Sunday, October 31, 2021

#47 The Go-Go's

Card #47 in the 1991 MusiCards set features the Go-Go's. Nice huddled-together group shot with some big smiles. It's their only card in the set, though you may recall lead singer Belinda Carlisle also had a pair of solo cards back at #36 and 37.


The back features a stylized wordmark rather than a photo along with the write-up.

The Go-Go's had pretty much already had their heyday by the time I was really getting into music as a kid, but their hits "Our Lips Are Sealed", "We Got the Beat", and "Vacation" were unavoidable, then and still today. In fact, I think I liked them more back in the 90s; at this point I'm kind of sick of those three songs, honestly. I've just heard them so much in my life, lol! And I don't think I could name another Go-Go's song off the top of my head.

But I poked around on Spotify in the interest of this post, listening to a dozen more songs of theirs trying to check out some deeper cuts, and while the songs were fine, I didn't find anything I felt compelled to add to my library. But still, the Go-Go's are A-OK in my book.

Looks like they still regroup for a tour every so often, so that's cool. In fact, they've got a tour kicking off later this year.

I've always thought Jane Wiedlin was especially badass. She did a little acting, but never quite popped as much as she probably could've/should've.

On the subject of popular 80s rock bands comprised by women, I'm surprised The Bangles never got a MusiCard. I'll have to spotlight them in a future Custom Corner. (That segment of mine has kinda been paused this year due to technical difficulties, but it should be returning to the blog in 2022. In the meantime, here's the bonus feature that's been filling in...)

This Month in 1991


Chimpanzees rule the roost in October 1991.

Not a very exciting month for middle school me. The novelty of these old calendar pages of mine has kinda worn off, but dang it, I've come this far, I want to close out the year! Just a couple more after this one. Don't worry, there will be no more old calendar pages in 2022!

So looks like October '91 featured some birthdays to go along with the Halloweentime later in the month. You also get a look at my report card grades, which I'd say are representative of my entire academic career. That's pretty good when you consider how many "sick" days we've seen on this calendar over these past few months. Goes to show you I've always been a slacker. Not a dummy, but not driven enough to ever really make something of himself. And I'm ok with that.

I believe the minor league set received on the 1st must've been 1991 Classic Best, which as I mentioned in a recent Baseball Card Breakdown post, is the only full-length set from my childhood collection that survived "the great possessions purge" as I prepared to move out-of-state years back. But I'm not sure what the checklist received on the 12th was. I wanna say it was maybe a big checklist for the 1990 Pro-Cards minor league cards. I was really into those for a few months back then.

Ok, I'd better hurry and get this published so I can keep up my quota of at least one post per month here. Next month will be Hall & Oates.. oh yeah! 

Any of you readers big Go-Go's fans? Any lesser-known favorite songs of theirs to recommend?

8 comments:

  1. Couldn't be better timing, as the Go-Gos were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night. I like them well enough, but I was always a bigger fan of the Bangles. I guess my pick for a lesser-known song of theirs would be "The Whole World Lost Its Head" which was a later reunion song. The whole first album is really good.

    Another recommendation: "Our Lips Are Sealed" was co-written by Wiedlin with Terry Hall, singer of the English ska bands The Specials and Fun Boy Three. Fun Boy Three did their own, slower version of it. and it's a nice change of pace if you're burned out on the original.

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    1. Ha, yes! My local radio station of choice back in the day, 91X in San Diego, would occasionally have a "battle of the bands" weekend or whatever, where they'd put 2 songs against each other and callers would vote on which they liked better, and then the station would play a couple songs from the winning artist. And I remember one time the DJ put up the Go-Go's "Our Lips Are Sealed" against the Fun Boy Three version. When the Fun Boy Three version won, the DJ was kinda taken off guard and wasn't sure the station even had any more Fun Boy Three songs in their library! haha. I taped them both off the radio and loved them both.

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  2. I have their debut album on vinyl and remember seeing them on Solid Gold back in the early 80's.

    Did a little reading upon them and according to keyboardist Charlotte Caffey, the song "Turn to You" from the Talk Show is about Bob Welch, whom she had dated a few times.

    Although it's not technically a Go-Go's song, check out "Rush Hour" by Jane Wiedlin if you haven't already.

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  3. Great proofreading...I meant to say "Did a little reading about them"...and "from the Talk Show record".

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  4. The Go-Gos were one of those high school bands for me, so I naturally have some appreciation for them and of course respect for their ground-breaking ways. They were one of the groups in the early '80s that forced pop radio away from boring singer-songwriters like Manilow, Fogelberg and Kenny Rogers. Radio started to play the Go-Gos, Human League, Flock of Seagulls, the Motels, etc. So that's what they mean to me.

    I've always liked "Head Over Heels," which was pretty much their last hit of the '80s.

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  5. Really liked the Go-Gos back in the day. We Got the Beat was my favorite song of theirs. Good looking photo and card.

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  6. Go-Gos > Bangles. "How Much More" off their first album is great, also "Head Over Heels" is legendary. There's also a punk-ish demo of "We Got the Beat" that I actually like better than than the album version, rare glimpse into their earlier LA punk days that kinda got washed away (Belinda Carlisle was actually a drummer in The Germs at one point, as hard as it is to believe!).

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  7. Our Lips Are Sealed has been popping up on the MTV Classic videos pretty often, maybe because of their HOF induction.

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