The beat can only go on so long. Cher’s upcoming tour behind the just-released Living Proof will be the 55-year-old singer’s last. “I want to do some movies and I really haven’t had time to,” Cher said last week. “There’s a musical that I really want to do called ‘The Enchanted Cottage,’ and that is the thing that is really closest to me right now. I have never had the chance to sing and act in a movie.”
Cher, who won a Best Actress Oscar for 1987’s “Moonstruck,” believes musicals could make a comeback following last year’s Oscar-nominated “Moulin Rouge.”
“The old kind, where people just break out into song for no reason, I don’t think that can happen,” she said. “But I think people really enjoy music, they enjoy acting, and if you can find a way to bring that together in something that appeals to people now, I think it works.”
Speaking of comebacks, Cher’s musical career appears to be fully rejuvenated, considering Living Proof – the follow-up to her 1998 surprise smash, Believe – debuted at # 9 on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week.
“Song for the Lonely,” the album’s “Believe”-like first single and video, is also proving to be a hit, especially on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, where it climbed from #13 to #6 this week.
“This is probably the best album I have ever made,” Cher said. “I think the songs are maybe the best songs I have ever had, and I am also surprised that I am still singing well.”
For Living Proof, Cher worked with several European producers, including the “Believe” team of Mark Taylor and Brian Rawlings (“The Music’s No Good Without You”), Rick Knowles (Madonna, Celine Dion), Chicane and several newcomers.
“It is really a diverse album, but most of the tracks have got some sort of a beat,” Cher said. “They’ve got something happening in them. There are some obvious club tracks, and then there are lots of strange little tangents, but when you put it all together it all starts to go.”
As for the tour, for which dates will be announced soon, Cher hopes to go out with a bang. “I want to do something like the last one, but hopefully different and better,” she said.