attack
of the Plastic Diva. An antiGUY review of Cher in concert.
Ok it goes like this, poor old me was sick
with the flu vegging out watching the Behind the Music Marathon on VH1.
Well they came to one I had seen a million time already so I went channel
surfing. My choices? The Networks had their usual crap to offer,
CBS touched by bad acting and overly sentimental story lines. NBC and ABC
both had commercials on, and well after watching three I got tired of waiting
to see what was actually on. Fox's had one of their "Worlds stupidest shows
full of idiots that our programers hope people will watch", well something
like that. Then over on Showtime they had some fantasy movie on about the
Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill affair. Come on only those two know the truth
and one of them is lying, so we let some Canadian movie network decide
who's telling the truth, I don't think so. At this point frustration sets
in. I could turn on MTV and watch Road Fools, the unReal World, the latest
teen sex symbol shake her silicon, or turn on HBO hoping for Dennis Miller?
Unfortunately for yours truly, Dennis wasn't on. What they had instead
was Cher Live from Vegas.
As you can tell by the title of this piece,
this will not be a very objective review. I hate Cher and unlike a Rolling
Stone reporter I will tell you that up front. Why do you hate her so much
antiGUY? What's to like? Sure she's a good actress, I will give her that.
I thought she finally found her real calling a few years ago when she started
doing infomercials. Now that is a case of ye round peg in ye round hole.
What better spokesperson for cheap products that stores won't even carry,
but a big phony like Cher. Wow that's harsh. Well, I watched her
little act at Sonny Bono's funeral then a few days later I hear she was
suing his estate trying to get his money. Not like she doesn't have enough
of her own, mind you. But it's not that, the real reason I hate her so
much is her music is so phony she makes Milli Vanilli seem like Bach.
She has a passable voice, nothing special,
but then again she has all those idiots in Hollywood telling her how great
she is. And then there are the critics who travel in the same circles who
praise her work. What is there to praise? I'll take Bette Midler
over Cher any day. Listen to her voice on her latest record. Do you hear
her voice? No, you hear her singing through a bunch of synthesizers. Any
idiot can do that. While there are plenty of truly talented female singers
out there who deserve the praise and success, Cher gets by with pure smoke
in mirrors.
So I tuned into this Live show from Vegas
with the slight doubt that hey maybe you were being to hard on her. Listen
to her sing live, maybe it will change your mind. Any doubts vanished within
the first few minutes. The city that never sleeps was the perfect back
drop for this charade she called a concert.
It had more side shows that Barnum and
Baily. That's what it was a circus, and the show was so choreographed that
the performers would put a Broadway Production to shame. This all reminded
me of one of the Vegas shows, I kept waiting for the dancing girls with
feathers. They might have appeared, I don't know, I turned that garbage
off after one so-called song.
Concerts are about music, but a Cher concert
exist for only one reason, as a tribute to Cher. It has very little to
do with music, art or anything creative. It is an overload of hype, ego
and a shrine to the women that has more in common with England's Royal
family that she does with an average concert goer.
I know there is a market out there for
Cher, the same frustrated middle age baby boomers that buy up Michael Bolton
records. Plus I hear her records sell well in cities with large transvestite
populations. But to your average music fan, I can see no appeal. The bottom
line is there is no substance to this women or her music. While others
put her up on some pedestal, I gladly take the challenge of asking people
to pull their heads out of their asses and see her for what she is - An
old lady with delusions of grandeur. I could be wrong and this is only
my opinion. But for what its worth, I wish this woman would go back to
Infomercials and leave music to real musicians and singers.
|
