Records label, the album reached number one on Billboard's Top LPs & Tape chart in March 1982, bolstered by its two big Hot 100 hit singles: "Our Lips Are Sealed" (no.
In the late 1970s, Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, and Margot Olavarria met while attending punk rock shows in California.
[6] A few months later, Charlotte Caffey joined the band as the lead guitarist since she had experience writing music with other groups like the Eyes.
[6] The Go-Go's developed a reputation within the Hollywood punk scene and were invited to open for the band Madness on a UK tour.
[7] Tensions between band members resulted in Bello and Olavarria leaving the Go-Go's and they were replaced by drummer Gina Schock and bassist Kathy Valentine.
Robert Christgau found the album good and wrote "this one's got hooks" in his column in The Village Voice,[19] while Jon Pareles in Rolling Stone called it a "solid, likable debut".
AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Beauty and the Beat "one of the cornerstone albums of new wave" and praised its "catchy hooks and an exuberant sense of fun",[1] while Rolling Stone's Warren Zanes wrote that the band "showed that elemental pop rock & roll remained as viable as ever.
"[21] Eric Allen of American Songwriter, reviewing the album's 2011 deluxe edition, wrote that Beauty and the Beat is "one of the 1980s cornerstone albums of American new wave" and "still holds up surprisingly well thirty years later, which is a testament to the energetic spirit captured in this musical zeitgeist of the 80s"; on the other hand, it is also "a reminder that the Go-Go's were never able to equal or surpass the success of this landmark debut".
[22] Classic Rock History critic Emily Fagen rated 4 songs on the album as being among the Go-Go's best – the two hit singles plus "Lust to Love" and "How Much More".
[23] "When I was about seven, I discovered the Go-Go's," said American actress and author Drew Barrymore in an essay published by the magazine V. "I went out and bought their album Beauty and the Beat and, as the vinyl twirled, my whole world changed.