It was pretty brave of them to trash the image that was sold to the public in the 80s. Pure bubblegum pop, presented as fun close friends, almost a Monkees for the 80s.

IRL they constantly fought. The singer had a huge ego. The main songwriter was a junkie who almost died. The other songwriter was bipolar and suicidal. All of them were heavy drinkers and drug users and had their share of guy groupies.

That's much of the appeal. It's like an extended Behind the Music episode where you find out the Partridge Family had drug problems and the singer hated his father and being a sex symbol. The Go Gos hated the happy smiley front they had to put on.

Some of the pretensions and claims made by the doc and band are laughable. Best selling girl group? The Supremes. The first to play their own instruments? Runaways, for rock. Actually there were all female jazz groups since the 40s.

First all women punk rock group? The Slits. Really the list of accomplished famous and influential women musicians better than them is long, going all the way back to Odetta and Maybelle Carter in the 20s.

And the Go Gos were never punk for the year and a half they claimed to be. They were just barely new wave. They hung around the early scene, played three song sets, and could barely play at all by their own account. But their songs had none of the anger of punk, and they were already pop by the time the scene turned hardcore.

In some ways they were posers. You hear them talking about "England where punk began." Are they kidding? Never heard of the Ramones, Dictators, MC5, or Stooges? Or for that matter, punk goddess Patti Smith.

So yes, "successful pop girl group in the 80s for four years." They definitely don't deserve the RNR Hall of Fame. But it is interesting to watch them tear apart their own good girl image.

This is a documentary about the 80's girl band which broke some glass ceilings and ends up breaking up themselves. When band members make their own doc or biopic, one is always concerned about the truthfulness or any slanting of reality. They do bang the drum hard on their groundbreaking nature. It's a well earned badge but maybe they hit it too many times. As for the truth, they don't skip their drug-taking or the infighting. In that sense, they are relatively truthful. The years have mellowed them and given them introspection. That probably helps. At its core, this band fell into the same traps as most others whether girls or not. They may have run into different issues but the road they traveled on are very familiar. Also, they have some fun songs.

"The Go-Go's" (2020 release; 98 min.) is a documentary about "the most successful female rock band of all time". As the movie opens, we are reminded (for the first, but not the last, time) that the Go-Go's are the only all-female rock band to write and perform their own songs who scored a Billboard No. 1 album. We then go to "Los Angeles, 1979" as the local punk scene is small but ferocious and a number of the eventual Go-Go girls are very much a part of it (check the footage and photos of Jane Wiedlin attending a show at the Masque). We then turn to Belinda Carlisle as she too came up through the SoCal punk scene. "The punk scene was safe and welcoming" she comments. "You don't know what you are doing? Just do it!" At this point we are 10 min. into the documentary.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from long-time documentarian Allison Ellwood. Here she brings the story of the Go-Go's, very much like those erstwhile VH-1 "Behind the Music" episodes. The documentary's first 45 min. are absolutely flawless, benefiting from the amazing amount of archive footage and pcitures from the early days. The band's first (1980) tour of the UK (opening for the Specials and Madness) gets ample attention, and rightfully so. Equally transfixing is the band's evolution from punk to new wave to pop. Confesses Charlotte Caffey (on writing "We Got the Beat"): "I was sacred. I thought the girls would throw me out of the band for writing a pop song." Absolute genius! The band's meteoric rise is as dazzling as it is dizzying (reaching No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with their 1981 debut album). They would never achieve such heights again. The second half of this documentary isn't nearly as compelling as, predictably, it focuses on the band's in-fighting, drug addictions and ultimate demise (and return). The biggest flaw, or annoyance, of this film, though, is the repeated pleas to get the Go-Go's in the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. Do they belong? For sure. But hitting you over the head with this in a documentary isn't really the way to go.

"The Go-Go's" premiered a few days ago on Showtime, and is now available on SHO On Demand, Amazon Instant Video and other streaming platforms. If you are a fan of the Go-Go's from back in the day, or simply are a music fan, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.