Belinda Carlisle says her new album Once Upon A Time In California marks a “full-circle moment” in her career.
The Heaven Is a Place on Earth hitmaker 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.
The 66-year-old singer 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.”
The Circle in the Sand singer 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.”