The funny thing is, as my completely healthy and reasonable fascination with the career of this erstwhile Go-Go slowly gathered momentum in the fashion of the giant boulder that menaces Indiana Jones at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark, I began to notice something: Madonna and Belinda Carlisle's careers have continuously intersected in kooky, unexpected ways. I'm not talking about anything blatant or deliberate. Nothing that's entered the realm of common knowledge. I'm talking about a series of little dinky connections, the kind that only true '80s pop aficionados could spot. For example:
- Mary Lambert directed the video for the Go-Go's' "Turn to You"; Lambert directed the videos for Madonna's "Borderline," "Like a Virgin," "Material Girl," "La Isla Bonita," and "Like a Prayer"
- Donna De Lory briefly sang back-up for Belinda circa 1987; De Lory sang back-up for Madonna from 1987 to 2006 and was a prominent member of her touring "entourage," if you will
- Rick Nowels produced and co-wrote almost all of Belinda's solo material; Nowels co-wrote three songs with Madonna on her Ray of Light album
- Tony Ward starred in the video for "I Get Weak"; Ward starred in the videos for "Cherish," "Justify My Love," and "Erotica"
- Sandra Bernhard famously hung out with Madonna in the late '80s; Bernhard has less-famously hung out with Belinda for decades
- Madonna released two songs on the VisionQuest soundtrack; as I discovered years ago, Belinda sang backing vocals on a throwaway Don Henley track that also appeared on the VisionQuest soundtrack
Here's how you know Madonna's and Belinda Carlisle's destinies are truly intertwined: Madonna was born the day before Belinda was. Read that sentence again carefully. I don't just mean that Madonna's birthday is one day on the calendar ahead of Belinda's. Oh no. Madonna was literally born the day before Belinda was. Madonna Ciccone was born on August 16, 1958. Belinda Carlisle was born on August 17, 1958. They are almost the same exact age. Do you know what that means? Do you know what that means?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Kinda weird though. Right?
All these shared colleagues and communal moments, and yet, I don't believe the two of them have ever actually met each other. If they have, Belinda has never mentioned it, although she's frequently expressed genuine admiration for her contemporary. Judging from an infamous scene in Truth or Dare, however, the same might not be said of Madonna. Once upon a time, the clip was on YouTube, but if I recall correctly, it features Madonna sitting in her dressing room, looking snotty and bored, while the aforementioned Donna De Lory sings a snippet of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" (a song that, as Belinda's backing vocalist, she would have known quite well), as a female companion continuously pounds her back, thus generating an exaggerated approximation of Belinda's prominent vibrato. As De Lory does this, Madonna mutters something like "These girls annoy me." You know what probably annoyed Madonna? The fact that, no matter how many more records she sold, no matter how much more seriously rock critics took her music, no matter how many more pretentious journalistic think-pieces she inspired, she would never approach the effortless physical majesty that was late '80s Belinda Carlisle. And Madonna wasn't the type to let that kind of superficial shit roll off her back.
Anyway. What I'm trying to say is this: the comparison had been bubbling around in my brain for a while, but I couldn't quite condense it into a simple, marketable phrase. Then one day, it came to me:
Lazy Madonna.
BOOM. That's why they pay me the big bucks, people. Belinda Carlisle's career is exactly what Madonna's career might have looked like ... if Madonna had been much, much lazier. Which is not to suggest that Belinda has been lazy. She has achieved more in her lifetime than I ever will. I mean this in the most flattering way possible. Belinda's laziness is part of her charm. Who can relate to Madonna? She's like a giant amorphous blob of ego. Belinda is all too mortal, all too human, but therein lies the beauty of life itself.
Belinda is like the In-N-Out to Madonna's McDonald's. In-N-Out is a successful franchise. Many who eat there tend to prefer it to McDonald's. But would anyone dare to suggest that In-N-Out has had a bigger impact on the fast food industry than McDonald's? Or, in baseball terms, Belinda is like the Kenny Lofton to Madonna's Barry Bonds. Lofton was a fun player, made the All-Star team, had some priceless playoff moments. Most MLB players would kill to have had the kind of career that Kenny Lofton had. Many fans might be personally more fond of Lofton than they are of Bonds. But Bonds was simply on another level. They were not equals.
I used to feel ashamed of myself for daring to think of Belinda as a performer even remotely comparable to Madonna. One day I took a peek at the All Music Guide, to see if they had any light to shed on the matter. I looked up Madonna and clicked on the "Similar Artists" tab. And there, at the very end of a long list of artists, I mean the absolute last name listed, was Belinda Carlisle. I had to smile wryly to myself. It's like someone at AMG was thinking, "Yeahhhh, I guess, she's sorta kinda like Madonna, maybe if you're generous." She just barely squeaked in. (Curiously, on the same page now, Belinda is the tenth name listed, out of roughly fifty. I think my blog series might have raised her standing?)
I say all this as a prelude to a discussion of Belinda's 1989 single "La Luna." If Belinda Carlisle is Lazy Madonna, then "La Luna" is Belinda Carlisle's "La Isla Bonita." It is Rick Nowels deciding that, hey, if Madonna can sprinkle a little pico de gallo onto her otherwise Anglocentric pop confections, then damn it, so can Belinda. Behold as Belinda tangos through a soundscape of spidery flamenco guitar, prickly castanets, and feisty ... I want to say ... chopping blocks? (I demur to anyone else who can more accurately describe the percussion sound that drives the chorus.)
I can just see Rick and Ellen now. "How do we make our cheesy Belinda ballad a little more ... cosmopolitan, a little more ... Mediterranean?" A song called "The Moon"? Borrrr-ing. Ah, but a song called ... "La Luna" ... now's that exotic, that's mysterious. It's like "The Moon" ... but in Spanish. Muy bueno, mis amigos. Especially effective is the quick name-drop of Marseille, which, to any of my fellow Count of Monte Cristo fans out there, should instantly evoke tales of vengeful lust and passionate intrigue.
Belinda hams it up nice and convincingly on the verses, although during the pre-chorus she seems to hit the lower limits of her register, as if she is dipping her throat in the moonlit sea, only to soar abruptly upward on the chorus toward the celestial body in question, the droplets flowing from her fiery locks. By the time the chorus arrives, the castanets, chamber maids (fine, back-up vocalists), and acoustic minstrels seemingly link arms and form a circle in the village square, and frankly, I half expect someone to shout out "Olé!" Suddenly after the second chorus, the flamenco guitarist finds himself in a dank, cobblestone-littered alley, face-to-face with a sexy, menacing violinist. The duel is on! Her eyelids flicker in the moonlight, luring him onward, onward! Then after the bridge, our fiddling she-devil clones herself and surrounds poor Belinda with the sweet sounds of her strings. What can save her? What else: a key change! Amusingly, "La Luna" may sport the best Stephane Grappelli-style violin fade-out this side of Bob Dylan's Desire (heard in full on the album mix).
"La Isla Bonita" hit #4 in the US and #1 in the UK. So if, as I propose, Belinda is Lazy Madonna, then how did "La Luna" do? Fittingly, it didn't do squat over here, and managed to peak in Britain at a whopping ... #38. Ay Carumba. To say that it deserved better is to say that a starving orphan deserves better, but that's OK. "La Luna" is here any time people want a taste of its sultry carnal magic.
The video finds our former Dottie Danger wearing the Contact Lenses of Death. I mean come on, Belinda's eyes were naturally beautiful, but I'm pretty sure they weren't that beautiful. They didn't leap out of her skull with the incandescent radiance of glistening jewels. Those have got to be lenses people. It's like her eyes have been dipped in a fairy godmother's kiss. They're not even blue, they're some kind of hyper-blue. At any rate, Belinda spends most of the video stretching, posing, and flipping that wavy red hair in her luxurious bed, having apparently become Marie Antoinette, clutching a strategically-placed sheet to her chest, trying not to accidentally freeze her entire kingdom with her eyes. Is it just me, or does this castle possess some surprisingly bright candles? Interspersed are images of Belinda's court arriving at what appears the be the erotic costume ball from Eyes Wide Shut (the violinist apparently being played by Rumpelstiltskin), as well as oddly anachronistic shots of modern day Belinda strolling around an unspecified European city, looking decidedly un-sorceress-like, and some studly piece of Eurotrash who could go toe-to-toe with George Michael in a stubble contest. Dios mio! Favorite YouTube comments:
i"m sure those eyes have killed many times... innocently or not
She is so god damn beautiful in this video clip with such an angel's voice. PS: Stephanie don't break up with me over this comment pls
They must have airbrushed out the angel's wings on Belinda's back.
I think Belinda Carlyle would look great covered in gooey custard.
She looks like she's trying to shoo away flies with her hair at the start.
HER FACIAL BONE STRUCTURE IS AN AESTHETIC FEIST
Given that Belinda is sitting down for 90% of this vid, she sells it 100%.
I'd eat raisins out of that juicy fart box of hers, and I fucking hate raisins!
2 comments:
This is one of the most well-written pieces ever written, on every level!!!
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