She gained fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, one of the most successful all-female rock bands of all time, and went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist.

With their chart-topping debut studio album Beauty and the Beat in 1981, the group helped popularize new wave music in the United States.

[1] After the break-up of the Go-Go's in 1985, Carlisle went on to have a successful solo career with radio hits such as "Mad About You", "I Get Weak", "Circle in the Sand", "Leave a Light On", "Summer Rain", and "Heaven Is a Place on Earth".

Carlisle's autobiography, Lips Unsealed, published in June 2010, was a New York Times Best Seller and received favorable reviews.

"[16] After high school, Carlisle worked at a House of Fabrics store, and as a photocopier clerk at the Hilton Hotels Corporation in Los Angeles at age 18.

[26] Soon after leaving the Germs, she co-founded the Go-Go's (originally named the Misfits) with friends and fellow musicians Margot Olavarria, Elissa Bello, and Jane Wiedlin.

Olavarria and Bello were soon out of the group, and the new line-up included Carlisle, Wiedlin, bassist-turned-guitarist Charlotte Caffey, guitarist-turned-bassist Kathy Valentine, and drummer Gina Schock.

[27] All five women were largely untrained musicians, and Carlisle recalls having to use tape as fret markers during their initial songwriting: "[Charlotte] had to show us how to plug in our amps," she said.

[29] In 1984, Carlisle made a foray into acting in the movie Swing Shift, appearing as a band singer alongside Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

"Mad About You" was followed by the Motown-influenced single "I Feel the Magic" written by Charlotte Caffey, and by a cover version of the Freda Payne song "Band of Gold".

Following the success of the album, Carlisle embarked on the Good Heavens world tour, which sold out Wembley Arena in London.

[35] That year, Carlisle also performed co-lead vocals with the Smithereens in a duet with the band's lead vocalist Pat DiNizio on the song "Blue Period".

Subsequent releases "Half the World" and "Little Black Book" (co-written by Marcella Detroit under her real name Marcy Levy) were also hits outside the United States.

[37] The album spawned two further hits in the UK: "Love in the Key of C", and "California", which featured arrangement and backing vocals by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

The first disc featured Carlisle's hits plus three new tracks recorded for the album: the single "All God's Children", and the songs "A Prayer for Everyone" and "Feels Like I've Known You Forever".

Despite being released only seven years after her previous greatest hits compilation, The Best of Belinda, Volume 1, the collection was a success in the UK where it made the Top 20 and was certified gold.

The girls' hold on the current pop world remains so strong that Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong co-writes a song ("Unforgiven") in impeccable Go-Go's drag".

Around the time of the Go-Go's definitive reunion tour, Carlisle appeared nude for the cover feature and a full pictorial of the August 2001 edition of Playboy.

[49] In October 2009, Carlisle took over the role of Velma Von Tussle in London's West End production of Hairspray at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

[52] Between 2011 and 2012, Carlisle embarked on a United States tour with the Go-Go's, which included concerts at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in August 2011 and the Hollywood Bowl in September 2012.

[53][54] In August 2013, Edsel Records released remastered, three-disc versions of Heaven on Earth, Runaway Horses, Live Your Life Be Free and Real.

Later in 2014, Carlisle's three other studio albums, Belinda, A Woman & a Man and Voila were re-issued by Edsel on CD, although there were a number of issues with their production.

[55] Carlisle confirmed in a radio interview in August 2015 that she had completed work on a new studio album, earmarked for release in January 2016.

[68] While Carlisle's discography both with the Go-Go's and in her solo work have been predominately characterized as pop music, some music scholars such as Greil Marcus have noted a confluence of subtle punk influences as well as pop rock, specifically in the Go-Go's early releases (Marcus suggests that any traces of punk influence were carried over from Carlisle's brief tenure in the Germs).

[71] As a singer in the Go-Go's, Carlisle was associated with the new wave genre, and the band was remarked by critics for their style that "inject[ed] punk with the sound of California surf music.

[15] As a teenager, she saw Iggy Pop on the cover of the Stooges' Raw Power (1973) in a record store,[26] an album which she credited as a gateway exposing her to punk and art rock acts such as the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, Roxy Music, and the Sex Pistols.

[73][74] In a 2013 interview, Carlisle stated that despite having recorded an abundance of it throughout her career, she "didn't really listen to pop music", and had recently been inspired by jazz artists such as Miles Davis.

[57] In 2005, at the height of her drug abuse, Carlisle spent three days isolated in a London hotel room binging cocaine.

"[84] On the third day, Carlisle said she had a vision of herself being found dead in a hotel, accompanied by an auditory hallucination in which a loud voice informed her: "You are going to die here if you carry on like this.

"[87] Carlisle states in her autobiography Lips Unsealed: A Memoir (2010) that she has practiced Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the Soka Gakkai International since 2002,[88] and she often mentions in press interviews that she chants Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō daily.