Cher: The Casablanca Years (Part 1)

Album #15 from Cher drove her to the disco and jived her back into the charts. Take Me Home was released in early 1979 at the height of disco and peaked at #25 in the USA and was far too decadent to do anything else in any other venue. Newly signed to Cassablanca, the label home of Donna Summer (who refused to let Cher have her song Bad Girls when she wasn't keen on releasing it straight away), the album finds the singer in strong form in doing her best to ignite some pretty poor material in among the odd gem.

Cher and disco were a more natural fit than Chaz in size 22 dungarees. After all, what is more inviting than a husky deadpan tranny in sequins asking you to go home with them on? Take Me Home has been an enduring hit for Cher over the years in America, and the song was finally brought to the attention of the UK when Sophie Ellis-Bextor had the audacity to cover it and rile up nana Cher with a few disgusting additional lyrics ("it's gonna happen anyway" was Cher's biggest upset since Chastity revealed how much she loved gammon slices, and that she was a lesbian as well).
10/10

Wasn't It good sips from the same cup, but doesn't quite have the same heat. Elevated by a truly compelling spoken word section: "Whoo! Was it, was it really good? Oooh you loved it didn't you love it? Ho-ho god I'm so, grrrrrr, shoot I got it good! Ooh did you love it, did you dig it?"
07/10

Say The Word doesn't have much to say, and is a bunch of cliches given the generic disco treatment. 
06/10

Happy Was The Day We Met melts into the same arrangements as any other faceless and forgettable disco track, but at least she bellows a little on the chorus with a few cheery stop-starts to the rhythm.
05/10

Blow-job queen anthem Git Down (Guitar Groupie) spits Cher's trademark rock venom and swallows a whole bunch of pseudo rock-raunch sounds. Cher cackling "shady lady from the ghetto" and "what a fuckin' reputation is gonna follow me around all over town?" is her best oral in years. Such a hardcore performance might have had something to do with then-lover Gene Simmons' involvement.
09/10

Love & Pain gets one of those qualities down to a tee. Cher gets into it with real gusto and thunderous steel. She's positively quaking and foaming at the heavily lip-glossed lips (with bits of her real hair stuck to them) as she hollers the chorus with no clear indication where the passion is coming from.
06/10

Let This Be A Lesson To You is more mid-tempo disco jollies. It sounds more like a line-dancing class than Studio 54.
07/10

It's Too Late To Love Me Now is a gentle country-tinged ballad. Cher's the club singer at the ranch called Bar Nothing. The disco has faded, and Donna Summer wouldn't have lost any sleep over this one.
08/10

My Song (Too Far Gone) clears the disco floor completely. Maudlin and a real skid-mark on the album.
05/10

Sophie Ellis Bextor - Bittersweet

She who loves the make-up, Sophie Ellis Bextor continues to just amaze Diva Incarnate. Here we go again, we've got to stop not buying your music like this. Honestly, what is she like?

Exactly like she was the last time - Heartbreak Me A Dancer's follow-up Bittersweet has even less of a chorus and seems quite content on being solely reliant upon the familarly exuberant production courtesy of the work-shy Freemasons. If that was not enough, we need to wait until August for the album. It is certainly wise to promote a record with 3 singles, but the third one just happens to be a song that was originally recorded by Roisin Murphy (who is the Annie Lennox of the 21st century) and leaked back in 2007! Well good luck Sophie, no doubt you shall write yet another memorable personalised newsletter to the blog but I doubt even that will save you. And yes Make A Scene was the better album title, not Straight To The Dumper, which just sounds like your sophomore one.

Sophie's Back Again

Above: Lisa Scott-Lee's unforgettable Electric music video spurned a dozen copycat promos.

In an exclusive letter to Diva Incarnate, which I sourced from her official website, Sophie Ellis-Bextor has finally broken her silence:

Hello everyone less fabulous than me,

So here you are at my new website. I hope you like it. I find this site a wonderful way for us to keep in touch between pregnancies.

This will be the first and official place to find out all the latest news for all things SE-B shaped - yes, like a pear that's 3 months gone. It was time for a new look. It'll go nicely with the new album which is nearly done and has been for 2 years.

The first single is released early April 2012. It's called `Pack It In Already (Yah Yah Yah)' and with it I have once again collaborated with the lovely and very fabulously fabulous Freemasons. It's a good introduction to the fourth album because, as with the majority of first singles it is an introduction to what else is on there - like all my anthems, uou can dance to it even if you're not gay. The new tracks feature collaborations with Calvin Harris, Metronomy, Cathy Dennis, Richard X and Ed Harcourt. It's been a lovely experience to make this album and I am so looking forward to sharing it with you all when it leaks.

In the meantime, good to see you here. You're looking really well and I think
2010 is going to be our year. See you on the telly when my Rimmel adverts come on!

Sx

Glamorama

"Dear Plebs, it's Sophie Ellis-Bextor here!

Let's be kissy right off, I love being glamorous. It's just so fucking glamourous. When people think of 'Sexy Bexy' (that's what my local builders call me as I flash them through the window of my moving Citreon Saxo) - my expensive budget videos, the exotic studio locations, glamorous hair, glamorous make-up - they probably imagine I writhe in glamorous agony in my double bed all day, wearing one of my one-in-every-colour Monsoon dressing gowns whilst sipping Tesco's 'healthy option' hot chocolate, in a mug! I just think to myself whilst tilting my head at one of those akward angles I dislocate my jaw to create "why shatter the illusion Soph?"

Now I said I would write about my lifestyle here, so here goes. My darling husband is in a daring MOR indie band fronted by a fruit called The Feeling and I just love those filthy little indie boys, they are so delish and grimy. I adore a bit of rough. Like every posh English girl does I suppose. I also promised I would share some of my beloved beauty secrets - even though my crows feet look like someone has been at my face with a garden rake I do know a thing or two about kidding myself you know!

Number 1) A girl must always be glamorous in order to be glamorous, 8 days a week if she has to. When I run out of nail varnish I use my son's felt tip pens for a quick and easy application - yesterday I had yellow, blue, green and one nail that was just a bit minging from an infection I caught whilst rummaging through my neighbours bins for some vintage dresses I sometimes find to wear in my music videos, that is until I go to the shops and actually buy some fucking nail varnish of course.

Number 2) Never poo. Being glamorous has nothing to do with pushing anything out - in fact, I go under the knife to have my posh poo removed by posh doctors who wear gloves whilst operating. After I stop screaming, it is so easy for me to cease my faeces, and after Murder became a massive #2 single I knew I could never top it. Just yesterday, again, I was delighted to dislodge a comment that my song If I Can't Dance was a "great big pile of poo" from my very own messageboard - maybe they simply saw the room I get operated on. My fans like to keep track of my movement, in more ways than one.

Right I must be off, I seem to have sat on a Galaxy Ripple that has melted. It sure doesn't smell like Galaxy though..

Pah, mwah and blah,

Sophie Ellis B. xxxxxxx"

If I Can't Dance
Murder On The Dancefloor
If You Go