Throwback Thursday ‘Believe’ by Cher (1998)
Happy Cher Day, everybody!
Cher will be hitting the stage at the DenSanPremCen tonight and I will finally get to wear my ensemble I've had picked out since December!!
Anyway, of course, I had to pick Cher for today's Throwback Thursday.
"Believe" was released in October of 1998 and continued to take over our lives well into 1999.
"Believe" was off of Cher's 22nd studio album of the same name. TWENTY TWO ALBUMS! And that was 21 years ago. She's had even more since then!
"Believe" is considered one of the first songs to pioneer using auto-tune to distort vocals.
According to Wikipedia, the producer, Mark Taylor, wasn't sure Cher would like the effect, but he was pleasantly surprised, "... I wasn't sure what Cher would say when she heard what I'd done to her voice", but that when she heard it she said, "It sounds great."[4] When her record company requested that the effect be removed, she responded, "Over my dead body!"[6] After the success of the song, use of Auto-Tune in order to produce a distorted vocal effect became very popular and many other artists imitated the technique, which would eventually become known as the "Cher effect" in the official Auto-Tune manual."
This song was hard to escape at the end of the Millennium and the charts show it. According to Wikipedia, " It earned Cher a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest female solo artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and became the highest-selling single by a solo female artist in the United Kingdom. It is one of the bestselling singles, with sales of over 11 million copies worldwide.[3] Reviewers praised its production and catchiness and named it one of Cher's most important releases. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and won Best Dance Recording."
"Believe" went to #1 on Billboard Hot 100, Dance Club Songs chart, and Top 40 Tracks. It was also the #1 song of the year in 1999 on Billboard Hot 100 and Dance Club Songs chart. "Believe" has also charted in 2013, 2017, and 2018.
Cher definitely has staying power!