Belinda Carlisle says her new album Once Upon A Time In California marks a “full-circle moment” in her career.
Belinda has covered artists such as The Carpenters and Harry Nilsson on her new record – which will be released later this month – and is honoured to perform versions of the songs that have meant so much to her.
Speaking to Classic Pop magazine, Belinda said: “It is a totally full-circle moment.
“Just to look out and to know that a lot of the songs that I’ve done in my career, Go-Go’s and solo, have had that same effect the music I listened to every single day had on me… And I know that feeling. It’s a magical feeling.”
Belinda began working on the album back in 2017 and recalled how she had to whittle down a shortlist of 80 songs by eliminating those that didn’t suit her voice.
Belinda said: “It wasn’t just as simple as saying, ‘Oh, I’ll sing that. I’ll sing that.’
“I mean, because there’s a lot of songs on the list that I love, but it just didn’t suit my voice. And I wasn’t going to try to fit my vocal into a song that didn’t work for me.”
Belinda reunited with her Go-Go’s bandmates – Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock and Kathy Valentine – for a mini-tour earlier this year and she savoured their performance at Coachella alongside Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong.
She said: “Everybody has their own lives going on but we put everything aside and for two months got to work together.
“And it was a lot of fun. It was a blast. People had so much, like you said, goodwill. They wanted us to succeed, and I think we did. The response was amazing.”
Belinda added: “I think we made some new fans.
“The demographic out there was all over the place. And I loved seeing teenagers singing the words to the songs, which is amazing to me.”
Belinda has a UK tour scheduled for September but intends to take it easy in 2026.
She said: “I’m going to take, I think, next year completely off and then decide what I want to do.
“I consider myself kind of in semi-retirement, because I don’t really want to tour that much anymore. But I love going into the studio; I think I’ll always do that.”
Stay updated with your free Noise11.com daily music news email alert. Subscribe to Noise11 Music News here
Be the first to see NOISE11.com’s newest interviews and special features on YOUTUBE and updated regularly. See things first SUBSCRIBE here: Noise11 on YouTube SUBSCRIBE
Noise11.com
Follow us at https://bsky.app/profile/noise11.bsky.social
Noise11 on Instagram
Comment on the news of the day, join Noise11 on Facebook
