A celebration of the album where Cher challenged the pop industry and resolidified herself as a cultural force, an empowered experimenter, and a feminist and queer icon—and still somehow put out a chart-topping record just before the turn of the millennium.

By 1998, Cher seemed fated to fade off into the pop sunset. Her time of being half of pop music’s “It couple,” of releasing chart-topping singles, of having her own TV show, with starring in box office breaking movies, was coming to an end. But then Believe and a new invention called auto-tune changed everything.

Pop has always been a young person’s game, especially for women, and a new dawn of that obsessive youth was in full swing in the late ‘90s. But Cher’s return to inescapability at 52 years old—making her the oldest woman to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100—was a refusal to accept that model. Full of fire, cutting edge choices, and a strong advocacy for one’s self, Believe was her giant musical middle finger to all those assumptions.

The album confirmed her place as a pop icon, a queer icon, a feminist icon, and reminds us that everyone should believe they can be strong enough.

"Phillips’s entry of this monumental album into the prestigious 33 1/3 canon finally gives Cher and her Grammy Award-winning dance album the recognition they deserve. . . . A wonderful wildcard addition to a beloved book series and an excellent gateway into the 33 1/3 vault." - Library Journal

"The book considers how an artist who had already spent decades navigating public scrutiny could return with a recording that sounded startlingly futuristic. . . . a fascinating entry point into one of pop music’s great reinventions." - That Eric Alper