(Credits: Far Out / NASA / Uwe Conrad)
Fri 28 November 2025 4:00, UK
At least in the UK, we associate the 1990s heavily with the punch of Britpop smacking the scene in the face. But really, that didn’t come until later, and a year like 1992 was much more of a sonic wild west.
This is not to say that it was 12 months of abysmal musical offerings – far from it – but it certainly offered something far more eclectic than what the scene was shortly set to become. With Billy Ray Cyrus and Whitney Houston respectively dominating the singles chart on both sides of the Atlantic, and with classic rock albums reeling off the production line in the form of Automatic for the People by REM and Wish by The Cure, it was a wide-ranging smorgasbord, to say the least.Â
Yet within this was also the true definition of what separates the musical inclinations between the US and UK – a power, a strength of feeling, an emotion which you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else across the world.
While the States were living it up deep in the heart of country, with the aforementioned Cyrus and his album Some Gave All, which clinched the top spot for some 16 weeks, the Brits were regaling in some absolutely bona fide pop royalty.
Of course, even though she is about as all-American as they come, the UK has always had a bit of a soft spot for Cher. In this sense, her first compilation album of Greatest Hits: 1965-1992 worked a total treat for her sales figures in the country, granting her the longest stint at the top of the chart for an album released in 1992.
How successful was Cher in 1992?
While Cher’s Greatest Hits was a soaring success all across the continent, reaching the top ten in the charts of a number of different European countries, it was the UK that took it to their hearts with the greatest affection and acclaim. To this end, it spent seven non-consecutive weeks at the top spot over the course of the year.
This accolade also made the record the best-selling album by any female artist of the year – something which Cher would have no doubt been pleased with, given it was a project that she had to invest the minimal amount of effort into. Simply dining out on her existing back catalogue at the time, ranging from ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ to ‘I Got You Babe’, she could sit back and watch the money roll in.Â
But this would also be doing a bit of a disservice to the character of the woman herself, as, despite some of her more dramatic proclivities, she has never been one for resting on her laurels. Recording three new covers to tag on the album, including a version of ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ by Jimmy Cliff, this was a definition of an artist who was still as versatile as she was hits-driven.Â
Naturally, the next few years were turbulent for Cher, between the death of Sonny Bono and her own health problems, so it was almost the warning signal that a reset was needed. Going back to the drawing board, she then came up with Believe in 1998 – and what happened from there hardly needs spelling out.
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