Cher’s Vocoder Is the Sound of Both Y2K and Camp

Cher kept a low profile for a few years in the 1990s, navigating career shifts and personal challenges, before she erupted in the fall of 1998 with the futuristic Eurodance track “Believe,” the title track of the eponymous album.

Other than the philosophical nature of the lyrics (“Do you believe in life after love?”) and the propulsive beat, what made the song stand out was its “talking robot” effect. Whether it was created with a vocoder or with the autotune software (the producers were always fairly coy about it)...