"Christmas" Album Forecast: Sunny and Cher

The Queen of Auto-Tune whelps a holiday album for the aged. OK, fine, for the ages, too, I guess. Could her 84th Farewell tour be far behind? "Believe" it or don't, "Christmas" is hear👂and a banger!

If Blackie, here, could speak, I’m sure he’d be imparting the helpful tips for reading this article: “Place tongue firmly in cheek (arf!), hum a few bars, chuckle in a couple places, and appreciate the stunning 6-decade-long career of a world-class, multi-talented artist….and, if you must, go ahead and dance!”

Several decades ago, during another hilarious “Stupid Pet Tricks” segment on Late Nite with David Letterman, our loveably cantankerous host welcomed a young gal with her large, black Labrador retriever to do something…unintelligent, I’m betting, if talk show comedy bits are serious about following a premise.

Dave welcomed her warmly with, “What a beautiful dog! What’s his name?” The pretty lass proudly boasted, “Blackie!” “How long did it take you to think that one up?” Dave shot back with all the snark we’d hoped he would.

A similar exchange may have taken place several months ago when the 77-year-old Cher (and her phalanx of “people”) were contemplating a ‘23 holiday album. Picture it: A conference table in the expansive offices of Cher Incorporated, neatly tucked away inside the equally massive edifice of Antares Audio Technologies, who gave us, for some reason, Auto-Tune. I don’t recall that request being in anyone’s suggestion box.

As it so often does, “Christmas” will have to wait…but, just until further down the page.

Have a Career, Britney, Taylor, Justins Bieber and Timberlake, and Anybody Given an American Idol Mic!

In fact, it was this same El Centro, California-born Cherilyn Sarkisian La Piere who carries the dubious mantle of being the first performer to utilize Auto-Tune audio processing software on a commercial recording.

Her October 1998 Warner Bros. Records album release, Believe, her 22nd studio album, proceeded to deliver a massive hit single in the title track, leading the good folks at Antares to…uh, believe, it was their new electronic gizmo that was to blame deserved all the credit.

Her “Nefertiti” years were not particularly kind to the young Cher. Inexplicably, her agent had booked her for a 3-month residency into the Egyptian-themed Luxor in Vegas 27 years before its opening. Proving nothing goes to waste in show biz, Adam Lambert for the 21st-century eyeliner win!🎉

Hard though it may be to “Believe,” it was a commercial success worldwide, topping the charts in over 23 countries, and selling over 11 million copies. Gently nudging her 1966 “Mama (When My Dollies Have Babies)” chestnut (above) off the top spot, it’s easily Cher’s most successful single to date, and one of the best-selling singles in music history (sigh….again, “Mama” gets the short shrift).

“Believe” was the biggest-selling song of 1998 in the UK, and remains the highest-selling single by a solo female artist. In the U.S., it was Cher’s fifth #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and it topped the Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1999. The accompanying music video was nominated for Best Dance Video at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards.

With that massive level of success and its attendant generation of dollars, you might’ve thought that Auto-Tune would, ultimately, become the automatic studio go-to for a new generation of 21st-century recording artists. I mean, the very idea! Have you ever heard of anything quite so…………………..

Oh.

Endearing/Enduring: Heavy Listening or Heavy Lifting?

Regardless, Cher (or someone in the Cher camp….which I attended one unforgettable summer) felt the need, for some reason, to seek retribution: Earlier in 2023, the 25th Anniversary compilation of the song, “Believe” (and its multitude of mixes nearing two shy of googol) was dropped on an unsuspecting public. As we speak, officials are scrambling to re-adjust the worldwide order of entities suspected of human rights abuses. Rumors persist that the Anniversary Edition had a working title of Interminable.

Nevertheless, it was greeted with mostly praise from critics, mainly due to the fact that the artist, herself, was finally informed that the internet only had a certain amount of available bandwidth.

So, we were left, mercifully, with no fewer than ten remixes, each one coming dangerously close to 10 minutes in duration. In a genius marketing move, Warner Bros., for the original CD release, dispensed with the customary minutes/seconds timing info, and thoughtfully provided a 12-month calendar as a consumer timing aid.

While I go try to figure out what on earth we did to Cher to deserve this, feel free to listen to them below. We’ll see you back here in two weeks (please arrange to have plants watered and pets fed…or vice versa):

The song, in all its overblown, self-indulgent glory, was written by Brian Higgins, Paul Barry, Steve Torch, and Stuart McLennen. It is said (by her) that Cher contributed some lyrics, but remains uncredited. According to The Lady, herself, “I was singing [the song] in the bathtub, and it seemed to me the second verse was too whiny. It kind of pissed me off, so I changed it,” she daintily chirped, according to Mark Bego in his 2004 Cher: If You Believe. “I toughened it up a bit.”

In a recent 2023 Guardian interview, Cher later added onto that lament, saying she wished she had asked for writing credits for the song. As a public service for her, we’re happy to supply the contact info to California’s SNAP food assistance program.

Full disclosure: In 1998, I bought the multi-track CD of “Believe” (with several remixes). Here it comes: I loved it! Now, 25 years later, and faced with growing ever-older with the chore of listening to the new remix re-issue, many fans echo Cher’s recent lamentation: “I never thought about getting this old and still having a job!” Yasss, queen…I feel your pain, but from a distance far enough away to be restraining-order-compliant.

The Rigors of Recording: She’s Had Some Work Done…She Also Made a New Album

“What ever shall we name your Christmas album, Cher?”

Around that conference table, over two dozen years after “Believe,” with music fans across the galaxy still awaiting a formal apology, Cher has finally decided on a name for her newly-whelped holiday album….wait for it…………….Christmas. I’m sure our coal-colored bow-wow, Blackie, will love it!

“My life seems to be longer than any other human being ever,” Cher recently crowed, gingerly tip-toeing around anything even resembling hyperbole. “I feel like I should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for this. And I’m still going!”

Legends, Table for Two!

Easily the highlight of Christmas (both the album and the holiday) is the reuniting of Darlene Love with Cher. “Reuniting?” you say? Yep. ‘Twas a 17-year-old Cher who was in Gold Star Studios that day singing back-up (as she did on several Phil Spector productions) on Darlene’s 1963 recording of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” the perennial classic penned by Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich.

“We recorded the song virtually, so I hadn’t actually seen her yet,” Love told Rolling Stone recently. “I said, ‘Do you want me to make a reservation at a hotel?’ She said, ‘Hotel? You’re going to stay here with me!’ It was so funny. The driver they sent to pick my husband and I up at the airport pulled up to her house and went, ‘Wow, this is a beautiful hotel.’ The two of us had so much fun that night. We were like, ‘Let’s gossip a while.’”

“The whole thing only took an hour,” says Love. “They legitimately just wanted me to sing it the way I sing it when I perform it live [including many annual appearances on Late Night with David Letterman], which is amazing. We got it in just four takes. They said, ‘That’s it. We got what we want.’ [“They” was mainly Mark Taylor, who produced the album, with Alexander Edwards, Ryan OG, and Mike Crook on just one track, “Drop Top Sleigh Ride”.]

“And I had no idea what they were going to do with it until I heard the final product, but we sing the verses together in unison. I was really surprised by how wonderful it turned out.”

Darlene (l) and Cher in 1985.📸AP/Frankie Ziths

Cher, of course, is talking about Christmas: “Everyone has done one,” she told The Guardian by phone in October from her Hollywood home.

“So, when my manager called and said, ‘We’d like you to do this,’ my immediate answer was ‘No!’ He said, ‘Just think about it.’ So, I sat down and thought, ‘What can I do that’s different?’”

The answer, it turned out, is a holiday album “that doesn’t scream ‘Christmas’ every second and isn’t filled with songs you know by name,” she said. “In fact,” as The Guardian continues their interview, “Half the songs are new, including the catchy dance track, ‘DJ, Play a Christmas Song,’ which evokes a night that’s anything but silent.

“Other cuts on the album are wholly unexpected, like a cover of the Zombies’ rapturous ‘This Will Be Our Year,’ from their 1968 cult masterpiece, Odessey and Oracle. “More than anything, I wanted this album to be fun,” Cher concluded.

On October 6, 2023, Cher released “DJ Play a Christmas Song” as the lead single from the album. On October 21, the song entered the U.S. Billboard Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart at #3. On November 18, the song entered the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart at #22. In the UK, the song entered at #37 on the Single Sales Chart and #34 on the Singles Download Chart.

Here she is in the necessarily-synched performance of the single from the recent Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, Thanksgiving ‘23:

And, a must-see, hilarious sit-down with Jimmy Fallon recently, talking about Darlene, “Philip” (Spector), and the new Christmas album: