Time & Perspective Quote by Cher

A pop star admitting the clock is rigged is a kind of flex. Cher’s line lands because it punctures the myth of effortless “natural talent” and replaces it with the less glamorous truth: mastery is slow, and the culture that sells you fame is impatient. “In this business” keeps it pointedly unromantic. She’s not talking about art in the abstract; she means the entertainment economy, where the product is you, and the shelf life is measured in trends, youth, and a label’s attention span.

The sting is in the hinge between “really good” and “obsolete.” Cher sketches a cruel timeline: by the time an artist has earned genuine craft, the market has moved on to the next face, the next sound, the next platform. That contrast is the subtextual critique. Pop culture claims to reward excellence, but often rewards novelty, malleability, and timing. Being “obsolete” isn’t about quality; it’s about relevance as an algorithmic and aesthetic fashion.

Coming from Cher, it’s also a wink. She’s famous for repeatedly outliving “obsolete” status through reinvention: shifting genres, embracing spectacle, treating identity as a stage costume rather than a cage. The quote reads like gallows humor from someone who knows the machine and refuses to pretend it’s fair. It’s both warning and strategy memo: don’t confuse fame with competence, don’t confuse competence with security, and if you want longevity, learn to evolve faster than the industry can discard you.