Live Your Life Be Free is the fourth studio album by American singer Belinda Carlisle, released in 1991 by MCA Records in the United States and Virgin Records in the United Kingdom. This was the first of Carlisle's albums not to appear on the US Billboard charts (although it did chart on the rival Cash Box charts). The album was also the last of hers to produce a US Billboard Hot 100 single ("Do You Feel Like I Feel?", number 73). The album fared better in the UK, where it peaked at number seven.
Carlisle co-wrote two of the tracks on the album: "Loneliness Game" and "Little Black Book" (which went to number 28 on the UK Singles Chart).
The song "You Came Out of Nowhere" begins with a sample from the opening of "Nobody Told Me", a song by John Lennon that was released in 1984.
Live Your Life Be Free was re-released on August 26, 2013, in a 2CD+DVD casebook edition from Edsel Records, featuring the original album remastered, as well as single versions, remixes and B-sides. The DVD features the videos from the album and an exclusive interview with Carlisle discussing the album.[2]
Billboard called Live Your Life Be Free "pleasantly engaging" and "much more consistent" than its 1989 predecessor Runaway Horses, noting that it "shows Carlisle's vocal growth as she stretches with different styles."[11]Cashbox remarked that "you might notice a certain maturity coming from the girl who sang 'We Got the Beat' 10 years ago-go", describing the album as "a slight departure" from Carlisle's previous albums and noting her songwriting contributions on "Little Black Book" and "Loneliness Game".[12]
Deborah Kirk of Rolling Stone was more critical, finding that "while her vocal technique has improved, her taste in songs has changed very little", and adding, "Every track... is a love song, a problem for the listener looking for depth or diversity. Carlisle's biggest shortcoming, however, is a failure to impart any real feeling to the words she sings... Carlisle merely stirs up a nostalgia for carefree girl groups singing gooey love songs – giving Live Your Life a certain giddy, pointless coherence."[8]
In a retrospective review, Justin Kantor of AllMusic said that Live Your Life Be Free found Carlisle adding "a bit of dance flavor to her signature pop/rock stylings" and showed her "to be capable in a variety of musical contexts, and is a pleasing listen throughout."[1] Steve Harnell of Classic Pop noted that "the two-pronged songwriting team of Nowels and Shipley feature throughout here but the material... lacks the bite of Heaven on Earth and Runaway Horses... There is plenty to enjoy here, though, from the upbeat pop-rocker of the title track with its oh-so-rawk guitars and the singalong jangle-pop of 'Do You Feel Like I Feel?', which comes with a de rigueur early-90s electric sitar solo."[13]
Charts
The album sold better outside the U.S. and managed to enter the top 10 in the UK, where it was certified gold. Outside the UK the album charted No. 21 in Sweden for 10 weeks and No. 27 in Australia.
The first single release outside the United States was the album title track, which peaked at No. 11 in Italy, No. 12 in the UK, No. 16 in Sweden and No. 13 in Australia. In the U.S. the first single to be released was "Do You Feel Like I Feel?", which was the last Carlisle single to enter the U.S. top 100.
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