Posted on 07/03/2021 4:16:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It hardly matters – who really cares about these things? – and yet it does. This year the Go-Go’s will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and earning a place at the museum in Cleveland, Ohio, for all its naffness, is still a mark of influence and recognition. “I always said: ‘**** them, I don’t care,’” says Belinda Carlisle, the band’s lead singer. “But when it actually happens, it’s: ‘Oh, this is not so bad.’”
The Go-Go’s have had a reappraisal in the past year, thanks mainly to a documentary by the film-maker Alison Ellwood. It tells the story of how these scrappy young LA punks put together a band (the lineup shifted until arriving at the current five members) and made history – incredibly, they are still the only female band who write their own music and play their own instruments to have reached the top of the US album charts. That was in 1982. As with many female artists, belittled for years by the male-dominated music industry and press, the recognition feels long overdue.
The documentary also refocuses perceptions of Carlisle. After leaving the Go-Go’s, she became a glossy pop star, but I love seeing the older images of her wearing a bin bag dress, or facing down sexist thugs while on an early UK tour supporting Madness. On the phone from her home in Bangkok, Carlisle, now 64, is warm and unguarded. She laughs at the memory, but also adds it was “very intimidating. We would come off stage crying.” But that tour, and the kudos they had earned on the US new wave scene for touring Britain’s ska clubs, was the turning point for the band. “It exploded after that,” she says.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Gotta’ love Belinda..
She’s great. Jane Wiedlin also. To some extent the Go-Gos were packaged as a frivolous “Girl Group” but they were much more than that.
Without having followed either one closely, I thought Fanny was a pretty good “girl band”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zspd9hFRtkw
Definitely
Unbelievable that they would include the Go-Gos while Blue Oyster Cult is still not in it.
I don’t know why they even have it,
The Go-Gos were new wave not punk. And they were so stoned and drunk during most of their heyday I don't think any of them can be counted upon to give an accurate account of 1981-1982. Talk about hard-partiers.
Hall of fame is so stupid.
Unlike other musicians of any style of music...
In Memoriam ... Gene Frenkle (1950-2000)
LOL.
They got the beat
They got the beat
Kids got the beat
Yeah, kids got the beat
Never part of the punk scene - they were the industry’s attempt to mainstream punk and were just a girl band. A sanitized version of the Runaways.
They had one hit and Carlisle had a very short so-so solo career. Hall of Fame? I think not. But then again the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame is nothing but a commercial venture.
“She says she knew she was in trouble with drugs “from the very beginning”. “I always had that little voice: ‘What are you doing?’” In the early days, she was “an acid head. But when I was introduced to coke, I thought: ‘Oh my God, when I get money, I’m going to buy lots of this.’ And I did.” She laughs. Three years after their album hit No 1, Carlisle had spent most of her money on drugs, clothes and, of all things, a racehorse.”
The Runaways kicked ass. They were breaking new ground and original.
No comparison to Carlisle and her pop schlock run. Hey, she cashed in.
Good for her.
For what the Go Go’s were, they were good. But it seems odd they’re being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. A small handful of hits in the 80’s....and?
She cleaned up nicely. It could have had a bad ending.
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