Just when you thought #20GayTeen might have peaked, along comes Cher doing ABBA in spectacular style.
For those of you who have caught Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again while it plays in cinemas, you’ll already know that Cher is far and away the scene-stealer of the spectacle.
The pop icon – playing Ruby Sheridan here – swoops into the Greek island of Kalokairi in her private helicopter to crash the big opening of her granddaughter’s coastal hotel.
Within moments she’s singing Fernando to a long-lost love called – you guessed it – Fernando, complete with the biggest fireworks display modern cinema has witnessed.
Just when you think you’ve recovered from all of that brilliance, she steps onto the stage again for the big finale to sing the opening lines of Super Trouper and knocks you back off your seat.
What Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again clearly proved is that Cher and ABBA work very very well together. So well, in fact, that the singer has now recorded a whole new album of the Swedish superstars’ most popular hits.
Related: Watch Cher and Andy Garcia try to guess ABBA songs using only emojis
Over the past few years, cover albums have largely been limited to former soap stars or gameshow hosts singing drab versions of Moon River or some old Rod Stewart number.
Thankfully, Cher has come along to knock them all off the shelves and into oblivion.
In true #20GayTeen style, Cher’s first single from her ABBA album is one of their campest anthems, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).
This new version retains much of what made the original 70s version a shimmering slice of disco-pop that has stood the test of time, while also adding elements of electro-pop that Cher used with chart-topping success in the late 90s.
The club beats are ramped up a notch, the vocoder is applied to Cher’s voice at the precise right moments, and her voice adds a texture to the song that we didn’t even realise it needed.
What’s more, the vocal runs are primed for drag queens the world over to lip sync, there’s a dance break that has been scientifically designed to make gays explode in G-A-Y, and the final chorus of the song is a crescendo of camp that makes Steps look butch.
Take Cher’s rendition of Fernando, add her powerful turn in Super Trouper, strap it to a rocket and launch it into an interstellar voyage of pop perfection, and you end up with Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
Now this is the best kind of party, little girl.
Related: Exclusive interview: Cher reveals why Fernando was so difficult to learn for Mamma Mia 2
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