Better late than never: Cher to finally be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

This year’s inductees into music’s highest honor — the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — are officially announced: Cher, Mary J. Blige, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & The Gang, Ozzy Osbourne, and A Tribe Called Quest are being inducted under the Performer Category, which honors “artists who have created music whose originality, impact, and influence has changed the course of rock & roll,”

Cher’s induction comes after she publicly rebuked the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year for never nominating her. “I wouldn’t be in it now if they gave me a million dollars,” she said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in December. “I’m never gonna change my mind,” she declared. “I mean, they can just you-know-what themselves.”

To be eligible for the Hall of Fame, an individual artist or band must have released its first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. Four out of the eight inductees in the Performer category were on the ballot for the first time, including Cher, Foreigner, Kool & the Gang, and Frampton.

Her career as a recording artist spans seven decades and she is the only artist to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in each of past seven decades. This feat was accomplished when DJ Play a Christmas Song reached number one last December on the US Billboard Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart. It also topped the US Billboard Adult Contemporary chart,[16] spending four consecutive weeks at the top.

She is the fifth-ranked female artist with the most Billboard US Hot 100 charted singles and she is still in the thick of things.

Below is a sampling of Cher hits from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.