MALIBU, Calif. — Singer, actress, director, writer, activist, philanthropist, fashion daredevil, indomitable diva. Cher has blazed trails, scaled peaks and burned bridges during her half-century in entertainment. And yet the Goddess of Pop hasn’t quite mastered the art of self-promotion.
“I wasn’t even going to do it,” she says of Closer to the Truth, out Sept. 24. “I thought I already did my best and I didn’t want to do less.”
Cher, 67, credits the relentless prodding of co-manager Lindsay Scott for luring her back to the studio to craft her 26th solo album, the first since 2002′s Living Proof. The diverse results include dance hit Woman’s World, moving 9/11 anthem Sirens, melancholy My Love and swaggering duet Take It Like a Man with Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters.
“I’m just so not a Cher fan, but I like these songs,” she says. “In my life, there are songs I’ve done that I really love, that I don’t think I ruined, like You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me, Song for the Lonely or Believe. But there’s only a handful. The early ones I don’t like at all. My voice was so strange and different. This is as good as I’m ever going to do.”
That’s Cher’s backhanded way of saying Truth might be her best album ever, a sentiment echoed by early critical buzz.
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She’s especially pleased with Lie to Me and I Walk Alone, supplied by friend Pink.
“I’m a gigantic fan,” Cher says. When she heard Pink’s Dear Mr. President, “I cried my eyes out. She’s a real girl who has problems, is soft, is hard. She’s a kick-a– girl who follows after me.”
Cher and pal Shirley Eikhard co-wrote Lovers Forever, cut from 1994′s Interview With the Vampire soundtrack.
“They didn’t love it and there were no other vampire outlets then, so I held it,” Cher says, noting that she seldom records her own material because “it’s moody and introspective, a bit dark and very personal. I write about Kurt Cobain’s death and homeless people. It’s not for everybody.”
The only artist with a No. 1 single on a Billboard chart in each of the past six decades, Cher seems to have something for everybody. The secret to her enduring appeal?
“It’s because she’s Cher,” says Keith Caulfield, Billboard’s associate director of charts/retail. “She’s this icon who’s touched so many people over a long and varied career. Even if you’re not a huge Cher fan, you know I Got You Babe and you’ve seen her slap Nic Cage in Moonstruck.
“People never tire of certain great entertainers like Barbra Streisand, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Cher. Just the fact that you endure endears you to people. And she’s a survivor.”
