Lawrence.com

"God Bless the Go-Go's," the all-female rock band's first album of new material in 17 years, doesn't sound quite right. I figured out one reason why: I wasn't listening to it in the car.

So I duped the CD onto a cassette, popped it into the tape deck and lit out, naturally, for a reckless drive to the mall. Along the way, things started to sound like the Go-Go's of yore: "Hello, world, we're here again," sings Belinda Carlisle � that San Fernando Valley helium-intake ingenue � on the album's vigorous opening track, "Living Life in La-La Land."

Ah, La-La Land, which is to say Los Angeles. Like the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas before them, the Go-Go's greatest contribution to hormonekind was to make everyone feel a bit more Californian, even if you lived in Iowa, or Minsk.

The idea embedded into the band's pop-punk sound (easy on the punk) was that all anyone had to do to be a Go-Go was get herself to the nearest mall, preferably via convertible. Palm trees, real or imagined, helped.

The dear, departed Sherman Oaks Galleria hatched proto-Valley Girls and was the setting of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" � a crucial 1982 film that opened to the Go-Go's anthemic hit "We Got the Beat."

What did it all amount to? It made one more niche market out of post-boomers.

Behind 'Behind the Music'

In 1985 the Go-Go's imploded the way rock bands do: Lead singer Belinda Carlisle, looking coked up even to my teen-age eyes, victimized herself with complimentary deli trays; guitarist Jane Wiedlin, stung by second-fiddlehood, set off to record her own squeaky solo albums. Guitarist Charlotte Caffey was addled by "carpal tunnel syndrome," which turned out to have been PR doublespeak for "heroin addiction"; drummer Gina Schock underwent open-heart surgery; bassist Kathy Valentine simply quit, a few months before the band quit itself.

They were five stubborn women with more personal problems and backstage quarreling than even VH1's deft "Behind the Music" was able to digest in an hourlong documentary last year.

"'Behind the Music' was the most grueling interrogation I have ever been through," said Valentine, 42.

VH1 "did five or six hours of on-camera interviews with each of us," she said. "In the end, I guess there wasn't enough room for them to show us talking about the good things that happened.

"For every one negative thing that might have happened, there were 10 things that were great. We were living our dream. We were happy a lot. Obviously something is there, or we wouldn't keep bouncing back to one another and stick it out."

The Go-Go's have a record contract with Beyond, a label specializing in second chances for '80s bands � Blondie and the Violent Femmes among them � and has the Go-Go's traveling economy class to gigs.

"We are not rich. We have to sell a lot of records before we make any money," Valentine said. "But when we do, it's split 50-50 instead of the kind of record contract you'd see if we were just starting.

"Also, we had a lot more say in what kind of album we would make. Obviously we've changed. I don't think the reaction will be 'Oh, they should have quit while they were ahead.'"

'Generation Ringwald' reunion

The Go-Go's have re-formed before, briefly in 1990 and again in 1994. Carlisle remade herself into an Ann-Margret-looking staple of adult contemporary radio hits in the late '80s; the others started new bands or went solo, with little success.

The market opened significantly two summers ago for a Go-Go's reunion. Last year they toured with the B-52's. It was where Generation Ringwald got reacquainted with itself, finding refuge from a strange, new Eminem kind of world.

Here, the Go-Go's themselves started having the fun they forgot to have 20 years ago.

"To be honest, we weren't very in touch with the teen-agers who listened to our music the first time," Valentine said. "Now we meet them everywhere. People come up and tell us the most incredible stories about what our music meant to them."

Go-Go's grow on you

What are we to make of "God Bless the Go-Go's"? The edge the album seeks is there, in a Sela Ward demographic sort of way (all the Go-Go's are in their 40s now; two are moms). For kicks, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has condemned the cover art, which portrays the musicians as saintly virgins.

There's one stunning single, "Unforgiven," co-written by one of those closet guy-fans, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. There's something unexpectedly catchy to "Vision of Nowness," which I liked a whole lot better once Valentine explained that the title comes from a compliment once paid to Carlisle by Sammy Davis Jr.

Other cuts are hopelessly Go-Go-ified � songs about being stuck in your car ("Stuck in My Car"), kissing the asphalt ("Kissing Asphalt") and an editorial about stick-thin supermodels ("Throw Me a Curve").

But don't fast-forward through them, because "God Bless the Go-Go's" can have this irritating way of growing on you. That's been the trick all along to understanding the Go-Go's and, by some extension, almost all chick rock: A woman with a guitar has something entirely different to impart. The real problem is usually with male ears.

With new Go-Go's banging around in my brain, I'm aware how much has changed. This is punk rock (still easy on the punk) for people who shop at A Pea in the Pod or Restoration Hardware.