‘Half-Breed’: The worst record and single Cher ever released?
Although it’s easy to condense the legacy of Cher into a handful of songs, like ‘Believe’, ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’, and ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’, most of what makes her so artistically resonant ventures far deeper beneath the surface. For instance, beyond the immediate pop hits, she is also one of the biggest forerunners of blending conceptually and culturally significant themes into music, no matter how badly they seem to have aged.
From the 1970s onwards, blending different cultures into pop spaces was fairly commonplace. While attitudes and vernacular have evolved significantly since then, and what’s deemed appropriate is now completely unacceptable, it was once seen as artistically groundbreaking to do so. For instance, Michael Jackson’s ‘Remember the Time’ remains one of his most popular hits despite the obvious trivialisation and appropriation of Egyptian culture that defines the entire music video.
There are countless examples of this throughout history, not to mention the use of certain words or phrases now deemed offensive or inappropriate. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, in particular, many artists we still deem massively influential used slurs or dated language in their songs or song titles, though less as a means to incite anger and more as a reflection of how far society had yet to progress before abandoning such terms was considered the standard.
It was during this period that Cher released her album Half-Breed. Now, without any context, it’s easy to see why this particular record has since become controversial despite Cher’s clear intentions being anything but. Still, the record, specifically its title track, has become the target of several iterations of backlash throughout the years, culminating in the singer herself choosing to omit it from setlists completely. The reason is simple: cultural appropriation.
Written with the aim of drawing attention to the oppression felt by Indigenous peoples in predominantly white spaces, the song is seen as problematic due to its insensitivity, particularly as it was written and performed by non-Natives, applying meaning to complex and nuanced situations in which they have no experience of. While this wasn’t unique in the industry at the time, people now regard the song as completely distasteful, especially considering its music video, which shows Cher wearing an outfit combining various aspects of Cherokee culture.
Perhaps what seems even more strange or out of place, even, is the fact that the record itself seems to lose sight of the kind of experience, feeling, or overarching message it wants to evoke. For instance, it includes several covers of strangely chosen hits, like the Bee Gees’ ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’, Paul McCartney’s ‘My Love’, and The Beatles’ ‘The Long and Winding Road’. Despite Cher’s obvious prowess as a singer and performer, these didn’t seem entirely suited, nor did they fit within the broader concepts attempted with ‘Half-Breed’ or the image it seemed Cher was opting for at the time.
Whether the singer was trying to prove her own versatility by including slower, more ballad-like songs, her choices seem far removed from such, especially given the fact that she could have chosen countless other Beatles songs that were far more popular and more suited to her voice and approach. That said, maybe it’s somewhat prophetic that the album itself failed to grip onto any kind of lasting resonance, considering how far removed audiences—and Cher herself—have become since then.
