The set is complied of hard and soft rock numbers that display Cher's voice in a great light. The hits like the adult contemporary smash "If I Could Turn Back Time", the gospel tinged "Heart Of Stone", the lovely duet with Peter Ceatra "After All" and the country sass of "Just Like Jesse James" show a wide range of rockers, but the songs while catchy and very likable come out with much of the same sound. While the differences musically in tracks like "Love On A Rooftop", "Because Of You" and "You Wouldn't Know Love" the lyric content is great and the way Cher forces them out is awesome.

The major brilliance in "Heart Of Stone" is the fact that it gave Cher so many hits after she become a huge movie star, yet not exactly during the time the movies where coming out, like "Cher". She manned to diversify music form her acting, yet while having many of the songs sounding like screenplays. The CD has many great songs, but in a rock rut with a few classy ballads, it is not as powerful or exciting as "Cher", which in many ways is the album that brought her back only the hits weren't as big on that record. Still "Heart Of Stone" is worth more than a listen and far better than its follow up "Love Hurts".


Cher's best album.   April 1, 2003
 4 out of 6 found this review helpful

I have Cher's whole discograaphy sience 1987, when she released her first Geffen record. They're all great but definitely "Heart of stone" is the best.
This album is from 1989, it includes some of Cher's biggest hits ever such as: "If I could turn back time", "just like Jesse James" and "After all" next to Peter Cetera.
"Heart of stone" became Cher's first multi-million selling album, it sold over 3 million copies in the Us and it's her best selling after her 1999 smash album "Believe".
Some of the song in this album were written by Diane Warren, one of the best song writers of all times, she writes song for singer such as: Michael Bolton, Celine Dion and Toni Braxton.
Other hits of this album are "Kiss to kiss", "Love on a rooftop" and the tittle it self.


Turn back time to 89 and a great album by Cher   June 26, 2005
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Cher followed up the success of her self-titled 1987 album with Heart of Stone, whose first two singles did better on the charts. She had retained the same production team-if it ain't broke... But the followup benefits from having better arrangements and instrumentations, while embodying a musical style now sadly long gone.

Instead of merely writing this song, Diane Warren puts on her producer's hat with Guy Roche. "If I Could Turn Back Time," whose strident rhythms with the same synth and fiery guitar from her previous album, made it to #3 on the charts and a week atop the Adult Contemporary charts. With a host of backing vocalists, including Desmond Child, Robin Beck, and Maria Vidal, plus guitar from Steve Lukather, who'd contributed on "I Found Someone," this couldn't fail and it didn't. However, with the video aboard a US aircraft carrier with an ever-so revealing outfit, the song might as well have been called "If I Could Show My Behind." What's also revealing and tried and true are some things I have experienced: "Pride's like a knife it can cut deep inside/words are like weapons they wound sometimes." Words have hurt me too much at times, so I know.

The second single, the power ballad written by Diane Warren and Desmond Child, "Just Like Jesse James," challenging a ladykiller and trying to drop him off the swaggering macho cloud he's floating on, indeed has lyrics with the aura of a Western showdown. This #8 hit also features backing vocals by Child, Warren, and Brenda Russell ("Get Here," "Piano In The Dark"). Another winning song.

Bolton and Warren co-write, with the former producing and arranging "You Wouldn't Know Love," which is straight 80's synth-laced music complete with its host of backing vocals. His production and songwriting on "Still In Love With You" and "Starting Over," the latter co-written with Journey's Jonathan Cain embodies the same style.

Her cover of Desmond Child's reflective "Love On A Rooftop," produced by Asher, also on percussion, was not the first time I'd heard it, as Ronnie Spector had done her version two years earlier on Unfinished Business, which makes at least three versions, including Child's own, which came out in 1991. This has more of a crunch to it, airy keyboard-wise and guitar-wise, the latter courtesy of the Heartbreakers' Waddy Wachtel. A strong single-worthy rendition, though the more low-key version by Spector fits me more. Asher also produced the duet between her and Peter Cetera, "After All," which was from the movie Chances Are. A #6 hit, this spent 4 weeks atop the AC charts, and is a classic 80's type pop ballad, and something Chicago probably'd have no problem doing around their 17 or 18 albums. Wachtel also does guitar here as well. Another favourite here.

The other Child-produced songs, "Emotional Fire" has the raging power to be on a Bon Jovi album, with harmonic chorus as strong as on BJ's "Living On A Prayer." Speaking of which, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora help co-write "Does Anybody Really Fall In Love Anymore." A rhetoric question posed here is: "There's a lonely world around me/I get sucked in by the tide/I said, hey, love ain't no crime/so why is everybody so afraid to cross that line." I found out the hard way. This is the song Kane Roberts later did in 1991.

A successor to Cher's 87 album, this is evidence enough that Cher had that second wind going for her. I mean, three Top Ten singles, one of them Top 5, and the #20 title track, not bad. Cher would repeat the formula for one more album before going on another hiatus, and redefining herself in 1998 with oontsa oontsa music with Believe.