Despite her inexorable slide towards becoming a physical freak, Cher still retains a modicum of musical dignity. Having taken 35 years to navigate her way through country, jock-rock, pop and dance, she has alighted on mid-Eighties gay disco as her musical touchstone.
It paid off astoundingly well on 1998’s 10-million-selling, Grammy-winning Believe, whose title track remains Britain’s biggest-selling female-artist single.
Its successor, Living Proof (Gallo), comprises thumping hi-energy beats that could have graced a Hazell Dean 12-inch, and lyrics that are a variation of I Will Survive. It’s all delivered in deep dominatrix tones, except for The Music’s No Good without You, where Cher ludicrously metamorphoses into Robbie Williams.
That monotone voice — she seems uncomprehending of what she’s singing — is ideal for earthquaking anthems such as the splendid (This Is) a Song for the Lonely and the sweeping A Different Kind of Love Song, where she sheds a good 40 of her 55 years. But when the pace slackens, Cher is found wanting. She is too booming to handle the more complicated Rain Rain and too heavy of touch to wring anything from the promising When the Money’s Gone. Still, hardly a disgrace.
Bush: Golden State (Atlantic)
Despite four albums and 20 million sales, Bush seem eternally fated to be the punchline of a Nirvana joke.
That said, they could release themselves from this trap of their own making if lead bellower Gavin Rossdale would just reach closure with the ‘issues” that make him sound so parodically angsty. It’s all very well to groan, ‘Where is my head, where are my bones?” on Head Full of Ghosts; where it goes wrong is that he seems to expect a serious answer. The electronic experimentation of the last album has been supplanted by a return to ye olde pebble-dashed rock, with Superman the best of a lumpy lot. My Engine Is with You diddles about convincingly with speed metal, but Inflatable, a muted ballad, lets you hear the lugubrious lyric rather too clearly. — Caroline Sullivan
Staind: Break the Cycle (Flip/Elektra)
In the perplexing tradition of Grand Funk Railroad and Toad the Wet Sprocket, Springfield’s Staind are enormous in the United States — this album entered the charts at number one — but are met with bemused shrugs elsewhere. The foursome offer angst-ridden, introspective, sweary neo-grunge with a parents complex. Destined to change the lives of every 15-year-old, white, middle-American male, they will resonate somewhat less convincingly elsewhere. Even so, Aaron Lewis has the most soulful rock croon since Masters of Reality’s Chris Goss, and the crystal-clear production embraces melody. Can’t Believe crunches like prime Soundgarden, and Outside, the closing (allegedly live) duet with Staind’s label boss, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, has sneaked them a fluke hit this side of the Atlantic. — John Aizlewood