“Leave A Light On” (1989) by Belinda Carlisle. Why was it her last hit?

She failed to transition to the '90s with the rest of us, that's why.

I Get Weak was the last song that really did it for me.

The Runaway Horses album was full of radio friendly songs. I’ve never heard her say it or read it anywhere but I’m sure it must have come down to her drug taking at the time and her not playing the game of doing all the PR and radio people schmoozing that was needed then to get airplay. I expect the record company also didn’t like her druggie personality so didn’t bother to push for air play either.

She gave up her sobriety and Mad About You look way too soon

The Runaway Horses album campaign was a disaster.

Leave A Light On was a huge hit in the UK and they followed it with La Luna as a Christmas single. It made #38, then Runaway Horses made #40, the Vision Of You made #41. She did in person promo for all 3. In the US they released Summer Rain in January 1990 and it was a moderate hit. I'm not sure they released any more singles in the US. Summer Rain was a big hit in Australia in the spring of 1990

A beefed up remix of We Want The Same Thing was a huge hit in late 1990 and is probably her second most well known song in the UK after Heaven, thanks to its use in an advert. Summer Rain was then released in January 1991 and made the top 30. It was enough to put Runaway Horses back in the top 10.

When Live Your Life Be Free was released in 1991 the title track was a hit in the UK but the US went with Do You Feel Like I Feel. None of the other singles were big hits in the UK but Belinda had a #1 album with her greatest hits in 1992, alongside Kylie and Abba's greatest hits.

Big Scary Animal was a hit in 1993 and In Too Deep and Always Breaking My Heart were hits in 1996. Sadly Belinda's poppers anthem All God's Children didn't follow in the footsteps of other Believe inspired songs like When The Heartache is Over and Not Over You Yet.

Thank you, Captain Wikipedia

She's had quite a few great songs, but yeh too bad she sort of fell out of popularity on the charts. She seems to constantly tour at least. My favorite song of hers (solo) is Goodbye Day.

"Summer Rain" was her follow up to LALO & it stayed at #30 for 2 weeks here in the US before falling back down the chart. At a glance I added up several YT videos & it probably has over 4 million easily so it was probably her last worldwide hit. SR charted the best in Australia where it was in the top 10 for awhile & made the top 40 year end charts.

Rumor has it Belinda confronted a label power player at a party about some decisions over the Runaway Horses album business decisions & cussed him out in front of others. He retaliated & pulled $$$ from her album promotions & it collapsed. It may have had to do with what R5 typed above in the UK decision making moments. Belinda doesn't discuss this in detail in her biography released several years ago which was puzzling to me.

This is kinda before my time, but I’ve recently been wondering how she went from the chubby dykey looking girl in “Head Over Heels” to the glamorous beauty queen that she was later, like in “Heaven is a Place On Earth”? Amazing transformation. Was it just weight loss and hair growth? Did people comment on it back then? My God.

It’s literally just weight loss and longer hair r9. She looks the same outside of letting her hair grow long and losing a lot of weight. Probably with the help of drugs

I can't find it, but I remember reading an article (maybe Rolling Stone) that recounted various episodes of bad behavior during this time period, including getting out of her car on one of the LA freeways, and hitting someone else's car with a bat, and some attitude with the network, resulting in her being quietly banned from MTv before Live Your Life, Be Free came out

R9 I have a now deceased friend who bought all of the star mags back in the 80s & Belinda talked about how she joined the mid 80s fitness craze by using hand weights & jogging to lose the 1984 Head Over Heels weight plus making better food choices.

A rock & roll behind the scenes book about pop music at the time stated that the Go-Go's were the group most addicted to plastic surgery at the time. I don't know how true that was back then.

Bitchlinda burned all her bridges

'84 Belinda =

'86 Belinda =

R14 you’re obsessed with her weight. Yes she was thicker but hardly fat. It wouldn’t be hard to lose that weight.

It also looks like baby far more than anything

She released a song a few months called "Big Big Love" written by Diane Warren that has a good chorus, it did well on some charts.

Too glam, looks obsessed. No longer "cool".

R16 I'm not obsessed with her weight but just pointing out the 2 year difference in her appearance.

I was bullied endlessly at a public school in the 80s & switched to a private one to stop it but it didn't work.

BC & the Go-Go's upbeat solo/group music got me thru my darkest moments in life & I'll always be grateful to them.

Belinda was rumored to be bulimic during the RH era & she doesn't look well in her "Vision Of You" video which might have torpedoed it around the world. It's hard to believe it's the same woman in the video at R15 =

She was a backstabbing cunt and it bit her in the ass

Did someone say baseball bat…hitting a car with a baseball bat?

R22 Maybe someone offered her a sandwich.

I like that song by Diane Warren...I was a big Belinda fan...but didn't even know this song was out.

R24 She released a mini cd of Warren tunes in the spring of 23 with a full album due out next year.

I love her greatest hits album.

Most 80s artists were unable to transition into the 90s when music styles changed. Grunge and Hip Hop changed everything. Only the big A Listers like Madonna and Whitney and a very few others survived the transition.

That’s true. Very few artists careers survived the transition into the 90s. Maybe not so much the very early 90s but by 1993/1994 their style was obsolete in the industry. Madonna, Whitney, MJ, Janet etc. were some of the few who transitioned successfully.

I thought it was funny how so many outlets tried to paint Real as Belinda incorporating grunge into her sound. This was ridiculous. It wasn't as pop-sheeny as her previous solo albums, but it was definitely not grunge. It was a shame, as it was her best solo album.

R29 it seemed Grunde-y to me. I liked it but It's not my favorite of hers.

I remember reading some review of the "Mad About you" video and all it talked about was it was a great song, and how good she looked because "she FINALLY lost some weight, after being the pretty but chubby front girl." I remember even as a young kid how cruel that seemed.

Belinda was ordered to get a glamour makeover when she went solo, her record company didn't want a chubby punk rock girl, they wanted a slim and glamorous pop princess because that was where the big $$$ was at the time (think Whitney Houston).

Much love from me for the album that came after, Live Your Life Be Free - five UK hits, ignored in the US to the point where she supposedly threw a drink in the face of the Al Teller, the guy who was running MCA in the States (kinda can't fault her as she was right) during the label's '91;Christmas party.

(Always thought Runaway Horses was the musical precursor to LYLBF)

Also, her Roxette song (Always Breaking My Heart) makes you want more from that pairing.

Saw her in San Francisco last month and she looked and sounded great. Met her before the show and she was sweet and gracious to her fans. I love her.

[quote] Thank you, Captain Wikipedia

That’s Casey Kasem to you, cunt!

Runaway Horses is a great album.

She looked and sounded great back in 2001 when the Go Go's got back together in 2001 and did that album "Unforgiven".

She probably just aged out like most actresses and singers. Over 30 and you may as well be dead.

She looked so pretty in the Heaven video

[quote]Much love from me for the album that came after, Live Your Life Be Free - five UK hits, ignored in the US to the point where she supposedly threw a drink in the face of the Al Teller, the guy who was running MCA in the States (kinda can't fault her as she was right) during the label's '91;Christmas party.

No one can call Do You Feel Like I Feel or Half The World hits. No one.

The LYLBF album and singles had some amazing artwork. They really pushed the 60s glamourpuss look and it suited her well.

She also had her son and was living in Europe, where she was still big. By the early 90s she didn’t want to spend a lot of time in the US.

I worked for her publicist here in the States when her A Woman and a Man album was released here in 1996, and she did not want to do US promotion. One of the few print interviews she did was with the LA Times, and she told the writer she hated California and did not plan to return.

She was dragged kicking and screaming by the label to New York for press, and tried to cancel all of it at the last minute, including The Rosie O’Donnell show. The Queen of Nice called my boss directly and made it very clear that Belinda would get her ass to Rosie’s studio or else.

Here she is in a rare interview with DL fave Sue Simmons.

Belinda is extremely shy in this one (owning the "deer in the headlights" title) & stutters so much that I can see how others have said that she is more comfortable in the Go-Go's functions =

R41 Belinda herself said she didn't;t get clean and sober until 2001, so she was probably still using.

Orange hair never looks good on a fatty.

Every interview in the UK in the 90s she’d talk about her addiction and how thankful she is she was sober. Lying all the time.

As Nurse Jackie taught us, never trust an addict.

R44 Depends on the wallet.