After releasing the track last month, Cher has delivered unto us a video for her cover of ABBA’s ‘SOS’, and it’s beautiful. It looks like a 70s-inspired ad from the 90s, probably for United Colors of Benetton or the GAP, but it’s still beautiful, and it draws a lot of inspiration from the original ‘SOS’ video.
Despite not actually featuring Cher, who is probably far too busy to star in her own music videos anymore, the video is full of women, including Betty Who, Rumer Willis, Vella Lovell (Heather from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) and Trace Lysette (Shea from Transparent).
It’s called fashion, look it up.
Here’s Cher’s video:
And here’s ABBA’s original:
But before we look at the similarities, let’s just appreciate the looks served in the video for a sec. According to this article from Cosmopolitan, colourful plaids, bright red AND hot pink are all on-trend this fall. Amazing.
The stars of Cher’s video paid tribute to ABBA by standing in front of some rocks, just like ABBA did in the original video for ‘SOS’.
A lot of the shots are deliberately similar, too:
ABBA’s video
Cher’s video
This look of ABBA’s is technically from the ‘Mamma Mia’ video, but it clearly inspired this white-turtleneck-on-white-background moment near the end of Cher’s video:
The music video was directed by Jake Wilson, who’s worked with both Rumer Willis and Betty Who before, and who directed a ‘girl version‘ of Troye Sivan’s ‘My My My!’ starring the drag queen Milk.
Cher’s album of ABBA covers, Dancing Queen, is out on September 28th, and I just hope it brings us many more beautifully-shot homages to ABBA like this video.
The power of Cher brings women together. Inspiring.
(Header photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for Universal Pictures )