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'I Paralyze' was Cher's one-shot deal for Columbia Records in 1982. The album didn't sell and this was Cher's last album for five years. Released after her stint with Casablanca Records, where the Goddess of Pop reinvented herself as a disco diva with the classic hit "Take Me Home" in 1979, this album combined the new wave influences heard in her 'Prisoner' album with the slightly harder-rock edge from her Black Rose days.

As strong as this set was, it failed to make a dent in the charts which is in some ways surprising, and then not so at all. This album was a victim of its timing. 'I Paralyze' was released after the disco craze petered out and Cher had yet to prove herself as an actress. Around this time, she wasn't taken seriously as a singer or actress and was known more for tabloid copy. And what a loss for pop music! This album contains a perfect would-be 1980s smash hit, "Rudy" (co-written with Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, the brains behind Village People). "Games" and "I Paralyze" are strong commercial contenders, as is "Back on the Street Again" (co-written by John Waite).

"Cher had extraordinarily high standards for her work and I'm sure she was disappointed by what happened," producer David Wolfer stated. "However, I don't know if you've met Cher. No one tells Cher what to do, that's not how it works." The statement functions as playful a rebuke to those assuming that Cher's ambition behind the record was solely commercial; it was not. If anything, 'I Paralyze' encapsulates Cher's adventurous ethos as a woman and an artist.

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