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The Go-Gos began laughably, with no musical experience and no prospects of record company promotion.
They had no backing from their families and no recognition in the rock industry where women singers are called “chick” singers.
They had an inexperienced manager who pawned her jewellery to promote them because of a “women’s intuition” about their prospects.
How have they done it?
“We work a good 16 to 20 hours a day,” said blonde lead guitarist Charlotte Caffey, an ex-coffee house folksinger and hospital clerk.
“We’re not so cute either. A lot of people don’t realise this until they talk to us. We’re actually tough and ambitious.
“Cute is a media thing. The media tends to want us to be cute. But there is substance there...”
The Go-Go’s cut short their tour when singer Belinda Carlisle broke her ankle at the band’s final Melbourne concert.Credit:Staff photographer
Caffey, 28, is the only member to have had serious musical training.
The Go-Go’s add something to hard work - smartness.
They have succeeded where other all-female groups have failed because, both in their appearance and in their music, they are non-threatening.
The world is not yet ready for a female Cold Chisel, an aggressive, heavy metal approach, though the Go-Go’s could be nothing less than sensational if they made their act a bit raunchier.
Ponytails
Sitting under harsh TV lights at their packed press conference, or gyrating (cutely) on the stage of Sydney’s Capitol Theatre with the backlighting picking out their curly hair, glittering earrings, clown suits and ponytails, the Go-Go’s play right up to their “cute and cuddly” image. Why desert success?
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“There are a lot of boys in town who want to know if you’re single,” asks a male reporter.
There are giggles and smiles and shrugs and finally the pronouncement - “Yes, we’re all single,” which isn’t quite true as some of them do have steady boyfriends. But that’s showbiz, that’s the image.