BELINDA CARLISLE
“GOING SOLO? I SAID ‘SURE’... I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING ELSE!”
WITH THREE OF HER ALBUMS NOW BEING GIVEN THE VINYL COLLECTABLE TREATMENT, BELINDA CARLISLE LOOKS BACK AT 1986’S BELINDA, 1991’S LIVE YOUR LIFE BE FREE AND 1996’S A WOMAN &A MAN
STEVEO ’BRIEN
© Getty
Belinda Carlisle had offers to go it alone all the way through The Go-Go’s career. That’s what happens you’re the frontwoman of a successful, Billboard-topping pop band. But no, The Go-Go’s were a tight one for all, all for one unit. Until their spectacularly messy split in May 1985, that is. So when IRS Records’ Miles Copeland approached the then-26-year-old singer in the weeks after to maybe, possibly, do the solo thing, it was a simple case of why-the-hell-not.
“I said sure,” Carlisle recalls to Classic Pop 36 years on. “I mean, I didn’t know how to do anything else!”
In the end, Belinda Carlisle’s solo fame would eclipse even that of her one-time band. She scored a world-conquering hit with the Grammy-nominated 1987 power pop classic Heaven Is A Place On Earth, while its parent album, Heaven On Earth, was certified triple platinum in the US and the UK.
Bafflingly, her first LP as a solo artist didn’t even chart in Britain.
And while its lead 45, Mad About You, peaked at No.3 Stateside, it took until a 1988 reissue for it to hit in the UK. So, given that we Brits never took to Belinda first time round, its 2021 reissue is a chance to finally acquaint ourselves with its immaculately coiffured pop.