Belinda Carlisle wouldn’t be the first boomer to look back on her formative years through rose-tinteds, as she does on her new release Once Upon a Time in California, and I dare say she won’t be the last. The erstwhile singer of trailblazing L.A. new-wave punkettes, the Go-Go’s, she has been clean and sober these last 20 years, and, if her releases no longer rattle the upper reaches of the charts, she maintains a strong fanbase, especially in the U.K. and Australia.
Given this is Cover Me Songs, it is worth mentioning, if only in passing, the last two albums that Carlisle has made, if only to refute the idea that this project might just represent more of the same. In 2007 she issued Voila, a set of French chansons, sung in that language, and in 2017, Wilder Shores, made up of chants from the Sikh religion, and sung in Punjabi. That’s a bit, different, eh, as are each the albums.
Once Upon a Time in California harks back to safer ground, mostly to the songs of Carlisle’s childhood in Southern California. Rather than seeking to put any new spin on the large print ballads that these most are, it is her voice that is the single identifying factor for the set; it’s mixed high and proud, awash with luscious string arrangements and spry studio polish. Were it not for that voice, this might come across as too much. Amazingly, it doesn’t, unless I too am similarly nostalgic for balmy and long childhood days. Born on Britain’s rainy south coast, I don’t think so, other than in envy.
Continue reading »
