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Circle in the sand
Round and round
Rising of the moon
As the sun goes down
And you complete
The heart of me
Our love is all we need

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Belinda Carlisle is largely regarded as a throwaway pop singer from the 1980s, but personally, I find her to be one of the classiest performers to come out of the decade of excess. However, in reviewing her works and rediscovering my own love for her music, I can certainly understand why it is that Belinda’s popularity faded as years went by, and why it is that people aren’t generally interested in her. Her artistic merit derives almost entirely from the fact that she can sing her damn heart out. With a shaky smooth and highly feminine personality, Belinda usually has top-notch vocals that got better with age—she’s a fine wine. Unfortunately, she rarely contributes to her own songwriting, meaning that she gets handed a lot of crap from her team. And in listening to her highly-successful album Heaven on Earth, I find myself wondering exactly why it is this is the album that people usually turn to. Sure, this record gave Belinda her biggest hit and signature tune, but outside of that, this album is overfilling with a lot of mediocre material that doesn’t exactly titillate like Live Your Life Be Free or have the magic of Runaway Horses.

I’ve chucked a few extra Belinda albums onto my mp3 player lately to really delve into her music. I think that I got a little tired of her before I was able to sink my teeth into your discography, and as a result of overplaying the song I Won’t Say I’m in Love, Belinda took a backseat to other artists. And because she never got too experimental with her sound, I usually went back to the songs I already knew I liked. So, this is a way for me to be a true listener and give her my full attention. And as I listen to this record right now, I understand its success—but I think it rides off of three songs that were lately slapped onto Her Greatest Hits in 1992. The album is immortalized for the title-track, which features one of the best hooks of her career. Come on, now. Who can’t help but have the chorus stuck in their head when they hear it on classic-rock radio: “Ooh, baby, do you know what’s that worth? Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth…” The uplifting message of hope fits very well into the “feminine intuition” style of Belinda Carlisle, and nobody else could ever do the song justice. The album stays on a constant high when it drops into Circle in the Sand, a mysterious half-ballad that seems to take place either on the beach or in a memory.

Unfortunately, the album doesn’t stay memorable or enticing as it progresses. While it hits some other fine and dandy moments, for the most part it’s just kind of a throwaway (there’s that word again). On the bright side, many of the tracks have the potential to be great, and Belinda is really giving it her all; however the melodies are just too half-baked and severely dull. Love Never Dies could have been really good, but it drones on for an astoundingly repetitive five minutes when it really only needed about three to make its point. I dunno if it was what she was going for, but I Feel Free sounds remarkably close to her contemporaries The Bangles—in fact, the production is more or less Walk Like an Egyptian without a real hook. Aside from the Diane Warren-penned I Get Weak, the second half of this record is a dud. The songwriters were certainly channeling some of the cheesiest inspirations they could possibly find, and at times, Belinda comes across a little too much like Tiffany or Debbie Gibson, which isn’t all that cool when the vocals are about thirty years old. While this album certainly sounds like a Belinda album, it just lacks that class and rests solely on 80s gloss. From the point of view of a Carlisle fan, you could certainly find far more compelling works from the singer than this one.

VERDICT
01. Heaven is a Place on a Earth [5 Stars]
02. Circle in the Sand [5 Stars]
03. I Feel Free [2.5 Stars]
04. Should I Let You In? [3 Stars]
05. World Without You [3 Stars]
06. I Get Weak [4.5 Stars]
07. We Can Change [3 Stars]
08. Fool For Love [2.5 Stars]
09. Nobody Owns Me [2.5 Stars]
10. Love Never Dies [3 Stars]

BEST: Heaven is a Place on a Earth and Circle in the Sand
WORST: I Feel Free
SCORE: 3 STARS (3.3)

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BELINDA CARLISLE
1987 - Heaven on Earth
1989 - Runaway Horses
1991 - Live Your Life Be Free
1992 - Her Greatest Hits


Recommended: Yes