a good writer, and we started something that no one else was doing. We were weird hippies before there was a name for it, when the Beatles were wearing sweet little haircuts and round-collared suits. The Rolling Stones were the only ones who understood us. People hated us here; we had to go to Europe to become famous. We influenced a generation, and it's like: What more do you want?"

Exactly. Over 70 men are in the Hall as solo performers, women barely register. I'm championing Cher [here for part one, here for part two and here for part three] and trying to draw a spotlight on her absence in the Hall but there are many deserving women who are not in it. Each year the list comes out and it's heavily dominated by men and your music critics -- including 'friends' like Ann Powers -- look the other way and ignore the imbalance. There have not been any years in which a man wasn't inducted into the Hall but there have been years where no woman or only one woman was inducted.

And we're not supposed to notice that?


As Cher sings in her latest single, in her 74th solo single, "This is far from over."


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I Hate The War

So it's two years since the Status Of Forces Agreement passed the Iraqi Parliament and the war drags on. And, as the 'results' of the elections (per power-sharing arrangment) make clear, elections don't matter and treaties don't matter. The US government has shown the Iraqi people a wonderful example . . . of how to create a dictatorship.

For those who never paid attention, the SOFA passed Parliament two years ago but it never passed the Iraqi people. What happened two years ago was that a large number of MPs elected to skip the vote. Those present were strong-armed and the way it was rammed through in the end had a lot to do with the promise of the measure being put before the Iraqi people no later than July 30, 2009 (click here for AFP). That never happened.

In June of 2009, a month before the referndum was supposed to be held, Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) was reporting, "American diplomats are quietly lobbying the government not to hold the referendum, but so far Iraqi politicians have decided to go ahead with it to avoid appearing to be in the pocket of the Americans in an election year."

In August of 2009, Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) was reporting, "The vote was scheduled to be held in late July 2009, and the efforts to delay the vote were fought tooth and nail by parliament. Ultimately parliament never signed off on the delay, but weeks after the deadline the vote somehow managed to never happen. So now Maliki's proposed idea of holding the vote in January, alongside the also-delayed parliamentary vote, is no longer the worst case scenario for Iraqis waiting for a chance to vote on a pact that enormous numbers of them have publicly protested again. Rather, it's being presented as a possibility, but one that might not happen either." That would have been January 2010. That never happened either.

It's amazing that so many people insisted that SOFA meant US troops had to leave Iraq at the end of 2011 (that's not what the SOFA means -- it may happen, the SOFA may be renegotiated it, it may be replaced with a new agreement) while they ignored that the referendum was never held. While they ignored that the US government -- and this is under Barack Obama, June 2009 is Barack Obama -- was actively working to undermine the referendum.

Year after year, the US government has publicly talked a good game on democracy but it's repeatedly undermined any chance democracy might have in taking root in Iraq. It's done that by undermining aggreements, it's done that by undermining election outcomes. The sooner the US gets out of Iraq, the sooner Iraqis can pick up the pieces and build whatever kind of a government they want. But though the US government should have left long ago, it shows no real signs of leaving. And at some point, all the apologists for Barack are going to have to face the facts that he's really not for withdrawal.

It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last week, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4430. Tonight it is still [PDF format warning] 4432.



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.


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Kat's Korner: The 80s (where Cher proves them all wrong)

Kat: One of the most amazing things to me about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's refusal to induct Cher is that few have lived rock and roll more than Cher and few have had such a strong desire to rock.

Sonny  Cher were a rock and roll act, kicked out of various European hotels for being just that. And then when movies (Good Times and Chastity) took up Sonny's attention and their recording career suffered, it was time to make a decision. Cher wanted them to move into harder rock. Sonny thought the road to success was moving towards musical comedy.

In terms of allowing them to keep their house and paying off their creditors, Sonny was correct. As a musical comedy duo, Sonny &  Cher found even more success becoming a TV staple. And again a radio staple with hits for the duo and solo hits for Cher.

But Cher wanted to rock. As much as she wanted to act, Cher wanted to rock.

One of the main reasons the 80s are my favorite period of Cher's career is that she proved she could do both.

Before that, if they wanted to cast her in films at all, they wanted to put her in things like The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. Which was the same as saying, "No, we don't want you to act."

"No, we don't want you to rock," she was also told repeatedly.

The mid-seventies at Warner Bros. was always a hard rocking album away. But the suits always had something for her to do first. Then she signed to Casablanca who was at least more honest about it, telling her that they needed to get her a hit first and then, after she was back on the charts, they could move her into the rock she wanted to do.

So she recorded "Take Me Home." And it was a huge hit. And all Casablanca wanted was more of the same.

In the 80s, Cher took the risks and they paid off. She ended up on Broadway and no one laughed. She not only sold tickets, she won critical praise. And ended up with a film career which would result in the Academy Award for Best Actress for 1987's Moonstruck.

An amazing feat for a woman so frequently written off. Such an amazing feat that what she was doing musically is often brushed aside. The decade started musically with a brave move that was greeted with ridicule.

Black Rose was a rock group Cher fronted. They made one album. Her name got them booked (on Merv Griffin's show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson) but she didn't want the album promoted as "Cher's new release." She wanted the album to make it on the music. And she was trashed for that.

Now you could understand if someone didn't care for the music trashing the music. That wouldn't be surprising. But to trash her for what were very pure motives? That said more about the writers than it did about Cher. She was everybody's pinata.

That was 1980 and she and Black Rose were so ridiculed that it was both the start and the end of the group. The next year found her singing a duet called "Dead Ringer for Love." The top five British hit found Cher teamed with rocker Meat Loaf. In the US, it didn't even chart.

This was followed a year later with I Paralyze for Columbia. It was a mixed bag of styles because Columbia knew just what would sell.

It didn't.

And that was it for Cher's recording career. She was hitting onscreen with Silkwood and Mask. She had other things to focus on. And, besides, so many people -- including legends like Phil Spector -- had spent about ten years telling her they'd take her to rock and yet it had all failed so what was the point?

Cher continued making movies and she went back into the studio in 1987 to record a self-titled release for Geffen Records. For years, she'd been told they'd ease her in, they'd get a hit with disco or whatever and then the label would work on easing her into rock.

There was no easing with this album. Cher did what she'd always wanted to do.

And, guess what, ended up with her biggest hit in over 15 years. A hit album, two hit singles, an amazing rebirth musically that would have been the story of the year had she not picked up the Oscar for Best Actress mere months later.

It was a huge accomplishment for and by Cher. She'd done what everyone said she couldn't or that, if it was possible, she'd have to step into it tenderly and carefully. She'd done it and it was so natural, so very much her skin, that it still remains the way she's seen musically today.

The hits were "I Found Someone" and, more importantly, "We All Sleep Alone." Could anyone else have sung "Sooner or later, we all sleep alone" and had it mean as much with the listeners as Cher? Probably not. Even more amazing than the hits were the rest of the album. "Main Man" was the Cher hit that should have been. An amazing performance to this day. "Perfection" and "Working Girl" were so fun and so driving that listeners picking up the album for the first time years after the fact could assume those were the two hits. It was a solid album that rocked out and which you could listen to from start to finish without fast forwarding over any tracks (these were the days when audio cassettes dominated the sales chart).

The decade had started with Cher a musical loser. US audiences didn't want her as a rock group (Black Rose), they didn't want her singing with a rocker (Meat Loaf) and they didn't want her doing rock, disco and anything else you could squeeze in (I Paralyze). They wanted her live, they always wanted to see her perform, but a recording career? Who cared?

Cher was a huge comeback but, again, overshadowed by the Oscar win. Rock and rollers don't win acting Oscars. Ask Elvis, Prince, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, etc. In fact, before Cher, only
Diana Ross had really come close (nominated for Best Actress for Lady Sings The Blues). It just didn't happen. And when it did with Cher, that became everyone's focus.

Which might have been the best thing for Cher musically. Otherwise, there might have been a huge concern with how to follow up Cher. That kind of hit can lead to a ton of micro-managing on the next recording which snuffs out all the life.

Instead, 1989's Heart Of Stone became the best Cher album of her career up to that point.

Months before the album came out, "After All" debuted. The ballad found Cher and Peter Cetera on the soundtrack of Chances Are and in the top ten. But it did not prepare anyone for what was to come. It was one of four top twenty hits the album would spawn. The title track would make it to number 20, "Just Like Jesse James" would go top ten and then there was the album's biggest charter, "If I Could Turn Back Time."

In what always read like a backhanded compliment -- or maybe just bitching -- Joan Baez wrote/whined in A Voice To Sing With about Tina Turner's mid-eighties success and noted that Tina's "What's Love Got To Do With It" had allowed two Tinas in the public mind -- the long, straight wigged woman singing in Ike & Tina Turner's revue and the woman with the spiky hair. That just didn't happen, Joan insisted, not naturally, and that's why, she explained, she was forever the long haired woman strumming a guitar to the American public.

Tina's a legend and has earned that. Cher has as well. And let's play with Joan's theory for a moment. Cher, in the public's mind, was with Sonny singing "I Got You Babe." Then there was the other career defining moment of "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves." Those are two different images -- the hippie and the extravagantly turned out young woman, each singing a different genre of music. And then, in 1989, Cher had another musical career defining moment with "If I Could Turn Back Time."

Some tended to argue at the time that it was the video. Cher in that outfit. Her ass tattoo prominently visible through those stockings. Strutting around on the ship with all those sailors. It was just the video.

But the problem with that argument is that the song continues. Long after the video has been forgotten or new audiences have emerged who've never seen it, that song is embraced.
It was one of her most confident and self-assured performances.

And why not?

She did what everyone said she couldn't do, return to rock. Rock out. No gimmick, no chasing a current trend, just Cher rocking out. On her terms.

She'd done what everyone said wasn't possible and she'd achieved the biggest success musically of her career.

For my money, Heart Of Stone is the album that best captures the 80s Cher. You get the hits and a great album including her cover of "Love On The Rooftop." If you've ever heard Ronnie Spector's original version, you probably think you've heard the definitive version. I thought that too until I heard Cher's take.




But Cher scored hits in the 80s that aren't on Heart Of Stone so if you're looking for a compilation, there's a great one: If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher's Greatest Hits. This album is easily available still. You don't get the track on my CD, "Don't Come Crying To Me," which is too bad because it's a great recording, but that was only on the first pressings of the album and whether you download or buy a new disc, you won't get it. You will get three hits from the 90s and six hits from before the 80s (including her solo number ones and "I Got You Babe"). And the meat of the album is seven tracks -- six of them hits -- from 1987 to 1990. I hope you still get the great booklet. Regardless, you get the best studio greatest hits package of Cher's career. The conceit/concept is "turn back time." So the sequence starts with her Geffen-era hits and works backwards. And it works. It's a marvel to listen to from start to finish and the strongest studio greatest hits package.

In the eighties, a popular joke began including/alternating Cher. The joke used to be that, in the event of nuclear war, only two things would survive: Cockroaches and Keith Richards. In the 80s, with her renewed success, Cher began replacing Keith in that joke.

And I bring it up for a reason. As I've noted before, you have 70 males inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as performers (I'm not counting groups or duos). You have less than ten women. Keith's not inducted individually but he is inducted as part of the Rolling Stones. I have no argument with that and love the Stones.

But Cher's not 'rock enough' for the men who select each year who will get nominated. She's not inducted as a solo act, she's not inducted as a duo along with Sonny. She's not in there.

Rock and roll? It's conformity or it's rebellion? It's supporting the status quo or taking a hard left?

If Cher had written George W. Bush on the eve of the illegal Iraq War to tell him what a great idea it was, that would be one more reason people would say she didn't belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But, as we all know, Cher opposed the illegal war and continues to champion veterans issues. By contrast, last month Keith Richards was publicly bragging about his advice to Tony Blair, to go to illegal war. If that had been Cher, they'd still be publicly flogging her.

Yet, Terry Gross spent 44 minutes plus just interviewing Keith last month and she never, ever asked about the Iraq War. If you listen to the show or read the transcript, it will become very clear that she really doesn't ask about anything after the mid-seventies. Keith's in the Hall of Fame and, apparently, his contributions ended around 1975. Cher's gone and on for decades. In the spotlight, not the shadows, and she's not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Nor is she interviewed by Gross but then, as Ann documents near daily, Queen Bee Terry doesn't interview many women. As Ann, Ava and C.I. documented last month -- a five month study found that only 20.58% of Terry's guests were women.

Cher's not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. She damn well should be. So should a whole lot of other women who aren't. And while it's easy -- and accurate -- to lay blame at the feet of a number of sexist men, it's equally true that a number of women have allowed this to take place and encourage it by their own actions.

Ann Powers wants to pit Laura Nyro against Labelle instead of arguing that there's room for both of them. 15 nominees are announced and for Ann the thing to do is to whine that Nyro is nominated and Labelle's not? Instead of whining that 8 individual men were nominated and Labelle was not? The thing for 'feminist' Ann to do is to slam the late Laura Nyro? To pit woman against woman?

Terry Gross wants to pretend that she's a cultural expert -- on high and low culture -- and that she has something to offer. If she were held to the same standards she holds other women to, she wouldn't be on the air. 20% of her guests, over a five month period, were women. Why are there seven times as many men in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as women -- men who aren't even rockers? Because of women like Terry Gross who will go to any length to include men while ignoring women.

This is part three of my series (click here for Cher's 60s recordings and here for her 70s recordings). I think Cher belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and I'm outraged that she's not in it. That's why I'm doing this series, to call attention to that fact. I've also noted that many worthy women are not in the Hall and I hope that point comes through as well. But most of all, I hope we're all beginning to see that a number of people -- people, men and women -- work overtime to hold women back. It's interesting to think of Terry Gross unable to offer women as half of her guests, or even a third, and contrast that with Cher's solo 70s variety series where she had Bette Midler, Tina Turner, Raquel Welch, Lily Tomlin, Cloris Leachman, Nancy Walker and many others. My point being, when Cher's picking and choosing, she's not forgetting women. One more reason I throw my support behind her.


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