1991 Cher – Love Hurts

Love Hurts is the 20th studio album by American singer-actress Cher, released on June 11, 1991 by Geffen Records. The RIAA certified it Gold on August 27, 1991. It is the final studio album with the record label Geffen. The lead single from the album was, “Love and Understanding” and the follow-up singles were “Save Up All Your Tears”, “Love Hurts”, “Could’ve Been You” and “When Lovers Become Strangers”. It debuted at #48 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart with the sales of 19,000. Billboard stated in November 2011 that Love Hurts has sold 600,000 copies in the US

Love Hurts was released in 1991 and was the third and final studio album released by Cher for Geffen Records. The record featured production by Bob Rock and saw her continue to collaborate with John Kalodner, Diane Warren and Desmond Child. The album was recorded in late 1990/early 1991, during the first year of Cher’s relationship to Bon Jovi’s guitarist Richie Sambora. She dedicated the album to him and “every man that ever made me shed a tear”.

The album contained four covers: “Save Up All Your Tears” recorded in the late 1980s by Bonnie Tyler and Robin Beck, the Kiss song “A World Without Heroes” recorded in 1980, “Fires Of Eden” recorded by Judy Collins in 1990, and “Love Hurts” a remake of the 1975 version which Cher had previously recorded for her album Stars. This time the song was more pop/rock rather than a ballad. The originally version was released by Everly Brothers in 1960. The European version also contains the worldwide hit “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)” originally recorded by Betty Everett in 1963.

Early releases of the album in the UK had the same cover as the American release, but later European releases had a different cover, showing Cher laying on a white background wearing a red wig. The European release also included the world wide hit, “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)” which reached #1 in over 10 countries. In the United States, “The Shoop Shoop Song” was available only through the original soundtrack, Mermaids for the film of the same name.

While the album did extremely well in the UK, its singles were only minor hits. “Love and Understanding” was the only big hit in the charts, but the album also produced many fans favorites including “Could’ve Been You” and big Cher favorites, “Save Up All Your Tears”, “Love Hurts”, and “Fires of Eden”. Also “Love Hurts and “Could’ve Been You” was released only in Europe, while “When Lovers Become Strangers” was released only in North America.

The David Cassidy co-written song, “I’ll Never Stop Loving You”, was released a year later on Cassidy’s album, Didn’t You Used to be?. One year before, it was already recorded by Heart and released on a Japanese special edition bonus CD for their album Brigade.