The Go-Goes are remembered as pop chicks that spawned the career of Belinda Carlisle. However, as the 30^th anniversary edition of their debut album, Beauty and the Beat, shows, this band of sisters were fun loving punkers at heart. They came up at the tail end of the days when punk ruled the Sunset Strip. At first, they could barely play their instruments; a few key lineup changes cured that. Next, they found they could write songs. The rest, as they say is history.

This new edition sounds great and songs like “We Got the Beat,” “Automatic,” “Skidmarks On My Heart” and “Tonite” all are great examples of the new wave 1980’s. The band partied like rock stars and found fame and fortune with a song written by Jane Wieldin and her friend Terry Hall from the band Fun Boy Three in “Our Lips Are Sealed.”

The bonus disc is a live gig from Boston recorded just months after the band released their debut. The gig is rough sounding but the girls crank it up and win the crowd over. There many songs that are not on Beauty and the Beat such as “London Boys,” “Vacation,” “Cool Jack” and “Walking in the Sand” making this a cool peek into the early career of the band.