Music Database It's a Man's World

It's a Man's World is the 22nd album by American singer-actress, Cher released on November 6, 1995 by WEA, a label of Warner Music U.K.. This is also the start of her second stint with Warner Music Group. This album adjusted the tracklist and finally released in the United States on June 25, 1996 by Reprise Records. It peaked at #64 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, and only sold 9,000 copies in that week. As of June 2003, the album has sold 194,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In the UK the album peaked at #10 and was certified Gold by BPI for selling more than 100 000 copies.

It's a Man's World found Cher singing 'unconventional' songs in a style more associated with the Deep South, rather than her more familiar pop and rock roots. The album also stands out for Cher stretching her vocals to head register for such songs as "One by One" and "The Gunman", getting out of her comfort zone of her trademark husky contralto.

Cher signed with Warner Music U.K. in 1994 and recorded It's a Man's World in London in 1995. That same year the album was released all over Europe with "Walking in Memphis" as its lead off single. In the same year, it was certified gold in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry.

The original album included fourteen songs, but when it was released in the United States in 1996 the setlist included only eleven songs. Three songs, "I Wouldn't Treat a Dog (The Way You Treated Me)", "Don't Come Around Tonite" and "The Shape of Things to Come" had been removed from the American release. The American release was also reviewed by critics as a 'mid-'90s R&B/pop phenomenon' due to the removal of these three rock songs and also due to five songs remixed to evoke a contemporary R&B feel. The new versions of those songs: "Not Enough Love in the World", "Paradise Is Here", "Angels Running", "What About the Moonlight" and "One by One" were labeled as album versions in the United States. Their new sound carried R&B influences, while their original versions were influenced by Southern rock and blues.

Because of the alterations, the American release was also compared to the style of Boyz II Men. One critic Jose F. Promis from Allmusic described the album as "one of the singer's finest", which justifies Cher as a true singer rather than a mere entertainer. While the album was temporarily sidelined by her dizzying worldwide success with Believe, in recent years it has been rediscovered and credited.