The sticker on the front cover is the tip-off: if you remember the go-go's, then you didn't forget Belinda Carlisle. Fair enough, given pop fans' inherent fickleness, but this is one marketing ploy that's bound to backfire. Even though it has its moments, a sleek, polished piece of product like Belinda is the antithesis of the Go-Go's intelligent girl-group gestalt.

Listening to Carlisle sing, it's hard not to recall her old band: she sounds exactly the same, leavening her gushing vulnerability with just the right touch of moxie, like a liberated Lesley Gore. Now the music is pure state-of-the-art studiocraft, and on the uptempo rock & roll-derived numbers Belinda does more than hold her own. With a sigh, she subtly conveys the trepidation that's part of infatuation on "Mad About You," then goes all soft and gooey on "I Feel the Magic." This woman was born to coo the words "Angel Baby."

But where the Go-Go's could draw on their combined intelligence and songwriting skills to flesh out an LP beyond mere fun, Belinda has to tough it out on her own. "I Need a Disguise" has half an idea floating around in it as well as a full-fledged hook, but the two never connect. Talk-singing part of the way through "Stuff and Nonsense," à la Peggy Lee, Carlisle sounds so put upon, so hurt, that the lyric's hedonistic let's-love-for-today message is belied. She gets her dander up for Freda Payne's "Band of Gold" but captures none of the original's angry soul; she sounds like a little girl whose ice-cream cone has been taken away. (Perhaps she should have gone for something broader, like Jean Knight's sassy "Mr. Big Stuff.")

The problem with Belinda is that all the ingredients are there, but the end result just doesn't feel right. Hell, what does an intuitive, punk-bred performer like Carlisle need with a cadre of studio pros anyway? Maybe some nice girls who always wanted to be pop stars will move into her condo and ... (RS 477)

MARK COLEMAN