They played at the Billboard awards in the US a few years ago, and sat watching the younger female artists perform. In the DIY spirit of the 1970s, says Carlisle, “There were tons of clubs to play in and learn as you went along, and a scene that supported bands that were horrible, like us, in the beginning.” And for women artists, she points out, there is so much pressure to be polished and sexy in a way The Go-Go’s never were. The music landscape is so different now, with bands having lost ground to solo artists. But you need a record company that really loves music, and a lot don’t nurture their artists like they used to.” “I don’t think it has to do with sexism, because something like The Go-Go’s, with the right material, could be huge. Why has no all-woman band matched their achievement in nearly 40 years? “I really have no idea,” says Carlisle. 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. She laughs at the memory but also adds that it was "very intimidating. On the phone from her home in Bangkok, Carlisle, who is now 64, is warm and unguarded. 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. The documentary also refocuses perceptions of Carlisle. As with many women artists, belittled for years by the male-dominated music industry and press, the recognition feels long overdue. It tells the story of how these scrappy young Los Angeles punks put together a band (the line-up 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. The Go-Go's have had a reappraisal in the past year, thanks mainly to a documentary by the film-maker Alison Ellwood. "But when it actually happens, it's, 'Oh, this is not so bad.'" "I always said, 'F**k them, I don't care,'" says Belinda Carlisle, the band's lead singer. 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. It hardly matters – who really cares about these things? – and yet it does.
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