“Seems like pretty standard stuff. I guess the big deal is that they were women.”
The Go-Go’s were interesting because they started out as a punk band. They reworked the frenetic 180-190 bpm pacing of some of their punk standards to a more commercially viable 150 bpm and the result was a unique, energetic sound that had not been heard before. Consequently their debut album was a massive hit which was completely unexpected.
Perhaps you don’t hear anything spectacular in their music now and that’s because their sound has been endlessly adapted and incorporated into the music that came after them.
Pardon me if you remind me of a woman I saw at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum who saw “nothing special” about the Wright Flyer. She was right that it is a relatively unremarkable aircraft compared to the many spectacular aircraft on display.
But what made it special is that it came first. Sadly, she was oblivious to this.
What made the Go-Go’s remarkable is that they changed everything that came after them. Maybe they’re not a musical Wright Flyer, but maybe they’re analogous to a ‘Glamorous Glennis’.
“What made the Go-Go’s remarkable is that they changed everything that came after them.”
Nonsense.
Their contemporaries Nirvana and Metallica changed everything after them. The pablum pop of the Go Gos would be forgotten if there wasn’t a Broadway musical coming.
Re #15:
Well said.
Their early sounds reminded me of early surf music.
Perfectly stated. The Go Go’s were Great Great.