Belinda Jo Carlisle (born August 17, 1958) is an American singer. She gained worldwide fame as the lead singer of the Go-Go’s, one of the most successful all-female bands in history, and went on to have a prolific career as a solo act.
Raised in Southern California, Carlisle began her music career in 1977 as the drummer of the Los Angeles punk band the Germs, and went on to join the Go-Go’s as the lead singer after the band’s formation in 1978. With their chart-topping debut release Beauty and the Beat in 1981, the group helped popularize new wave music in the United States, and were the first all-female band in history who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to achieve a No. 1 album. The Go-Go’s have sold over 7 million records worldwide.
After dissolution of the Go-Go’s in 1985, Carlisle went on to have a successful solo career with radio hits such as “Mad About You”, “I Get Weak”, “Circle in the Sand”, “Leave a Light On” and “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”, among others, which were major successes in the United States, United Kingdom and internationally as well. Her autobiography, Lips Unsealed, published in June 2010, was a New York Times Best Seller and received favorable reviews. On August 11, 2011, as a member of the Go-Go’s, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Belinda Jo Carlisle was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California on August 17, 1958 to Harold Carlisle, a gas station employee, and his wife, Joanne (née Thompson), a homemaker. Her mother met her father, who was twenty years her senior, at age eighteen, and Carlisle was born nine months later. She was named after her mother’s favorite film, Johnny Belinda (1948). Carlisle was the first of seven siblings, with three brothers and three sisters. When she was five years old, Carlisle’s father abandoned their family, and she has stated that she spent most of her childhood poor.
As a teenager, she recalled owning “like, two outfits.” According to Carlisle, her mother was very religious, while her father was not. In an interview with Slash magazine, she described herself as a reject from a Southern Baptist household.
Her mother would later remarry Walt Kurczeski, whom Carlisle says was an alcoholic, and with whom she had a tumultuous relationship. The family moved frequently during her childhood, from Simi Valley to Reseda, before settling in Burbank when Carlisle was seven years old. At age ten, Carlisle began to express an interest in music, and recalled the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Stylistics, and the Animals as being early musical influences.
The family relocated again during Carlisle’s adolescence, this time to Thousand Oaks, California; she attended Colina Junior High School in Thousand Oaks, and later Newbury Park High School, where she was a cheerleader. During her teenage years, Carlisle became rebellious: “By the time I hit fourteen, I’d gone really wild,” she said. “I ran away from home, smoked pot, dropped acid … you name it, I’d try it.” After high school, Carlisle worked at a House of Fabrics store, and as a photocopier at the Hilton Hotels Corporation in Los Angeles at age eighteen. She took night classes attending beauty college, but dropped out within the first year. At the age of nineteen, Carlisle left her parents’ home to pursue a career in music.
Carlisle’s first venture into music was in 1977 as drummer for the punk rock band the Germs, under the name Dottie Danger. She was recruited into the band by Lorna Doom, whom she had met in an art class while a student at Thousand Oaks High School. However, her time in the band was short due to her contracting mononucleosis, and she never recorded or performed live with the Germs. According to Pat Smear, upon quitting, she introduced her friend, Donna Rhia, who became her replacement.
Carlisle does appear on one recording introducing the band at a 1977 performance at the Whisky a Go Go, heard on the live album Germicide (1977). Around this time, Carlisle did some back-up singing for Black Randy and the Metrosquad.
Soon after leaving the Germs, she co-founded the Go-Go’s (originally named the Misfits), with friends and fellow musicians Margot Olavarria, Elissa Bello, and Jane Wiedlin. Olavarria and Bello were soon out of the group and the new line-up included bassist-turned-guitarist Charlotte Caffey, guitarist-turned-bassist Kathy Valentine, and drummer Gina Schock. All five women were largely untrained musicians, and Carlisle recalls having to use tape as fret markers during their initial songwriting: “[Charlotte] had to show us how to plug in our amps,” she said.
The Go-Go’s would go on to become one of the most successful American bands of the 1980s, helping usher new wave music into popular American radio, and becoming the first all-female band who wrote their own music and played their own instruments to ever achieve a No. 1 album, Beauty and the Beat, which featured the hits “We Got the Beat” and “Our Lips Are Sealed“. The Go-Go’s recorded two more studio albums on I.R.S. Records, including 1982‘s Vacation, which went gold. “Head over Heels“, from their 1984 album Talk Show, made it to No. 11.
In 1984, Carlisle made a foray into acting in the movie Swing Shift, starring alongside Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.
The Go-Go’s disbanded in 1985 and Carlisle embarked on a solo career. Carlisle’s first solo album Belinda was released in 1986, also on I.R.S. Records. This album was successful in North America and was certified Gold in the United States and Platinum in Canada. Her summer hit “Mad About You” peaked at No. 3 in the United States, topped the Canadian Singles Chart, and charted in the top 10 in Australia. “Mad About You” was followed by the Motown-influenced single “I Feel the Magic” written by Charlotte Caffey, and by a cover version of the Freda Payne song “Band of Gold“. All three songs were included on her debut album. The single “Since You’ve Gone“, co-written by Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, was used only for promotion. Susanna Hoffs co-wrote the single “I Need a Disguise” in which she also sang back-up vocals along with Jane Wiedlin. Duran Duran‘s Andy Taylor played guitar on some album tracks and appeared in her “Mad About You” video clip.
During this time, Carlisle also had songs featured on movie soundtracks, notably “In My Wildest Dreams” from the movie Mannequin, “Shot in the Dark” from the Anthony Michael Hall thriller Out of Bounds, as well as “Dancing in the City” from the Whoopi Goldberg movie Burglar (1987).
The musical style of 1987‘s Heaven on Earth eschewed the 1960s-influenced pop of Carlisle’s first album in favor of slickly produced 1980s power-pop. It was released in the United States through MCA, and in the United Kingdom through Virgin Records. The album became a Top 5 bestseller in the UK and Australia, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Michelle Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas; and Chynna Phillips and Carnie Wilson of Wilson Phillips sang backup for the album. Thomas Dolby played keyboard on some album tracks.
The album’s first single, “Heaven Is a Place on Earth“, topped the single charts in the United States and the UK, with the dance mix of the song also topping the Billboard dance chartin the United States. The promotional video was directed by Academy Award-winning American actress Diane Keaton. The second single from the album was the Diane Warren-penned “I Get Weak“, which peaked at No. 2 in the United States and No. 10 in the UK. The third single from the album was “Circle in the Sand“, another Top 10 hit in the United States, the UK, and Germany. “World Without You” was another British hit. Following the success of the album, Carlisle embarked on the Good Heavens world tour, which sold out Wembley Arena in London.
Carlisle’s follow-up to the success of Heaven on Earth was Runaway Horses, released on October 23, 1989. The album hit the Top 5 in both Australia and the UK, certified double platinum in Australia and platinum in the UK and in Canada. The first release, “Leave a Light On“, peaked at No. 11 in the United States, and became another Top 5 smash in the UK, Australia and Canada. The song features a slide guitar solo by George Harrison; he also played on the song “Deep Deep Ocean.”
In the late autumn of 1990, the Go-Go’s reunited for a tour to support their first best-of album, Greatest, including a new recording of the cover song “Cool Jerk” (The Go-Go’s original cover was featured on their 1980 European EP, with a second version being released in 1982). A notable feature of the tour was an anti-fur campaign, where the band members supported the animal rights organization PETA.
Carlisle has been noted by critics for her dynamic soprano vocal range. While Carlisle’s discography both with the Go-Go’s and in her solo work have been predominately characterized as pop music, some music scholars such as Greil Marcus have noted a confluence of subtle punk influences as well as pop rock, specifically in the Go-Go’s early releases (Marcus suggests that any traces of punk influence were carried over from Carlisle’s brief tenure in the Germs).
Carlisle has been alternately described by critics as a “punk diva” and “pop princess.” As a singer in the Go-Go’s, Carlisle was associated with the new wave genre, and the band was remarked by critics for their style that “inject[ed] punk with the sound of California surf music.” Her subsequent solo releases, beginning with her self-titled solo debut, Belinda (1986), were remarked by critics as more polished contemporary pop music.
Her early inspirations during her childhood were the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Stylistics, and the Animals. As a teenager, she saw Iggy Pop on the cover of the Stooges’ Raw Power in a record store, an album which she credited as a gateway exposing her to punk and art rock acts such as the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, Roxy Music, and the Sex Pistols. In a 2013 interview, Carlisle stated that despite having recorded an abundance of it throughout her career, she “didn’t really listen to pop music,” and had recently been inspired by jazz artists such as Miles Davis.
In 1986, Carlisle married political operative and film producer Morgan Mason, son of actor James Mason. He made appearances in Carlisle’s music videos “Mad About You” and “Heaven Is a Place on Earth“. They have one son, James Duke Mason, who was born in 1992. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Carlisle and her family moved to Europe, settling in the south of France. Carlisle and her husband lived between Fréjus, a commune in Southern France, and the United States. In 2017, the couple moved to Bangkok, Thailand.
In a 1990 interview with Spin, Carlisle stated that she was not close with her siblings or parents, saying: “I want to be close to them. I kind of feel uncomfortable. I think I feel guilty sometimes about my success in some ways.”
During the initial stages of her tenure with the Go-Go’s, Carlisle developed a serious addiction to cocaine and alcohol that would span thirty years. Simultaneously, she had also developed an eating disorder, which she said stemmed from media comments regarding her appearance; Carlisle’s excessive cocaine use helped keep her weight down. Additionally, Carlisle admitted to using LSD, quaaludes, and MDA regularly as both a teenager and adult. In a 2017 interview, she told The Guardian that she “couldn’t believe she wasn’t dead.”
Psychology Today has a great read regarding bing eating and other addictions- Psychology Today- Stop Binge Eating in 3 Unusual Steps
After a three-day-long cocaine binge in 2005, Carlisle says she looked at herself in the mirror and “didn’t see a light or a soul” in her eyes: “I just thought, ‘I know I don’t look like myself anymore.'” The same morning, she had an auditory hallucination telling her she would be found dead in a hotel room if she did not stop using drugs. The incident jarred Carlisle into seeking sobriety, and she has been sober since 2005.
She told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2014: “I don’t smoke anymore, I don’t drink any more and I don’t do drugs any more. I am very much into my Buddhism. I found turning 40 a real passage in time for me.” Carlisle states in her autobiography Lips Unsealed: A Memoir that she has practiced Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the Soka Gakkai International since 2002, and she often mentions in press interviews that she chants Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō daily. She has also credited the practice with helping her maintain sobriety.
Carlisle is a supporter of several causes. She has been an ardent supporter of LGBT rights, which she made public after her son, Duke, came out to her at age fourteen. Carlisle is also a vegetarian and a supporter of animal rights. She and her bandmates were the first stars to pose for PETA’s “Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign in 1990. In a 2013 interview, she talked about going back to vegetarianism after a long break, stating that
I fell off the vegetarian wagon and never felt good about it. I wouldn’t let myself think of my plate of meat as an animal, but I knew deep inside it was, and actually it was gross, especially chicken. I was full of shame. Then I started practicing yoga, which is all about nonviolence, and realized eating meat isn’t compatible with that. Now I teach yoga, and I’m so full of pride not to support factory farms and to be socially responsible.
She contributed her song “Bless the Beasts and the Children” to the album Tame Yourself to benefit PETA.
In 2014, Carlisle co-founded Animal People Alliance, a nonprofit organization based in Calcutta, India, that raises funds and trains and employs impoverished women to care for street animals. “We are teaching people that animals have feelings,” says Carlisle. “How to recognize a street animal in distress. There is a middle class developing and they still don’t have proper vet care, so a lot of what we do will be educational. We’re partnering with a hospital in Calcutta to teach about adoption and to get access to emergency rooms.”
She voiced her endorsement of Bernie Sanders as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
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80s Studio albums
- Belinda (1986)
- Heaven on Earth (1987)
- Runaway Horses (1989)