Previewing The Go-Go's

The start of Alison Ellwood’s (History of The Eagles) latest documentary The Go-Go’s, it says the band was the first all-girl band to pay all their instruments and write all their singers and were successful. Not too surprising of a factoid. Then the film ends with that same fact but adds that they are the first all-female band who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to reach Number One in the Billboard chart and that no other band has matched that achievement. Now that was surprising. But when you think about it, Hole had a dude in it. Bands like L7 and Bikini Kill did not put much of a dent on the charts. Granted upon further reflection, I guess the band formally known as The Dixie chicks do not count because they are country? And to save you a google search, The Bangles topped out at number two on the albums chart, but had two number one singles and five top ten hits. So that fact does have a few asterisks to it.

I was hesitant to watch The Go-Go’s after watching Showtime’s Duran Duran documentary that pretty much seemed like an extended version of their Behind the Music episode. The Go-Go’s also had a very memorable Behind the Episode where their squeaky bubblegum pop image was dirtied up with tails of drugs and sex. But this documentary seems much more comprehensive than the salacious VH1 episode that aired over two decades ago.

We get a much more in depth look at the early life of the bandmates; include the two early members who did not make it to the first album. The band does not even release their first album until half way through the film, roughly the same time as a full episode of Behind the Music. So we get a lot more detail of that early time in the bands history with the 1979 punk rock scene where being terrible was cool.

Then we get the story of their three successful eighties album where, yes, the drugs and inter-band squabbles brought down the band as detailed in the Behind the Music episode but pretty much ends with the band. There is very little discussion of Belinda Carlisle’s successful solo career and the only time any of their various reunions in the nineties and 00’s were mentioned was a vague reference that when the band in present day is filmed writing their first new song since 2001. I may have not spent much time thinking about the band in the last thirty years, but after watching The Go-Go’s, the doc does make a decent case for their inclusion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Go-Go’s premieres tonight at 9:00 on Showtime.