1987

Cher

Album Review

Cher Review by Cher Fan Club

Cher's self-titled album from 1987 marked a significant shift in her career, moving towards a rock-oriented sound. Produced by notable figures like Michael Bolton, Jon Bon Jovi, and Desmond Child, the album features a mix of original songs and covers, including a new version of her 1966 classic "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" and Bolton's "I Found Someone." The album achieved Platinum status in the U.S., showcasing Cher's successful transition into rock music.

Tracklist

Pick	#	Song	Writer(s)	Producer(s)
❤️	1	“I Found Someone”	Michael Bolton, Mark Mangold	Michael Bolton
❤️	2	“We All Sleep Alone”	Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Desmond Child	Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Desmond Child
❤️	3	“Bang-Bang”	Sonny Bono	Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Desmond Child
❤️	4	“Main Man”	Desmond Child	Desmond Child
	5	“Give Our Love a Fightin’ Chance”	Diane Warren, Desmond Child	Desmond Child
❤️	6	“Perfection” (featuring Bonnie Tyler & Darlene Love)	Diane Warren, Desmond Child	Desmond Child
	7	“Dangerous Times”	Roger Bruno, Susan Pomerantz, Ellen Schwartz	Peter Asher
	8	“Skin Deep”	Jon Lind, Mark Goldenberg	Jon Lind
	9	“Working Girl”	Michael Bolton, Desmond Child	Desmond Child
	10	“Hard Enough Getting Over You”	Michael Bolton, Doug James	Michael Bolton

*1987 re-recording of Cher's original 1966 song

Singles

"I Found Someone" (1987)

🪄 Originally recorded by Laura Branigan
💡 First single for Geffen Records

🌟 IRE: #4
🌟 UK: #5
🌟 LUX: #7
🌟 AUS: #8
🌟 US Billboard: #10
🚀 US Cash Box: #14
🚀 CAN: #14
🚀 US AC (BB): #33
🪁 NLD: #94

✍🏻 CASH BOX review (Oct 31, 1987): "Cher returns to the recording scene after a lengthy hiatus. The results are pleasing. Cher is in top form on this powerful rock outing. The contemporary feel of this tune coupled with the public's renewed interest in the performer should result in explosive airplay."

✍🏻 KERRANG! review (UK, Nov 7, 1987): "A powerful performance by Cher unleashed on a rocking ballad by respected writer Michael Bolton teamed with Mark Mangold. It's a cut from her new album CHER and has steaming guitar to add screaming drama. Strangely enough this is the sort of song Danny Bowes and Terraplane might well have done. Much chest beating and floods of tears."

📰 BILLBOARD report—"Chart Beat" by Paul Grein (Nov 21, 1987): "Cher is off to a good start in her return to the chart wars. 'I Found Someone,' her first single for Geffen, enters the Hot 100 at number 79—11 notches higher than Laura Branigan's version of the song peaked at in March 1986. This is Cher's first time on the Hot 100 since 1979. And she can't lose. If the record doesn't make it, she just goes back to being one of the most in-demand movie actresses."

📰 "Cher: Back to the Dance Floor!"—DMA magazine cover story (Jan 1999): "We asked her about her Geffen label 'hit years.' 'It was my favorite time as a singles artist, because I was getting to do songs that I really loved, songs that really represented me—and they were popular! I loved "I Found Someone" and getting back into the music business after so long.' Although this period produced more consecutive BILLBOARD Top 40 hits than any other in her career, Cher initially resisted going back into the studio. She eventually succumbed, however, to the gentle-but-persistent pressure of producer John Kalodner and her long-time friend David Geffen. 'I had just come off three movies ... literally without any days off ... and then the album, just like that. John Kalodner was so up [for Cher's 1987 self-titled album] ... I was supposed to record before I started the movies, and he waited for me.' She smiles softly, recalling how she kept trying to talk him out of it. 'I said, "Why are you pressing me with this? Why are you bothering? Nobody's going to be interested. My singing days are OVER!" but he just said "no, no, no..." and kept pushing ... When "I Found Someone" came out, radio just refused to play us. I then did as much TV as I possibly could to let people know that the record was out there ... [then I] put the video that we made for it into a commercial for Bally Fitness, and that's how we got it into people's minds. Finally, it just got so much attention that radio had to play it. Sometimes, it's amazing to me that I have a recording career at all! It's just amazing.'"

"We All Sleep Alone" (1988)

🌟 CAN AC: #5
🚀 US AC (BB): #11
🚀 US Cash Box: #12
🚀 US Billboard: #14
🚀 CAN: #27
🪁 UK: #47
🪁 AUS: #76

✍🏻 MELODY MAKER review by Jon Wilde (UK, Mar 26, 1988): "I was just trying to start a list of good things about sleeping alone. Not an easy one this ... Sleeping alone is really complete crap when you think about it. Also, I'm not sure what Cher is trying to say in the title. Sounds like a bit of a lie to me. The song has an intriguing Death Row atmosphere to it, by the way."

✍🏻 BILLBOARD review (April 2, 1988): "One of the media's hottest properties at the moment handles Bon Jovi ballad territory with incredible ease."

✍🏻 CASH BOX review (April 2, 1988): "Cher has never sounded more assured, and she negotiates the emotional highs and lows of this fine tune with a believable edge. Jon Bon Jovi co-wrote and produced the track. Has all the elements of a memorable radio tune. After the success of the first single 'I Found Someone' from her new self-titled LP, this should score well on AOR and CHR [formats]."

✍🏻 MUSIC & MEDIA review (Europe, Apr 9, 1988): "A ballad that rises head and shoulders above the crowd. Nicely controlled vocals by Cher over a well-arranged song that develops into a rock number after a deceptively quiet intro."

📰 BILLBOARD report ("The Eye" by Steven Dupler, Apr 2, 1988): "Cher directed the video of 'We All Sleep Alone' in support of her self-titled album on Geffen ... There are two versions of this clip; both include performance footage, and one features choreography by Kenny Ortega."

📰 BILLBOARD report ("Chart Beat" by Paul Grein, May 14, 1988): "With 'We All Sleep Alone' jumping to No. 27 on the Hot 100, Cher has back-to-back top 30 hits for the first time since 1974."

📰 "Cher: Back to the Dance Floor!"—DMA magazine cover story (Jan 1999): "The [BELIEVE] album contains a reworked version of her 1988 hit 'We All Sleep Alone,' and we were curious as to why she chose to revisit that particular track. 'Because at first they were talking about redoing "Bang Bang," and I was just soooo over "Bang Bang"—I mean, I'd just done it and done it so many times that I didn't want to do it again.' Then her hairdresser suggested reworking 'We All Sleep Alone' into a dance song and she liked the idea. 'I sent it to Todd [Terry], and he said, 'oh yeah, I'd much rather do that,' and so we did it.'"

📰 Songwriter Desmond Child talks to BILLBOARD (Nov 27, 1999): "I fell in love with Cher [as a child]. I had pictures of Sonny & Cher, mainly Cher, all over. You know, I guess it should have been a sign then that I was gay. At that point, I didn't know if I wanted to be her or sleep with her ... Later, after I'd had my success with Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, [A&R executive] John Kalodner introduced me to her, and he convinced me—well it didn't take much convincing—to work on an album with her. She hadn't had a hit in many, many years[.]" Asked if it was true that, while he was producing Cher, she didn't speak to him for six months because he made her sing for 12 hours straight, he replied: "Yeah, which was crazy, because it was her own schedule that made it happen that way. It was merciless. I had to actually stand next to her because she would just have left, and I made her do it. She had made a promise to her children that she was going to take a vacation. This was when she was doing three movies back to back. If she hadn't finished those songs, her album wouldn't have come out with the publicity campaigns that were going along with the movies, and that's what made that album a success. It was tortuous, but she was a trooper, and that album was great. It's the first Geffen album, CHER, with 'We All Sleep Alone.'"

"Skin Deep" (1988)

🪄 Originally recorded by Japanese singer Cindy

🪁 US Dance (BB): #41
🪁 US Cash Box: #78
🪁 US Billboard: #79
🫧 AUS: #113

📰 BILLBOARD report (1988)—"Cher's Singing Career Has Sunny Outlook" by Chris Morris: "The label is not through with [Cher's] album. According to [John] Kalodner [of Geffen Record's A&R department], 'Skin Deep' will be issued June 28 as a 7-inch single, cassette single, and maxi single in a version edited and remixed by John Luongo. 'It's going to be a club record,' Kalodner says. The Desmond Child ballad 'Main Man' will subsequently be released as a fourth single."

✍🏻 BILLBOARD review—"Dance Trax" by Bill Coleman (Jul 2, 1987): "Many will be pleased to have something new from Cher to play. The likable dance-pop of 'Skin Deep' (Geffen) has been postproduced and mixed by John Luongo and showers the song's instrumental hook with the soloist's distinguished vocal."

✍🏻 ALLMUSIC review by Jose F. Promis: "The almost forgotten Madonna-ish dance ditty "Skin Deep" [is] a radical departure from the album's other songs, yet a definite highlight."

"Bang-Bang" (1988)

💡 Bon Jovi-produced rock re-recording of Cher's 1966 international number-one hit "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"
📍 Released only in France

The creative spark between Cher and the Bon Jovi camp first flickered in 1985, when the band began performing "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" as a live prelude to "Shot Through the Heart" during their concerts. That was nearly twenty years before Nancy Sinatra's once-obscure version would be revived by Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL: VOL. 1 (2003), recasting her as the voice most modern listeners associate with the song. Back in 1985, though, it was Cher's original that still defined the track's legend—and Bon Jovi's nod to it spoke volumes about their reverence for her.

Cher, meanwhile, was deep in her film era—winning awards, cursing out Letterman on live television, and perfecting the art of the barely-there red carpet dress. Word of Bon Jovi's onstage homage eventually reached her, and she loved it. The timing, however, was inconvenient: she was publicly swearing off music, insisting to anyone within earshot that she would never make another album. Enter John Kalodner, Geffen Records' bearded oracle of persuasion, who spent months talking her back into the studio. When she finally gave in, she knew exactly what sound she wanted.

Cher built her comeback album around the hard-rock textures that Bon Jovi had brought roaring into the mainstream, and she invited Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Desmond Child to help her make it happen. Their collaboration produced a blistering, guitar-charged reimagining of "Bang-Bang" (now stylized with a hyphen), recorded for CHER (1987). Released as a single only in France in 1988—though it found unexpected radio traction in neighboring Portugal—it became a kind of hidden anthem of her late-'80s rebirth, a bridge between the mod melodrama of 1966 and the power-ballad defiance of the MTV age.

Cher did not perform this version often—only on the Heart of Stone and Farewell tours—but when she did, she turned it into pure theater. In the first, she stalked the stage in her trademark black hole-fit bodysuit, her big '80s hair tumbling in curls around her frame; in the latter, she brought it back with a colossal feathered mohawk and faux-shaved sides. Both performances mirrored the claustrophobia of the 1988 re-recording—its wall of guitars, chant-like backing vocals that hovered like a Gregorian choir, and Cher's voice, raspier than ever. They hit like a spotlight to the face and remain among her most visually and vocally ferocious moments. Cher didn't revisit her past so much as drag it into the present and dare it to keep up.