My GAY experience with Belinda Carlisle

Belinda Carlisle is a someone I have been a fan of for 20 years now between her time as the lead singer of the Go-Gos and her solo career. While my passion for her didn't burn as hot or as strongly as say Madonna or Britney Spears, she is nonetheless one of my favorite female pop singers. I don't listen to as many songs by her as I do with many of my favorite pop divas, but the songs I do listen to by Belinda I love and listen to all the time. She's also a great ally to the LGBTQ community and I think she doesn't get enough credit for that like other female pop singers.

Now Belinda's had 2 careers, one with the Go-Go's and one as a solo star, but she also has had 2 different careers between the U.S. and the U.K. Belinda first broke through in the early 80s as the lead singer for the all-female band The Go-Go's who ended up becoming the first all-female band to score a #1 album who also wrote and performed all their own music, which is a huge deal! The fact that it took that long for it to happen and it has not happened very much since is another sign of how much harder it is for women to make it in the music industry especially if they are calling all the shots. Yet, despite their success in America The Go-Go's never had success over in the U.K. and Europe. After 3 albums The Go-Go's broke up in 1985 and Belinda started a solo career. Her first solo album gave her top 5 hit in the U.S. with Mad About You, but it wouldn't be until her second album Heaven on Earth, which was released in late 87, that Belinda became an international superstar. The lead single Heaven is a Place on Earth ended up becoming a huge #1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic and remains her signature song to this day. Follow up singles such as I Get Weak and Circle in the Sand became top 10 hits in both the U.S. and U.K. and it felt like Belinda Carlisle the superstar had truly arrived. Then the story takes an interesting turn because Belinda's 1989 album Runaway Horses did only OK in the U.S. scoring 2 top 40 hits but neither hit the U.S. top 10 and they were her final top 40 hits as well. Over in the U.K. though Runaway Horses the album did as well as Heaven on Earth and by the 90s Belinda continued to have strong success in Europe, but she disappeared from the pop charts over in the U.S.

The U.S. and the U.K. are 2 different cultures that nonetheless overlap a lot, especially when it comes to pop culture. That said, just because you are a hit in one of those countries, it doesn't always translate to success in the other. It always fascinates me when I discover an act who is huge in one of those 2 countries but not the other and why that might be. Belinda's career is an interesting microcosm of that divide because Heaven on Earth is the album where she was huge everywhere, but before that all her success was in America and after 1988 she had much bigger success over in Europe.

Now I discovered Belinda initially in 2000 thanks to Vh1's Behind the Music episode for The Go-Go's. This was back when Behind the Music was at it's height, but also when music videos, especially older ones, were becoming extinct on TV and we were still years away from YouTube. So it was programs like Behind the Music that would expose me to some older artists I was not as familiar with but would become big fans of afterward. Just seeing the commercials for The Go-Go's I already found their music and image very appealing and I was definitely going to tune in to this episode (I did the exact same thing a few months later for The Bangles.) Now I had heard of The Go-Go's in passing, but I didn't really know much about them or what they sang. Yet, I recognized a few songs off the bat such as Vacation, which I had heard initially from the Nicktoon Rugrats! I also recognized We Got the Beat and Our Lips Are Sealed since I had most likely heard those songs in films, TV, or on the radio at some point during the 90s.

The episode itself had everything you wanted from Behind the Music, sex, drugs, rock and roll, bitter rivals, and lots of drama. Yet, what I came away with most was that this band had great music and I wanted to own it. So, one day I convinced my Dad to take me to Target so I could buy The Go-Go's Greatest Hits that had just been put out from Vh1 and was part of their Behind the Music CD series. Later in college I would be the Behind the Music Collection for Jefferson Airplane/Starship. I actually barely enough money to buy the CD since this was before I had a job and just had a weekly allowance. I remember using lots of coins to make that purchase.

Next I remember I was starting to get more into 80s pop music outside just Madonna, Janet and Paula around 2001. I started getting lots of 80s compilation CDs like Pure 80s and Big 80s Hits and I remember More Pure 80s Hits (which had a red cover) had Heaven is a Place on Earth, which I knew from radio and hearing it briefly on The Go-Go's Behind the music episode. That was about as far as I went with Belinda though for a while. Soon I got more in Classic Rock and Alternative Rock and that kept me preoccupied for the rest of high school.

When I went to Ithaca College though and came out of the closet, I started listening to pop music again. I started doing my radio show Alternagold on the college's Internet Radio Station on a weekly basis. Eventually I briefly hosted a second show with my good friend Andrew, who I had met through the radio station. He did a show for Classic Rock and I did one for Alternative rock (mostly 90s) and we did a show together where we combined the 2 formats, added pop and did it all chronologically and the show was called Classic Gold. We would start in the late 50s/early 6 and do about 5 songs per decade in chronological order each show and we started doing themed shows as well. For Halloween we did all spooky music as well as songs referencing hell or the devil. We decided to follow up the Halloween show by playfully repenting for our sins and playing all songs that had to do with god, angels or mentioned heaven in the title. So of course, for the 80s one of the songs I recommended was Heaven is a Place On Earth by Belinda Carlisle.

The night we played Heaven is a Place on the Earth for Classic Gold one of Andrew's friends and co-hosts messaged us at the station saying that the music video for Heaven is a Place On Earth was really bizarre and we made a note to watch the music video at some point. Later that week Andrew and I got together for our weekly YouTube marathons. We would go to a classroom at night on campus and we would watch YouTube and DVDs through the projector screen in classrooms. We watched Heaven is a Place on Earth and yeah it's a little weird and mostly for the children who are blinded folded in a school uniforms who are kind of creepy. Nonetheless Andrew brought up another solo hit by Belinda called I Get Weak, which I didn't know and we watched that music video next. Being the gay that I am I recognized the male model in the music video for I Get Weak as one of Madonna's former flings who co-starred in the Justify My Love music video in 1990. After we watched that video, I remember another Belinda song I had heard on the radio a bit in the early 00s, but I couldn't remember the name of it. Eventually we found the music video I was looking for which was Mad About You.

Between watching those 3 music videos that night my junior year of College I started getting back into Belinda again. At first, I just downloaded a few songs off her Greatest Hits from iTunes, but eventually I downloaded the whole album as I discovered her other hits like Circle in the Sand, Leave a Light On and Do You Feel Like I Feel? Belinda started entering heavy rotation for me by this point.

For my second semester of my Junior year in 2007 I studied abroad in London. In London the legal drinking age was 18 and I was 20 going on 21 so this was the first time I really started frequently bars, gay bars in particular. My friends and I went to the bars together every now and then though we didn't go to clubs much because that wasn't our scene. Whenever we did hit the London clubs we felt out of place quickly so we stuck to the bars and pubs. That said, there was a huge club in London called G-A-Y that was kind of world famous. Lots of music acts who are gay icons (so mostly pop divas) would perform there including acts as big as Madonna who had performed there in 2005 before Confessions on a Dance Floor came out.

As we would walk by the club from time to time, I would look to see who was performing and I remember a recently reunited All Saints was scheduled for a show there soon. I then saw that Belinda Carlisle was coming. As soon as I saw Belinda was coming, I knew I had to see her. So, I went to get tickets, which had to be purchased at G.A.Y.'s sister bar and they were only 7 pounds each! Now my friend Jen was going to accompany me to the show so I made her mix CD of Belinda and The Go-Go's to get her excited. Jen's favorite track ended up being Circle in the Sand. Belinda was playing Saturday night and my friends and I who were rooming together lived on the outskirts of the city near the end of Victoria Line. Jen and I knew we could take the tube into the city, but we were going to have to figure how to get back after the show since it wasn't starting until after midnight. Now remember this was all right before smart phones (literally like a month or 2 before smart phones) so we really had to do our research and plan this out ahead of time so we could get back home that night after the tube closed. We figured out the bus system, which was no small feat let me tell you, to get from G-A-Y back to our flat that night.

I remember we had to wait in a line to get into the club and I had heard that sometimes they don't let straight people in so I was worried Jen would not be allowed in with me. Luckily since I had bought the tickets ahead of time, we were let in. What I remember of the club was it was huge but kind of decrepit and dark. The walls and floor I feel were all black and the drinks at the bar were expensive, more than usual for London. I do remember dancing to Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance with Somebody with Jen when we first got in there. Soon though Jen and I went to our seats in the stage area of the club. I remember on stage there were lots of gay guys dancing, some in drag and some shirtless, but all of them happy and in their element. It was a reminder why safe spaces like this were important for gay people, but also how this community lifts each other and lets everyone feel like a star, even if it's only for a moment. Heaven Is a Place on Earth was of course played and everyone cheered as loud as they could and the gays on stage danced even more fiercely than they had before. After that the stage was cleared to get ready for the concert.

Before Belinda came on, I remember there was a cute little dance/skit with teenage girls and boys dressed as school children dancing to Kylie Minogue's Put Your Hand on Your Heart. At the end of the dance the girls ended up together and the boys ended up together and it was super cute. I remember Jen loving it. Finally, Belinda took the stage, which was well after midnight by that point. Belinda was great as expected though she didn't perform Mad About You which was understandable since it was not a hit in the U.K. and Jen and myself were probably the only people who would have known it at that show. Still Belinda did everything else like I Get Weak, Circle in the Sand, Leave a Light On, and Heaven is a Place on Earth. She also performed songs off her new foreign language album too. Before she sang Live Your Life Be Free she dedicated it to the LGBTQ community and said we all deserved our right live how we want and love who we want to love, which caused lots of cheers of course. Later Belinda made a funny comment where she said that she noticed people were drinking, which was good because they more they drank the better she sounded and the better she looked.

Still the real journey began after the show when Jen and I tried to make our way home. By this point it was well after 1 a.m. possibly 2 a.m. and the people still out and about at that time were very interesting to say the least. At one point while we were waiting for the bus this older gentleman, who was obviously on something, came up to Jen and asked her if he could blow the whistle she had around her neck. It was very creepy, but Jen humored him and thankfully he left after blowing on the whistle once. Then we got on the bus which smelled of vomit and was filled with drunk people, one of whom if I am remembering correctly passed out on the bus and they had to take her off for medical attention. We had to switch buses at least once or twice as well. It was long night and we didn't get home until 4 a.m. but it was worth it to see Belinda.

In the years since Belinda has stayed in regular rotation for me and I learned how much more supportive she is of the LGBTQ community especially once I read her open letter to the LGBTQ community for Billboard magazine. This is when I learned Belinda has an openly gay son. Her son is also involved in politics and the LGBTQ community deeply. Belinda's letter overall was short but sweet and I'm just going to go right ahead and quote all of it for you below.

"It's an honor to be able to share some words with you as we celebrate Pride Month this year. It's an incredibly personal time for me, seeing as I have a gay son who is also a very vocal activist. I remember vividly what it was like in the early days of his coming out; I could see in his eyes how uncertain he was about the reaction he might get from me as well as the rest of his family and friends. Of course, my husband and I accepted him with open arms, as did his friends, but so many others go through a different and far less positive experience.

Pride is about showing the LGBTQ community that they have nothing to worry about -- that everything is going to be okay. There's a lot of love out there and that's why we celebrate each and every June. I've always been incredibly proud of my LGBTQ following, and I will always be there to stand up for you."

It has not surprised me over the years to learn that many gay men are big fans of Belinda Carlisle, from older gay men who grew up on her music in the 80s, to the kids younger than me who are just discovering her now. Belinda is a true ally to our community and has always fought for us and will continue to do so. I am also very thankful that during my formative years in college when I came out of the closet and began to explore my sexuality and Queer spaces I was able to see Belinda live in an iconic safe space for our community with one of my best friends. It's a memory I will always cherish. So, thank you Belinda for not only the great music, but for being a great ally as well.