Take Me Home | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 25, 1979 | |||
Recorded | 1978 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 38:03 | |||
Label | Casablanca | |||
Producer |
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Cher chronology | ||||
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Singles from Take Me Home | ||||
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Take Me Home is the fifteenth studio album by American singer-actress Cher, released on January 25, 1979, on Casablanca Records. After her last three studio albums sold poorly, Cher made a brief commercial comeback with Take Me Home. The album reached number 25 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart. The RIAA certified it gold on May 17 of that year for the sales of 500,000 copies in the US. [1]
Take Me Home was Cher's first album of 1979, and also her first released by Casablanca Records. It was produced by Bob Esty and Ron Dante, and most of the songs were written by Michele Aller and Bob Esty. This marked the beginning of her brief venture into disco music. Much to Cher's chagrin, she was pressured into recording an album of this genre. From the album came a major comeback hit, "Take Me Home". [2] She contributed a lyrically self-penned song about her failed marriage to Gregg Allman on the closing ballad, "My Song (Too Far Gone)". This album is dedicated to "Butterfly".
The success of the title track boosted sales of the album and the album is also known for its cover photograph of a scantily-clad Cher in a gold, Bob Mackie-designed Viking outfit that received a lot of attention at the time. Take Me Home was also the first album to have three tracks mixed: "Take Me Home" (12" Mix), "Wasn't It Good" (12" Mix) and "Git Down (Guitar Groupie)" (12" Mix) available on the "Hell on Wheels" single. Gene Simmons, her boyfriend at the time, received a credit on the album owing to his presence on the track "Git Down (Guitar Groupie)".
Take Me Home has been released on CD together with her second Casablanca Records album, Prisoner , numerous times on a CD titled The Casablanca Years. This CD unites all the tracks from both albums, merging them onto one single CD. The album was released in 1993 and re-released in 1996 with a different cover. Unreleased songs from the sessions include "Oh God America", "Sometime Somewhere" both written by Cher but she did not like her contributions so they were left off the album. The Ron Dante-produced "If He'd Take Me Back Again" was also recorded during the Take Me Home sessions and remains unreleased.
To promote the album, Cher recorded a music video for "Take Me Home" which was used as part of an exclusive TV special called Cher... and Other Fantasies. She also performed "Take Me Home" along with other two album tracks "Love & Pain" and "Happy Was the Day We Met" on The Mike Douglas Show . In 1979 Cher embarked on her first solo tour, the Take Me Home Tour, which was highly successful with two dates of the show recorded for broadcast, in Monte Carlo and at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. For the latter performance, Cher was awarded "Best Actress in a Variety Program" at the 1983 CableACE Awards.
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [3] |
Smash Hits | 4/10 [4] |
The Oakland Post wrote that "the range of her mastery is astounding... From the pop-disco extravaganza that is the title tune to the achingly personal 'My Song (Too Far Gone)'." [5]
All tracks produced by Bob Esty except "Love & Pain (Pain in My Heart)" and "It's Too Late to Love Me Now" by Ron Dante.
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Take Me Home" |
| 6:45 |
2. | "Wasn't It Good" |
| 4:20 |
3. | "Say the Word" |
| 4:59 |
4. | "Happy Was the Day We Met" | Peppi Castro | 4:00 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Git Down (Guitar Groupie)" |
| 3:44 |
2. | "Love & Pain (Pain in My Heart)" | Richard T. Bear | 3:25 |
3. | "Let This Be a Lesson to You" | Tom Snow | 3:17 |
4. | "It's Too Late to Love Me Now" |
| 3:39 |
5. | "My Song (Too Far Gone)" |
| 3:54 |
Chart (1979) | Peak position |
---|---|
Canada Top Albums/CDs ( RPM ) [7] | 24 |
Canada Dance/Urban ( RPM ) [8] | 9 |
US Billboard 200 [9] | 25 |
US Top R&B Albums [10] | 32 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States (RIAA) [11] | Gold | 500,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Casablanca Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Republic Records. Under its founder Neil Bogart, Casablanca was most successful during the disco era of the mid to late 1970s. The label currently focuses on dance and electronic music under the direction of Brett Alperowitz.
Destroyer is the fourth studio album by American hard rock band Kiss, released on March 15, 1976, by Casablanca Records in the US. It was the third successive Kiss album to reach the top 40 in the US, as well as the first to chart in Germany and New Zealand. The album was certified gold by the RIAA on April 22, 1976, and platinum on November 11 of the same year, the first Kiss album to achieve platinum. The album marked a departure from the raw sound of the band's first three albums.
Roller Boogie is a 1979 American teen musical exploitation film directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Linda Blair, Jim Bray, Beverly Garland, Roger Perry, Mark Goddard, Jimmy Van Patten, and Kimberly Beck. Set in the Venice suburb of Los Angeles at the height of the roller skating fad of the late 1970s, it follows an upper-class young woman (Blair) who falls in love with a working class fellow skater (Bray) while the two seek to thwart efforts from a powerful mobster attempting to acquire the land where a popular roller rink is located.
Love Gun is the sixth studio album by American hard rock band Kiss, released on June 30, 1977. Casablanca Records and FilmWorks shipped one million copies of the album on this date. It was certified platinum and became the band's first top 5 album on the Billboard 200. The album was remastered in 1997 and again in 2014.
Alive II is the second live album by American hard rock band Kiss, released on October 14, 1977, by Casablanca Records. The band had released three albums since the previous live outing, the 1975 release Alive!, so they drew upon the variety of new tracks, with Eddie Kramer producing. The album is one of the best selling in the Kiss discography, being the band's first to be certified double platinum in February 1996, the same month the Kiss reunion tour was announced. It has continued to sell in the US in the Soundscan era, selling over 300,000 copies from 1991 and to March 2012.
Gene Simmons is the first solo album by Gene Simmons, the bassist and co-lead vocalist of the hard rock band Kiss. It is one of four solo albums released by each member of Kiss, but yet still under the Kiss label, coming out alongside Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, and Paul Stanley. It was released on September 18, 1978. Reaching number 22 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, it was the highest-placing of all the four Kiss solo albums. Mainly a hard rock style album, it also features choirs and string arrangements on some songs, as well as incorporating various musical genres including Beatles-inspired pop, 1970s funk, and rock and roll.
Peter Criss is the first solo album by Peter Criss, the drummer of American hard rock band Kiss. It was one of four solo albums released by the members of Kiss on September 18, 1978, but yet under the Kiss label, coming out alongside Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. The album was produced by Vini Poncia, who went on to produce Dynasty (1979) and Unmasked (1980) for Kiss.
Prisoner is the sixteenth studio album by American singer-actress Cher, released on October 22, 1979, by Casablanca Records. The album was a commercial failure and failed to chart. "Hell on Wheels" was released as the lead single and had a moderate success, peaking at number fifty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Take Me Home" is a song recorded by American singer and actress Cher for her fifteenth studio album. The album, released in 1979, bore the same name as the single. "Take Me Home" is a disco song conceived after Cher was recommended to venture into said genre after the commercial failure of her previous albums. The lyrics center around the request of a woman to be taken home by her lover. It was released as the lead single from the Take Me Home album in January 1979 through Casablanca Records, pressed as a 12-inch single.
"Last Dance" is a song by American singer Donna Summer from the soundtrack album to the 1978 film Thank God It's Friday. It was written by Paul Jabara, co-produced by Summer's regular collaborator Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, and mixed by Grammy Award-winning producer Stephen Short, whose backing vocals are featured in the song.
Live and More is the first live album recorded by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer, and it was her second double album, released on August 28, 1978 by Casablanca Records. The live concert featured on the first three sides of this double album was recorded in the Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, California in 1978.
"Hell on Wheels" is a disco song performed by American singer-actress Cher from her sixteenth studio album, Prisoner. It was written by Bob Esty and Michele Aller and produced by Esty. It was released as the album's first and only international single in late 1979. The song was also added to the Roller Boogie soundtrack in 1979. Lyrically, the track is about "follow what you like".
"We've Got Tonite" is a song written by American rock music artist Bob Seger, from his album Stranger in Town (1978). The single record charted twice for Seger, and was developed from a prior song that he had written. Further versions charted in 1983 for Kenny Rogers as a duet with Sheena Easton, and again in 2002 for Ronan Keating.
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"(Where Do I Begin?) Love Story" is a popular song published in 1970, with music by Francis Lai and lyrics by Carl Sigman. The song was first introduced as an instrumental theme in the 1970 film Love Story after the film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, rejected the first set of lyrics that were written. Andy Williams eventually recorded the new lyrics and took the song to number nine on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 and number one on their Easy Listening chart.
If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher's Greatest Hits is the fourth U.S. compilation album by American singer-actress Cher, released on March 9, 1999, by Geffen. In January 2000, the album was certified Gold by the RIAA for selling more than 500,000 copies in the US. Billboard stated in November 2011 that the album had sold 955,000 copies in the US.
"Wasn't It Good" is a song written by producers Bob Esty and Michele Aller. The song was originally recorded by American singer-actress Cher.
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Reddy is the eleventh studio album release by Australian-American pop singer Helen Reddy. Between 1971 and 1978, Reddy had ten studio albums released by Capitol Records, the label also having issued her Greatest Hits album and a concert album: Live in London, the latter issued in December 1978 - which same month Reddy filed suit claiming Capitol Records had shortchanged her $1,793,000, the suit being an apparent bid to win release from the label. However Reddy, issued in June 1979, would be released by Capitol Records, Reddy's tenure with the label extending to include her twelfth studio album: Take What You Find, issued in 1980.