Cher
It's A Men's World

THE REVIEW

She has released 27 albums, an unspecified number of more or less official greatest hits, and 14 films. She boasts countless platinum records, Grammy awards, and other accolades for her singing career, an Oscar, a Palme d'Or, a Golden Bear, and several nominations for both best lead and supporting actress. In 40 years of career, she has explored almost every musical genre successfully, managing to ride trends and fashions across four decades, always setting styles and trends with her strong personality and, above all, her undisputed artistic skills.

After her youth years, during which she sang sweetheart songs of America with her husband Sonny, such as “I Got You Babe”, she transitioned into a more personal and autobiographical genre with songs like “Half Breed” and “War Paint And Soft Feather”, where she expounds on her dual identity of being Cherokee and Armenian, and later ventured into disco dance in the late seventies and rock in the eighties.
The new generations know Cher mainly for the global success of "Believe" and her latest work "Living Proof", which in a way changed the landscape of dance music. But Cher is much more.

The album "It's a Man's World", released in 1996, serves as the trait-d'union between the rock period of the eighties and the dance era bridging the nineties and the 2000s. It's certainly one of the artist's most refined and sophisticated works, yet perhaps also one of the least appreciated by the broader public.
Rich in R&B and country influences, the album surprises with the tranquility of its performances. Cher's voice is warm, measured, and sensual across all 11 tracks, fully aware of her capabilities with nothing to prove.
The album is full of covers: “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn (which Cher turned into a worldwide hit), “Not Enough Love In The World” by Don Henley, and “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown.
Other notable pieces include “One By One”, an irresistible bridge between soul and rock, the epic “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”, and “Don’t Come Around Tonite”. The album as a whole, truly sensual and warm, showcases Cher at the peak of her expressiveness: a mature woman who still has much to offer to the world of art.

Some have compared "It's a Man's World" to the contemporary "Bedtime Stories" by Madonna, but perhaps any vague similarity is recognizable only in the relaxed rhythms: otherwise, they are completely different works, with Cher being, as always, immensely superior to Madonna in every way, except perhaps in audacity and ambition.