{"id":52038,"date":"2025-08-07T12:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52038\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:47:09","slug":"belinda-carlisle-gets-frank-about-what-caused-resentment-in-the-go-gos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52038\/","title":{"rendered":"Belinda Carlisle Gets Frank About What Caused \u201cResentment\u201d in the Go-Gos"},"content":{"rendered":"

With hits like \u201cOur Lips Are Sealed\u201d<\/a> and \u201cVacation,\u201d<\/a> the Go-Gos were one of the most popular female pop-rock bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with vocalist Belinda Carlisle at the helm. But the band\u2019s volatile core lineup and friction between bandmates ultimately led to their official disbanding in 1985. Later reunions were shadowed by legal battles and more interpersonal conflict, but they did occur.<\/p>\n

Carlisle had a frank explanation for why the Go-Gos never made it out of the \u201880s as their original form in AMS Pictures\u2019 documentary, Karen Carpenter: Starving for Perfection. When people so often deflect the blame onto others, Carlisle was more than willing to call herself out for her role in the band\u2019s breakup.<\/p>\n

Belinda Carlisle On What Caused \u201cResentment\u201d In The Go-Gos<\/p>\n

As is the case in so many tight-knit punk scenes, the original lineup of the Go-Gos<\/a> were all multi-instrumentalists who had played in different bands before the group behind hits like \u201cWe Got the Beat.\u201d Belinda Carlisle was on vocals solely because she wanted to play the bass but that role was filled and she didn\u2019t want to play the drums. Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin were on guitar, Margot Olavarria played bass, and Elissa Bello was on drums.<\/p>\n

Carlisle\u2019s role made her the frontwoman, which inevitably made her the \u201cface\u201d of the Go-Gos. \u201cI was kind of a ham, you know,\u201d she recalled<\/a> in the Karen Carpenter documentary. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t consider myself much of a ham now. But back then, it was no problem for me to get on stage. And I thought that I had a great voice. I had a lot of work to do. But it wasn\u2019t hard for me to be the focus of attention because I had a security blanket of four other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have a tendency to focus on the person who sings,\u201d she continued. \u201cIn the beginning, that was really not a problem. But when the Go-Gos became super popular, most of the focus was on me, and it did cause problems within the band. I had my own personal issues I was dealing with that made me kind of\u2026I wasn\u2019t present, really. I wasn\u2019t doing a lot of the work that I should have been doing. So, there was that resentment, too. I was getting all the glory and not doing a lot of the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Former Frontwoman Branched Out As A Solo Performer<\/p>\n

Although 1985 would usher in the end of the Go-Gos, it was hardly the end of the road for frontwoman Belinda Carlisle. Speaking in the Karen Carpenter documentary, Carlisle said she \u201cknew I always had the opportunity for a solo career. It was really a wake-up call after I finished my album. I was like, \u2018Oh my God, what do I do now?\u2019 You know. I have to go out and promote it. And I got out on stage for the first time without the band, and that was really, really, really hard. It took a long time for me to be comfortable in my own skin onstage as a solo performer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately for Carlisle, she had several successful boosts to her solo career following the Go-Gos\u2019 split. Her solo debut, Belinda, had a chart-topping single in Canada and a No. 3 hit in the U.S., \u201cMad About You.\u201d Carlisle\u2019s follow-up record, Heaven on Earth, gave the former Go-Gos frontwoman her first and only No. 1 hit in the States with the near-title track, \u201cHeaven is a Place on Earth.\u201d<\/a> She has continued to work in the decades since as both a solo performer and on reunion performances by the Go-Gos. Her ninth solo studio album, Once Upon a Time in California, is out in late August 2025.<\/p>\n

Photo by Ebet Roberts\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With hits like \u201cOur Lips Are Sealed\u201d and \u201cVacation,\u201d the Go-Gos were one of the most popular female…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[35375,49,48,361,75,5475,35376],"class_list":{"0":"post-52038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-belinda-carlisle","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-rock-music","14":"tag-the-go-gos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}