Background and career
Belinda Jo Carlisle ( KAR-lyle; born August 17, 1958) is an American singer and songwriter. She gained fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, and she went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist. Raised in Southern California, Carlisle was the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, which she co-founded in 1978. With their chart-topping debut album Beauty and the Beat in 1981, the group helped popularize new wave music in the United States. The Go-Go's have sold over seven million records worldwide. After the break-up 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", "Summer Rain", and "Heaven Is a Place on Earth". The Go-Go's reformed in 1999; Carlisle maintained her solo career and performed with the band until its disbandment in 2022, returning for two festival performances in 2025. Carlisle's autobiography, Lips Unsealed, published in June 2010, was a New York Times Best Seller and received favorable reviews. In 1999, Carlisle was ranked number 76 with the Go-Go's in VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll. In 2011, Carlisle, as a member of the Go-Go's, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, and the California Hall of Fame in 2024.
Carlisle was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, to Harold Carlisle, a gas station employee, and his wife, Joanne (née Thompson), a homemaker. Her mother met her father, who was 20 years her senior, at age 18, 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; she has 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 impoverished. 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 later married Walt Kurczeski, who Carlisle says was an alcoholic and with whom she had a tumultuous relationship. She took on his last name during her high school years. 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 interest in music; she has identified 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. Carlisle attended Colina Junior High School in Thousand Oaks, where she was a third-string guard on the boys' basketball team. Later, she attended 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 clerk at the Hilton Hotels Corporation in Los Angeles. She took night classes attending beauty college, but dropped out in the first year. At the age of 19, Carlisle left 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 Newbury Park High School. However, her time in the band was short, owing to her contracting mononucleosis, and she never recorded or performed live with the Germs. According to Germs guitarist 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 provided some backing vocals 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 Carlisle, Wiedlin, 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 went 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 and only all-female band that wrote their own music and played their own instruments to ever achieve a number 1 album, Beauty and the Beat (1981), which featured the hits "We Got the Beat" and "Our Lips Are Sealed". The Go-Go's recorded two more 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 number 11. In 1984, Carlisle made a foray into acting in the movie Swing Shift, appearing as a band singer alongside Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.
The Go-Go's broke up in 1985, and Carlisle embarked on a solo career. Carlisle's debut 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 number 3 in the United States, 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 backing vocals along with Jane Wiedlin. Duran Duran's Andy Taylor played guitar on some album tracks and appeared in her "Mad About You" music video. During this time, Carlisle also had songs featured on movie soundtracks, notably "In My Wildest Dreams" from the movie Mannequin (1987), "Shot in the Dark" from the Anthony Michael Hall thriller Out of Bounds (1986), 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 debut 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. The album's first single, "Heaven Is a Place on Earth", topped the singles charts in the United States and the UK, with the dance mix of the song also topping the Billboard dance chart in the US. 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 number 2 in the United States and number 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 number 11 in the United States, and became another Top 5 smash in the UK, Australia and Canada. That year, Carlisle also performed co-lead vocals with the Smithereens in a duet with the band's lead vocalist Pat DiNizio on the song "Blue Period". The song was featured on their third album 11. The second American single, "Summer Rain", reached number 30 in early 1990. The song reached number 6 in Australia. It was the final release from Runaway Horses in the UK where it was released as the album's sixth single in December 1990, peaking at number 23 in January 1991. Three further singles were released: the title track; "La Luna", which reached the Top 10 in Switzerland and Top 20 hit in Germany and Australia; and "(We Want) The Same Thing", which reached number 6 in the UK. In the late autumn of 1990, the Go-Go's reunited for a tour to support their first greatest hits 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.
In 1991, Carlisle released her fourth solo album, Live Your Life Be Free. The album marked somewhat of a return to 1960s-influenced music for Carlisle and included songs mainly written and produced by Rick Nowels but also two songs co-written by Carlisle. The single "Do You Feel Like I Feel?" was accompanied by a music video inspired by the B movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958). The title track, "Live Your Life Be Free", released as first single outside the United States, was a Top 20 hit single in many countries reaching number 12 in the UK and number 13 in Australia. Subsequent releases "Half the World" and "Little Black Book" (co-written by Marcella Detroit under her real name Marcy Levy) were also hits outside the United States. The album was also a success in Europe (Top 10 in the UK and Gold certification). "Do You Feel Like I Feel?" is Carlisle's final single to enter in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 73. Still active in Europe and Australia with a recording contract at Virgin Records, her 1992 greatest hits album The Best of Belinda, Volume 1 reached number 1, and was certified double platinum in the UK and platinum in Australia. Carlisle's fifth solo album, Real, was released in 1993 on the Virgin label in the United States and in Europe. Produced without Nowels, the album was a departure from Carlisle's polished pop music formula. Carlisle co-produced and co-wrote much of the album, collaborating heavily with friend and ex-Go-Go member Charlotte Caffey. The album was Carlisle's fifth consecutive to reach the UK Top 10 peaking at number 9. It also peaked at number 23 in Sweden. Its lead single, "Big Scary Animal", peaked at number 12 in the UK. The second single from Real was "Lay Down Your Arms", which made the Top 30 in the UK. Also in 1993, Carlisle provided guest vocals on the Lemonheads sixth album Come on Feel the Lemonheads, and appeared with Crash Baptists for their song "One by One," on their soundtrack to the movie The Harvest. The Go-Go's reunited in 1994 to support the retrospective double-CD Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's, their second collection, which featured three new songs, including the single "The Whole World Lost Its Head". However, the band broke up again, soon after the promotional tour. Carlisle returned to the recording studio, and resumed working again with Rick Nowels. In 1996 she released in the UK and Australia her sixth solo album, A Woman & a Man, on the Chrysalis label. This album, consisting of mostly relaxed adult pop, revitalized her solo career in Europe, and included several hits. The leadoff single, "In Too Deep", returned Carlisle to the UK Top 10 for the first time in six years, reaching number 6. "Always Breaking My Heart", written and produced by Per Gessle of Roxette, also made the UK Top 10, peaking at number 8. The album spawned two further hits in the UK: "Love in the Key of C", and "California", which featured arrangement and backing vocals by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. The album reached number 12 in the UK, and was certified gold. As a result of A Woman & a Man's UK success, the album was released in the United States during the summer of 1997 on the small Ark21 label. In 1997, she recorded "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)" for the Disney movie Hercules. In 1999, Carlisle released a greatest hits album in the UK, a double-disc on the Virgin label, collectively titled A Place on Earth: The Greatest Hits. The first disc featured Carlisle's hits plus three new tracks recorded for the album: the single "All God's Children", and the songs "A Prayer for Everyone" and "Feels Like I've Known You Forever". The second disc, subtitled A Place on Earth, contained previously released remixes of her hits and B-sides which had not previously been released. Despite being released only seven years after her previous greatest hits compilation, The Best of Belinda, Volume 1, the collection was a success in the UK where it made the Top 20 and was certified gold. Carlisle also opened for Cher during the European leg of her Believe Tour in 1999.
