Dancing Queen by Cher
"Dancing Queen" is a cover album and the twenty-sixth studio album by American singer and actress Cher, released by Warner Bros. Records on September 28, 2018. It is Cher's first album in five years, following Closer to the Truth (2013). The album contains cover versions of songs recorded by Swedish pop group ABBA, with the title referencing their 1976 song "Dancing Queen". The album follows Cher's appearance in the 2018 musical film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, based on the music of ABBA. The album received, mostly, acclaim from music critics, and was a success commercially, debuting at number three on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 153,000 units, becoming Cher's highest debut sales week for an album in the United States. Dancing Queen also debuted at number one on the US Top Album Sales chart with 150,000 pure copies, making it Cher's first number one album on that chart.
It makes so much sense, it’s a wonder this took so long. An album of ABBA covers by camp queen Cher is a match made in pop-music heaven. The ostensible inspiration for the set was her cameo in <i>Mamma Mia 2</i>, where she delivered a faithful rendition of the timeless ballad “Fernando”. But who needs a reason to justify 10 new takes on ABBA’s biggest hits? From the piano vamp of “Dancing Queen” that opens the album, it’s clear nobody is trying to reinvent the wheel here. These tracks, FM radio staples for 40-plus years already, are given a spit shine and updated production values, but they’re otherwise straightforward takes that make clear the producers’ (and the performer’s) reverence for the source material. Only at the end does the formula change: “One of Us”, a heartbreaking standout from the Swedish group’s final album, <i>The Visitors</i>, is stripped down to strings and piano, leaving only Cher’s voice to channel all of the emotion from the devastating lyrics.
