I'd Rather Believe In You

I have been a Cher fan since 1971 (and a fairly obsessive one). Like many of her long-time, serious fans, I consider the Stars album to be her finest musical moment. She has had others that are excellent (Love Hurts comes to mind, along with Half Breed, the best of the "potboiler" period of Snuff Garrett-produced songs) but it's Stars that we of the cognoscenti usually point to as her best.It is one of the four albums released from 1975-1977 on Warner Music: Stars, I'd Rather Believe in You, Cherished and Two the Hard Way. The last of these was a duet with then-husband Gregg Almann, which pleased no one-- his fans considered her the Yoko Ono of the Almann Brothers Band and were horrified that their country-rock outlaw would cut an album with the queen of television and Vegas. Her fans were already appalled that she had married a grungy heroin addict and had already suffered through a decade of listening to her voice drowned out by a tuneless singing partner, her previous husband, Sonny Bono.Two the Hard Way (credited to Almann and Woman, although the record company slapped a "Gregg and Cher" sticker on the front so at least her fans would find it) is available on a CD from Argentina, sold on Amazon. No idea if it's licensed or a pirate.But for years, Cher's fans have asked why the three Warner solo albums have never been released on CD-- despite at least three major "comebacks" when she had hit records and there was an obvious market for them. We particularly longed for a copy of Stars.And now finally, one way or another, here it is. This two-CD set is also from Argentina, and presumably was created from an apparently pristine copy of the vinyl album, the only source I know of for the original. It includes the masterpiece, Stars, produced by Jimmy Webb, along with I'd Rather Believe in You, a solid pop album I would classify with I Paralyze and It's a Man's World, and produced by Michael Omartian. The third album is Cherished, which in my book ties with the disco album Prisoner as the worst of Cher's 50+ year career. Having seen Stars and I'd Rather Believe in You bomb, she returned to Snuff Garrett, who had produced her early'70s hit singles. The attempt to return to form is an absolute failure. But still, as Cher's real fans tend to be, like me, collectors of all her highs and lows, I was happy to finally find a CD version.The high quality of Stars can't be separated from the fact that she was involved with David Geffen at the time; his prowess as a show-biz mogul is reflected both in his massive wealth and in his track record of nurturing serious musical artists like Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. When he was at least advising Cher, her career hit one of its pinnacles, with the superb first season of her solo TV show, a publicity blitz that included the cover of Time Magazine (wearing the infamous Bob Mackie see-through dress, photographed by Richard Avedon) and... Stars.Some point to this as her first foray into "serious" music, which ignores her 1960s repertoire of songs by Bob Dylan and the Brill Building writers, as well as a long history of performing standards by the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin and others. But the serious aspect of this album is seen in both the high quality of the material and in its production, by Jimmy Webb, who is most famous for his work with Art Garfunkel and Glen Campbell (who, like Cher, had worked for Phil Spector as a session musician).Cher has rarely been served well by minimalism, whether visual or musical. Webb gives her the full, lush, orchestral arrangements for which he is known.I have never figured out why this album tanked. She promoted both "Geronimo's Cadillac" and "Just This One Time" as singles on her own show and Carol Burnett's. While the former is perhaps the weakest cut on the album, the latter, along with Jackson Browne's "These Days," is the finest, and on it she unleashes an eye-popping falsetto that, as far as I know, has not been used on any other album. This song should have, by all rights, been a big hit. It came along in the era of the power ballad, by Barry Manilow, Melissa Manchester and other singers.The album has a range of material. I prefer the ballads-- "Love Enough," Janis Ian's "Stars," and Cher's first version of "Love Hurts." This version is (for her) soft and subtle, unlike the bombastic (and very enjoyable) version released in about 1990, which is essentially the same as Nazareth's rock ballad arrangement. Stars also includes some rockers-- Cher famously aspired to be a "serious" rock singer, which never really happened until the run of late '80s records on the Geffen label. And one of the several inexplicable reggae-style songs she has included on albums during her career, this one "The Bigger They Come, the Harder They Fall."I'd Rather Believe in You starts with a couple of apparently auto-biographical songs about her relationship with Almann, the title song and "Long Distance Love Affair," both very good. The other strongest cuts are uptempo: "It's a Crying Shame," "Knock on Wood," and "Borrowed Time." The effect is weakened by two songs from the maudlin, tearjerker category which lowered the standard of her work throughout the 1970s, the fallen woman ode "Silver Wings and Golden Rings," and the white trash tragedy "Spring," which actually contains the line "the welfare lady knelt to pray." Still not as bad as "Melody" from Half Breed, wherein she confides her loose ways to her (wait for it) favorite rag doll. But not worthy of either her talent or the bulk of this very good album.They would have been more at home on Cherished, which is essentially musical garbage. It has all the hallmarks of the Snuff Garrett classics, without the cleverness or quality. She tries the time-tested Cherokee saga ("War Paint and Soft Feathers") as well as another Dark Halfbreed Gypsy Lady style novelty, "Pirate." A whole passel of fallen woman potboilers, even another gratuitous southern soap opera, "Dixie." Not be confused with "Dixie Girl" from the Half Breed album. The only song that really stands out as good is a country(ish) song, "Again." In her career, Cher has sung several country-tinged songs, without being or sounding remotely country herself. Somehow she makes them Cher Songs and they work. But most of this album comes across as what I suspect it was-- a last attempt by the record company to get a hit before the contract was dropped, and, having failed with ambitious material, they went for imitations of past glory without understanding that the moment had passed.Cher's voice sounds strong on all three efforts (amazing that with each passing era of her singing career, her voice has constantly gotten even stronger), though she seems less enthusiastic (with good reason) on the third of the trilogy.As for the overall technical quality of the CDs-- an issue when working from a vinyl album rather than having access to the masters, which for reasons unknown remain locked away in some Warner Records vault-- well, this collection sounds AMAZING.I had found a suspect Russian website where, for $10 one could upload ten albums, most of them hard or impossible to find. All three of these were available so I already owned those digital versions. They sounded quite good. But this one (albeit my ear is not refined the way some especially finicky people's are) sounds even better. Whoever did this seems to have taken great care. And it may be old-school but I just like having the tangible object (though a CD can never match the thrill of the vinyl album, or at least its cover-- I treasure my collection of the original versions if only for the large-scale artwork).The album art for this CD looks very good, also. In the '70s, three artists were known to sell a good number of albums based on the covers-- Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, and our girl Cher. The cover photo for Stars is a remarkable relic of 1970s glamour and special effect photography-- Cher's trademark dramatic and colorful makeup seemingly enhanced by airbrush, colored lights in her hair and fingers trailing light courtesy of the photo's exposure. We don't see the back, which is my favorite photo of the star, but from the same session comes the photo from I'd Rather Believe in You, which Cher has said is her favorite photo of herself, dressed in jeans and a dark blouse, hair blowing, head tilted back with a huge smile. The Cherished cover looks like any number of People Magazine portraits of Cher in rich hippy mode: exposed midriff, fringed leather, and silver sandals. All three are collaged together to create the cover of this CD set, which folds out and is made of heavy gloss stock with plastic inserts for the disk. No cheap generic packaging.For those of us longing to complete our Cher CD collection, or for more casual fans who are interested in exploring what came before "Believe" or "If I Could Turn Back Time," this trilogy is a good chance to listen to the diva working at a high point of her singing career and perhaps to join the ranks of Stars aficianados.

For fans of Cher, the "Stars" album has been a sticking point. There have been petitions, online campaigns and out right begging of anyone who will listen - including Cher herself - for a physical CD release of the album. There has been false starts, confusion as to owns the rights, and just time passing by without any sign of it on the horizon. Seems as though Cher & Co. have been beaten to the punch by some Argentine bootleggers who have taken the wide open opportunity to release it on their own with the two albums that came afterwards for this package.Is it unofficial? Yes. If the grammatical errors weren't enough to give it away, the flimsy packaging will (make sure to have a protective sleeve handy for safe keeping, otherwise this CD set will fall apart pretty quickly). The artwork is grainy, dull, poorly presented and pixelated.Sound quality? The sound quality quickly makes up for the shady packaging. Outside of time intensive, fan produced remastering, this is the best sound quality I have heard of these three albums outside of their original vinyl pressings.What is it? This isn't Married Cher. This isn't Disco Cher. This isn't big hair, fishnets, Rock Cher. This isn't Showgirl Cher. This is Cher in the 70's taking a more low-key, soft rock approach. Her voice has never been better or more present than it is on "Stars". "These Days" is truly a long lost gem that has been buried in time. "I'd Rather Believe In You" is split across the two discs and very much continues the sounds began on "Stars". Her version of "Knock On Wood" is not to be missed. Musically, the only pitfall to this set is the "Cherished" album that closes out the second disc. Cher picks up Storytime Cher ("Half-Breed", "Gypsy Tramps & Thieves", etc.) and the results are very mixed. "Cherished" is definitely for fans only.Hopefully, Cher and Co. will come around to releasing these albums officially one day. They certainly deserve to be heard once again outside of bootlegged discs and fan forums.

Fell in love with great voice of Cher as a teen when "Baby Don't Go" came out, from then on waited with excitement for each and every new solo or duo release and love them all...solo 60's anthems "All I Really Want To Do" & "You'd Better Sit Down Kids" showed Cher to be a one of a kind great singer with her own sound and uniquely soulful way of emoting. many great things came through the years then with "Stars" clearly Cher arrived with her finest album to date, serious singing from the soul brilliantly arranged created a solid MASTERPIECE collection finally out on CD, kept vinyl sealed copy about to have transfer made but now with this stunning collection of three great works can enjoy over and over, sound is superb and combination of Cher and Jimmy Webb is a match made in musical heaven, varied mix of songs flow from one brilliant performance to another "Just This One Time" is a scorching hot performance that just may be Cher's greatest ever, it can make your hair stand on end. All three Warner Brothers albums are the finest from a Legendary Icon still going strong performing at sold-out venues decades now with no sign of letting up...GO CHER!

cd packaging was a bit off...liner notes gave words to 4 songs and not the restmusic itself is enjoyable, liked it in the 70s , like it now liner notes are very tiny and almost impossible to read but still glad I added it to my cher cds

Earlier Recordings are superior for disco funky fans