Belinda Carlisle

Belinda Carlisle is a founding member of 80's all-girl new wave/surf rock band The Go-Go's. The first all-female band who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments, to have a No.1 album on the Billboard charts. Their seminal debut album Beauty and the Beat (1981), would eventually reach No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart and stay there for six weeks. It was also included on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Beauty and the Beat is considered a bedrock album of the American surf rock genre and spawned one of the greatest hit singles of the 80s, "Our Lips Are Sealed" as well as "We Got The Beat".

After several albums with The Go-Go's, fellow founder, rhythm guitarist, vocalist and primary songwriter Jane Wiedlin left in late 1984 and Carlisle decided it was time work on her solo career and disbanded The Go-Go's. Her first solo release was the self-titled Belinda (1986) which spawned the top ten hit song "Mad About You". Belinda didn't see its namesake step far from The Go-Go's sound but her next release Heaven on Earth (1987) was a drastic departure from the pop-punk sounds Carlisle had been associated with. Heaven on Earth was a power-ballad filled pop album with slick 80's style production and spawned several top ten hits including "Heaven Is a Place on Earth", "Circle in the Sand" and "I Get Weak". Carlisle's third solo effort Runaway Horses (1989), was less commercially and critically successful particularly in the US market. The album spawned only one US top ten hit, "Leave a Light On", however it had two more hits in the UK "(We Want) the Same Thing" and "Summer Rain".

Live Your Life Be Free, Carlisle's fourth studio album floundered in both the US and UK in 1991 then in 1993 she released Real in the UK which charted at No.1 but quickly fell out of the charts. In 1996 (97 in the US) Carlisle released A Woman and a Man which produced two top ten hits in the UK, "In Too Deep" and "Always Breaking My Heart" a song written for her by Per Gessle, co-founder of Roxette. Then in the mid 90's The Go-Go's decided to re-form and began touring, and in 2001 they released the critically acclaimed album God Bless the Go-Go's, but sales were bad and the album peaked at No.57 in the US charts. However the band continue to perform together today and are working on several projects including a project for Disney that will feature child musicians, performing Go-Go's material called The Po-Gos.

In 2007 Carlisle releases another solo album, her seventh, Voila. An album sung entirely in French made up of classic French chansons and a few newer pop songs (sung in French). The album was not commercially successful.