24 July 2013

24th July - The Go-Go's' Beauty and the Beat

Artist – Album: The Go-Go’s – Beauty and the Beat
Released:  24th July 1981

Sounds Like: Girl power (pop)

Sometimes I love this blog. I didn’t really know The Go-Go’s before today, but now I think that they’re just brilliant. 

For some reason (i.e. because I only knew ‘Heaven is a Place On Earth), I always thought that Belinda Carlisle was just like Barbara Streisand – huge in the eighties but since revealed to be a purveyor of cloyingly poppy schmaltz. Jane Wiedlin, on the other hand, was the author of one of my guiltiest pleasures: the power pop ‘Rush Hour’, which I must apologise to numerous long-suffering neighbours for singing to as loud as possible when intoxicated. Together, and teamed with three other female rockers, I had assumed they were just another girl group, like those around when I grew up: The Spice Girls, Atomic Kitten and the Corrs (OK, so there was a guy in that one, but he was definitely there to be heard and not seen).

Nope, The Go-Go’s are much, much better than that. The album starts with the vital single ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, full of infectious melodies and poppy harmonies. ‘How Much More’ is classic New Wave, giddy and shuffling and thinly veiling its heartbroken lyrical content. ‘We Got the Beat’ was the other single, containing dirty, grinding verses and a sugary sweet chorus, that sounded somewhere between The B-52’s kitschness and The Tom Tom Club’s modernity.

It’s not just one of the best albums by an all female group. It’s not just one of the best albums of the new wave, post-punk era. It’s up there with the best of all time, full stop.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Our Lips Are Sealed – 2:45
2.       How Much More – 3:06
3.       Tonite – 3:35
4.       Lust to Love – 4:04
5.       This Town – 3:20
6.       We Got the Beat – 2:36
7.       Fading Fast – 3:41
8.       Automatic – 3:07
9.       You Can’t Walk in Your Sleep (If You Can’t Sleep) – 2:54
10.   Skidmarks on My Heart – 3:06
11.   Can’t Stop the World – 3:20

Listen to ‘How Much More’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvIj6bGPTRs

No comments:

Post a Comment