Believe Albany GA

Believe

Cher

Warner Brothers Records, 1998

REVIEW BY: JB

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 12/18/1998

All of a sudden, nobody makes dance music... it's all "club" or"house music" now, with the exception of the Spice Girls.Morales-esque drum machines, brainlessly repeating samples, andvirtually no lyrical depth whatsoever. Gloria Estefan more or lessabandoned her tight Latin grooves for the bland club scene and hermost recent dance album tanked. Ace Of Base never recovered after"moving up" from reggae. It's all fine in an actual club but man,on the radio it's flat-out BORING.

Cher recently made UK chart history with "Believe", the firstsingle off her new album by the same name. It's infecting with thedrum machine held underfoot by Cher's typical, but satisfying,brand of aerobic pop singing. Right off it's obvious her voice isprocessed through with effects but this is actually welcome; Cher'svoice is, erm, unique in its loud fogginess that made earlierrecords irritating to listen to.

Aside from three formulaic, unmemorable tracks ("Runaway", "AllOr Nothing", "Takin' Back My Heart") which resemble the slush beingproduced in virtually every other recording studio in the FreeWorld, it's all in the name of decent pop music. "Strong Enough"and "Taxi Taxi" are true to Cher in its vocally-driven attitude(dance music all boils down to attitude... ask Madonna!). Lessoverbearing but equally effective are "Love Is The Groove" and "ThePower". She's finally realized that we can still hear her when shedoesn't shout. "We All Sleep Alone" is a dance remix of apreviously released song and though it lost much of its original"yearning" tone, it sounds like a good bet in the clubs.

It's apparent that Believe is an effort to produce an unpretentious, honest popalbum which strives to be both current and retaining of hertraditional strengths. Though it falls short sometimes with itslack of diversity and club recycling, it still shows that Cherreally can sing, and she has plenty of potential to exploit. If thenext album dares to delve slightly deeper, the results wouldprobably be met with warm hearts by radio listeners everywhere.