Retro Video of the Week: "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Cher's Heart of Stone album, which was very much a comeback album for Cher.  It is with pure kismet that Jester happened to be watching a Reelz docudrama about Cher a few nights ago, so her triumphs and failures are fresh in my mind. Notably, the docudrama did not address her role in "Stuck on You," which I really think was worthy of mentioning.

While her acting career had blossomed in the early to mid '80s with high-profile roles in films like Silkwood, Mask, Witches of Eastwick, and Moonstruck (for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress), her music career had all but petered out.  Her 1987 self-titled album was the first album to crack the Billboard Top 200 album charts since 1979, reaching #32 and producing a pair of Top 20 songs ("I Found Someone" (#10) and "We All Sleep Alone" (#14")).  

However, it was 1989's Heart of Stone that reinjected her into the music mainstream.  The album went to #10 on the Billboard album charts -- the highest-charting of her 18 solo albums released to that point.  Thanks to songs written by such songwriting and rock stalwarts as Diane Warren, Desmond Child, Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Michael Bolton, and Jonathan Cain, Heart of Stone went quadruple platinum and featured four Top 20 songs, three of which made the Top 10:  "After All" (#6), "If I Could Turn Back Time" (#3), "Just Like Jesse James" (#8), and the title track (#20).

But I think we all know what we remember most about Heart of Stone:  the video to the Warren-penned "If I Could Turn Back Time."  A then-43-year-old Cher in fishnets and a v-shaped bathing suit that barely covered her lady bits belted the song out in front of hundreds of happy seamen on the U.S.S. Missouri.  The video was initially banned on MTV, but then the station relented and played it only after 9 p.m.

I remember Dennis Miller remarking at some point about Cher wearing two bandaids and a cork.  While that was obviously somewhat of an exaggeration, there were plenty of adolescent males who enjoyed the video.  The song went to #3 in the U.S., making it her highest-charting single in 15 years, and it was a worldwide hit as well, hitting the top 20 in 12 other countries, including the Top 10 in six and #1 in Australia.