Belinda Carlisle

Belinda Carlisle pursued a solo career after leaving the Go-Go's in 1984.

As her solo career progressed, Carlisle removed any of the rough edges remaining in her style, transforming from a new wave rocker to a polished adult contemporary pop singer.

The change was evident on her first album, 1986's Belinda.

Featuring the number three hit single "Mad About You," the record went gold and established her as a viable hitmaker.

The following year, Carlisle released Heaven on Earth, her greatest solo success.

Continuing the immaculately produced mainstream pop of Belinda, the record featured the number one title track, the number two single "I Get Weak," and the Top Ten ballad "Circle in the Sand." Runaway Horses, released in 1989, was another successful album, spawning the hit singles "Leave a Light On" and "Summer Rain," yet it showed signs that her audience was shrinking.

That suspicion was confirmed by the dismal performance of 1991's Live Your Life Be Free, which failed to make the charts.

Real, released in 1993, didn't revive Carlisle's career and she subsequently joined the re-formed Go-Go's in 1994.

The Go-Go's reunion was short-lived, even though it was widely praised.

Carlisle returned to solo recording in 1996 with A Woman and a Man, which failed to gain much attention.

A myriad of collections and compilations followed, as well as another Go-Go's reunion.

Carlisle released a new solo album, Voila, in 2007.

~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Belinda Carlisle believes she is lucky to have a nose after 30 years of cocaine addiction.

(BANG) -

Belinda Carlisle considers herself lucky to have a nose.

The 51-year-old singer - who has admitted to taking cocaine for 30 years - claims she counts her blessings and does not consider herself to have "been through the gallows" because of her addiction.

She said: "I am lucky because I seem to have made it through unscathed. I don't look like I've been through the gallows. Hey, I'm lucky that I have a nose!

"Maybe my memory isn't as great as it could have been, but I think it's coming back too. It's by the grace of God that I'm here."

The 'Heaven is a Place on Earth' hitmaker also admits she decided to head to rehab when she thought how humiliating it would be for her 18-year-old son James to find her dead from a cocaine overdose.

She told Parade.com: "I started thinking that I would be found dead in a hotel room of a cocaine overdose, and how humiliating that would be for my son. You can't be my age and doing the amount of cocaine I was doing. I've been sober now for five years."