Monday, October 15, 2012

'Cher News' Presents Your All-Time Favorite Cher Songs (2012!): 30 - 21

Cher performing
Here we go again! 'Cher News' counts down numbers 30 to 21 in the countdown of your favorite Cher songs!

Let's once more brush over the basics. 'Cher News' asked you Cher fans to submit your top five all-time favorite Cher songs, in order, and I have compiled them into a top 50 countdown – which represents the songs that you all chose. Of course, number one is the song that got the total number of votes. However, right now, we have the following ten songs to take a good look at.




50 - 41

40 - 31

20 - 11

10 - 1

Here, in positions 30 – 21, we have three songs from the year 1975, a song which saw Cher dress as Elvis in its music video and a 'Burlesque' track. So let's get started, beginning with two tracks from Cher's 1989 album 'Heart of Stone'.

30. Emotional Fire
A powerful pop/rock song with a heavy chorus, this track was written by the impressive trio of Desmond Child, Diane Warren and Michael Bolton. Furthermore, it features, alongside others, background vocals from Bolton and Bonnie Tyler! Plus Steve Lukather appears on guitar. Although the star-studded track remains a strong fan-favourite, it wasn't released as a single, remaining as an album-only track on Cher's 1989 'Heart of Stone'.


29. After All
A song that was released as a single from Cher's 1989 multi-platinum 'Heart of Stone' is this classsic duet with Chicago-front man Peter Cetera. It was released in North America prior to the album, charting at an impressive number 6 on the US Hot 100, despite not having a music video. The song was nominated for the 'Best Original Song' Academy Award for its inclusion as the love theme in the movie 'Chances Are' that same year.


28. Runaway
The first track we have seen so far in the top 50 from Cher's mega-selling 1998 album 'Believe' is the album's third track, 'Runaway'. The dance song was written by the team of Mark Taylor and Paul Barry, who together also wrote three (of the four) hits from the album – 'Strong Enough', 'All or Nothing' and 'Dov'è l'amore'.


27. Just This One Time
Now, the die-hard Cher fans will know this one - the casual fans most likely will not. It is taken from Cher's 1975 studio album 'Stars', which is highly regarded amongst Cher's die-hard fans. Unfortunately, the album was not a success commercially – not even charting in the top 150 positions of the Billboard 200 chart. However, this ballad – along with another ballad from the album you'll see in a couple of position's time - is one of many hidden gems from Cher's lengthy career.


26. Walking In Memphis
Cher's cover of the popular Marc Cohn tune was the first single released in Europe from Cher's 1996 UK top ten album 'It's A Man's World'. Cher's version reached – perhaps disappointingly - number 11 in the UK. Though this was an improvement over Cohn's version, which reached number 22 on the same chart four years prior. Around the rest of Europe, it saw minor success. Cher is however, very fond of the song's music video which saw the songstress dress as Elvis Presley. The song was featured in 'The X-Files' episode “The Post-Modern Prometheus”.


25. Stars
The title track of Cher's 1975 studio album was the final track on the record. It was written by Janis Ian – who won the 1975 Grammy Award for 'Best Vocal Performance – Female' for her US Hot 100 number three hit 'At Seventeen'. The same year, Ian's 'Between The Lines' album also topped the US charts.


24. You Wouldn't Know Love
Yet another song from Cher's transatlantic top ten 1989 album 'Heart of Stone' is this number. Written by Diane Warren and Michael Bolton, who wrote numerous other songs on the album, the song was track number three - sandwiched between hits 'Just Like Jesse James' and 'Heart of Stone'. The song was ultimately picked as a single itself, in the UK at least, where unfortunately, it failed to reach the top 40, with a peak of #55.


23. A Woman's Story
If you're a casual fan, and you knew the tracks 'Just This One Time' and 'Stars', your knowledge of Cher's back catalogue will surely be challenged by this obscure song. Released in February 1975, this song was produced by none-other than Cher's former employer - music-producing legend Phil Spector. So was its B-Side, Cher's slow cover of The Ronette's classic 'Baby I Love You'. That Ronettes track plus many more, such as their 'Be My Baby and The Crystal's 'He's A Rebel' were a few of many hits Spector masterminded in the sixties. Unfortuneately, he couldn't elevate this Cher single to hit status.


22. Welcome To Burlesque
One of two tracks that were featured in Cher's 2010 film 'Burlesque' is this track. The song was included on the film's hit soundtrack album, alongside Cher's other track 'You Haven't Seen The Last of Me' (which we'll be seeing at some point in the future of the countdown). Cher is to include 'Welcome To Burlesque' in her upcoming tour – performed exactly as it appears in the film.


21. Rain, Rain
This is the slowest song you'll find on Cher's uptempo dance-pop album 'Living proof', released in 2001. Just missing out on inclusion in the top 20 Cher songs picked by you fans as your all-time favorites, this song is one of the highest rated – maybe the highest rated (you'll have to wait and see) – song from 'Living Proof' in the countdown.


That's it! Another ten!

Those 1975 tracks are the last you'll see of that year in the countdown. However, it's certainly not the last you'll see of the 1970's, In the next ten, we'll see three more tracks from the seventies.

For now, here's a glimpse at how each decade of Cher's career have been represented in the entire top 50 countdown of your favorite Cher songs.

1960's – 6 songs
1970's – 11 songs
1980's – 10 songs
1990's – 12 songs
2000's – 9 songs
2010's – 2 songs

Amazingly, each decade has performed similarly, with around ten or eleven songs each – apart from the 1960's which only has six due to the fact that Cher was only releasing music for a little more than half the decade, and the 2010's which only has two songs as they're the only songs she has released this decade thus far. The 2000's figure of nine is impressive as Cher only released two studio albums that decade. Of all the years, 1989 has the most songs present in the list, with seven.

4 comments:

  1. Estoy disfrutando estos artículos como tienen idea, a Woman Story woooow!

    ReplyDelete
  2. what about her song with Harry Nelson and that group majic ship the song
    TELL ME

    ReplyDelete
  3. also the song with Elijah from the sound track a walk on the moon

    ReplyDelete
  4. also the remake of LOVE IS IN THE AIR that was never released but you can get on a cher site

    ReplyDelete