Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 2024: Cher says she “changed the sound of music forever”

20 October, 2024

Cher

After years of being snubbed, Cher has finally been inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and joked that “it was easier getting divorced from two men than it was getting in”.

The long-awaited induction comes after she previously slammed her absence last year. The singer aired her concerns to Kelly Clarkson, saying that despite being one of the only two music acts to score a No. 1 hit across a whopping seven decades – the other being The Rolling Stones, who were inducted in 2010 – she has constantly been passed up for induction.

“And I’m not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! You know what, I wouldn’t be in it now if they gave me a million dollars. I’m not kidding you,” she said.

“I’m never going to change my mind,” she continued. “They can just you-know-what themselves.” She then said she “changed music forever” with her 1998 hit ‘Believe’ one of the best-selling singles of all time and pioneered the use of AutoTune in music.

She shared similar sentiments at yesterday’s (October 19) ceremony in her induction speech, reiterating that the classic track, which she performed with Dua Lipa last night, “changed the sound of music forever”.

She kicked off the speech by thanking her “guardian” David Geffen for writing a letter to the directors and “for caring so much”, and nodded to the resilient nature her mother instilled in her, saying “the one thing I got from my mom is that I never gave up.”

“I’m lucky, I’ve had really bad things happen – I was dropped by four labels,” she continued. “When it was completely over, I did ‘Believe’ and it was like, “yes!” I’ve just been really lucky, and I have had number ones for seven decades, which surprises me, because I’m a good singer [but] I’m not a great singer. You know what? I’ll take it. And also, I changed the sound of music forever, all right? And and ‘Believe’ really changed the sound of music.”

She said the song was “kind of a bitch in the beginning” and it came together by accident after she argued with her producer about it. “I went, “Dude, if you want it better, get another singer, because I can’t do it better.” And then he called me later in the afternoon. He said, ‘Cher, I’ve been playing around with the pitch machine, and I think I got something.’ So I went back and sitting down, and he started to play it. And it was like “Jesus”.

She recalled jumping in the air and high-fiving each other after the “great” moment.

“And then the head of my record company, who I adore, said, ‘we can’t do that because no one will know that it’s you’. I went, ‘Yes, yes. That’s the deal. That’s the great part.’ My life has been a rollercoaster and and the one thing that I have never done is I never give up.”

Cher rounded-off by addressing women, saying: “We’ve been down and out, and we keep striving, and we keep going, and we keep building, and we are somebody. We are special. As my mom would say, we’re special.”

Her induction follows the release of ‘Forever’ in September, and fell ahead of the release of her upcoming two-part memoir. The first part of the music icon’s memoir is set for release on November 19 via HarperCollins, with the second part being released sometime next year. You can pre order Cher: The Memoir, Part One here. 

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