Believe is the twenty-second studio album by American singer and actress Cher, released on October 22, 1998, by WEA and Warner Bros. Records. Following the commercial disappointment of her previous studio album It's a Man's World (1995), her record company encouraged her to record a dance-oriented album, in order to move into a more mainstream sound. Cher started working on the album in the spring of 1998 with British producers Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling at the Dreamhouse Studios in London. The album was dedicated to her former husband Sonny Bono, who had died earlier that year.

"Believe", along with "Strong Enough", represents a complete musical departure from her previous works, consisting of Eurodisco-oriented styles, while its lyrical topics include freedom, individualism and relationships. The album features some of the new technology of the time, like the usage of Auto-Tune, which would eventually become known as the "Cher effect". Upon release, the album received mixed reviews from music critics, who commended Cher's vocal performance, while others criticized the high amount of Auto-Tune and its overall production. In 2000, Believe was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album.

Commercially, Believe proved to be extremely successful, peaking at number four on the Billboard 200 and was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of four million copies across the United States. The album topped the charts in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Portugal, and Quebec, as well as in the top ten in France, Spain, United Kingdom, and several other international territories. As of 2023, Believe has sold over 11 million copies worldwide.

Four singles were released from the album. The first single, "Believe", topped the charts in a total of 21 countries, including the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed at number one for four weeks. "Strong Enough" was released as the second single from the album; it peaked at numbers 57 and 5 in the US and UK, respectively. "All or Nothing" and "Dov'è l'amore" were released as the third and fourth singles respectively, both becoming moderately successful. In support of Believe, Cher embarked on her fourth concert tour, Do You Believe?, which became one of the highest-grossing tours ever for a female artist at that time. In celebration of the album's twenty-fifth anniversary a deluxe edition was released on November 3, 2023.

Background After Cher's previous rock-inflected album It's a Man's World (1995) received a lukewarm response, Warner Music UK head Rob Dickins suggested that Cher record a dance album to better connect with her gay audience. Initially, Cher expressed reluctance, stating that she no longer found dance music appealing, as she felt it lacked "real songs". However, interest in Cher's potential as a dance artist had already been growing. A remix of her 1996 single "One by One" by New York City DJ Junior Vasquez had found success in the club scene and highlighted a demand for Cher in the genre. DMA magazine's Dean Ferguson observed that the remix left fans "starving for a dance mix from Cher", prompting Warner to push for a dance-oriented album.

Around this time, Dickins came across songwriter Brian Higgins at Warner's London office and asked him to pitch songs for the project. Three days later, a tape with sixteen of Higgins's songs arrived. Reflecting on the demo, Dickins recalled, "The ninth song was 'Believe.' I thought: 'Cher could do this chorus, especially the lyrics, with her private life the way it is. She's gone through all these things.'" When Dickins asked the songwriter to complete "Believe", the result was a "terrible" song that still needed extensive work.

Cher began working on Believe in the summer of 1998 in London, meeting with producers Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling, who had previously worked with Dickins; additional producers included Todd Terry ("Taxi Taxi") and Junior Vasquez, who had originally worked on "Dov'è l'amore", but when he sent back his version from New York, it was rejected by Dickins, who decided instead to give the production of the track to Taylor and Rawling as well. Cher also worked with long-time collaborator Diane Warren (who wrote "Takin' Back My Heart") and covered two songs: "The Power" (Amy Grant) and "Love Is the Groove" (Betsy Cook). Furthermore, she decided to include a remix of her 1988 single "We All Sleep Alone" from her 1987 Cher album.

The "Believe" single was originally written only by Brian Higgins, Matt Gray, Stuart McLennen and Tim Powell, and circulated at Warner Bros. as an unwanted demo for months. Mark Taylor said, "Everyone loved the chorus but not the rest of the song; As we were already writing other songs for Cher, Rob asked us if we could sort it out. Two of our writers, Steve Torch and Paul Barry, got involved and eventually came up with a complete song that Rob and Cher were happy with."

Release and promotion

Believe was first released in France on October 22, 1998, in the United Kingdom on October 26, 1998, and in the United States on November 10, 1998. The album was later released in Japan on December 23, 1998, with two additional Japan-only bonus tracks "Believe" (Club 69 Future Mix) and "Believe" (Xenomania Mix).

To promote the album, Cher made a number of televised appearances and live performances of the album's singles. On October 17, 1998, she debuted "Believe" at Heaven nightclub in London, England and on The National Lottery Show. "Believe" was also performed seven times on Top of the Pops and the 1999 Brit Awards (February 16, 1999) in the UK, Kultnacht and Top of the Pops in Germany (1998), ¿Qué apostamos? in Spain (November 6, 1998), the Rosie O'Donnell Show (November 17), the Late Show with David Letterman (November 18), the 26th Annual American Music Awards (January 11, 1999) in the United States and the 1999 Sanremo Music Festival in Italy (February 23, 1999), among others. "Strong Enough" was sung for the first time on Top of the Pops (March 3, 1999) in the UK, at the Echo Music Prize (March 4) in Germany and Tapis Rougue (March 13, 1999) in France. "Believe" and "Strong Enough" were also sung at the 1999 World Music Awards in Monte Carlo on May 5, 1999. "All or Nothing" was sung on Top of the Pops (June 11, 1999) while "Dov'è l'Amore" on The National Lottery Show in the UK.

Cher performed "Believe", "The Power", "All or Nothing", "Strong Enough", "Dov'è l'Amore" and "Love Is the Groove" on the Do You Believe? (tour), her fourth concert tour, which promoted Believe. It started on June 16, 1999, and was Cher's first tour in seven years. The tour received positive reviews, was a commercial success and was sold out in every American city it was booked in, amassing a global audience of more than 1.5 million. Its companion television special, Cher: Live in Concert – From the MGM Grand in Las Vegas (1999), was the highest rated original HBO program in 1998–99, registering a 9.0 rating among adults 18 to 49 and a 13.0 rating in the HBO universe of about 33 million homes. Its parent Live in Concert VHS/DVD was released in all regions in December 1999.

Singles

"Believe" was released as the lead single from the album on October 19, 1998. It peaked at number one in more than 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, where it became Cher's first single to debut at number one and spent seven weeks at the summit at the end of 1998, becoming the biggest-selling single by a female artist in UK history, selling over 1.84 million copies in the country. It also topped the United States' Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks, selling over 1.8 million units in the country as of December 1999, and earned Cher a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest female solo artist to top the chart. It remains the Cher's most successful single to date, and one of the best-selling singles of all time, with sales of over 10 million copies worldwide. "Believe" received critical acclaim, and has an electronic vocal effect proposed by Cher, and was the first commercial recording to feature Auto-Tune—an audio processor originally intended to disguise or correct off-key inaccuracies in vocal music recordings—as a deliberate creative effect; after the success of the song, the technique became known as the "Cher effect" and has since been widely used in popular music.

The album's second single, "Strong Enough", was released on February 19, 1999. It peaked at number one in Hungary and attained a top ten position in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Due to a "loss" of radio airplay and promotion, the song had a modest success in the United States, peaking at number fifty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100, while reaching the number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart for one week.

"All or Nothing" was released on June 7, 1999, as the third single outside the United States. It peaked inside the top five in Finland, Hungary and the Czech Republic; the song had a moderate success on the charts elsewhere, peaking at number twelve on the UK Singles Chart, while reaching number fourteen in Denmark. "Dov'è l'amore" was released as the album's fourth and final single on October 25, 1999. It became a top-ten hit in Finland, Greece, Italy and Spain. Along with its predecessor, the song was released in the United States as a maxi single, but failed to reach the Hot 100. "All or Nothing" and "Dov'è l'amore" peaked separately on the Hot Dance Club Play at number one and number five respectively.

Critical reception

Upon release, the album received mixed responses from international music critics. AllMusic's Michael Gallucci called Believe Cher's "latest playground move" and said that she "merely moves through the beat factory with one drab vocal range into one endless, and personality-free, thump session" and "determinedly, if not wholeheartedly, clinging to the tail end of it". In his review he gave the album two-and-a-half out of five stars. The major criticism was the strong use of Auto-Tune which changed Cher's voice. Beth Johnson of Entertainment Weekly gave it a B− rating, stating, "Believe is erratic (and sometimes cheesy) as hell, but you gotta love how her Cher-ness shines." Music critic Robert Christgau ranked the album as a choice cut, which means that the reviewer believes there is a good track, in this case, "Believe", on an album that is "not particularly good."

Commercial performance