No Doubt: Rock Steady - Classic or Dud?

But they only had the one album in between it. ;-)

In any event, my dictum still stands. YARGH. Horrid, smelly creatures, all of them.

I saw them on behind the music last night and in interview stefani looked all normal and talked like a person with no neurological disorders so I realized that her entire performing schtick is somehow like the female version of goofy and/or lame rock posturing. it says something that with her I find it offputting but if it were a male singer it would seem normal to me. I wonder if part of their appeal is that stefani really seems to be doing the rock-front(wo)man thing the way it should be done.

"Hella Good" grew on me really quickly though, and "Underneath It All" is pretty damn good too.

I like Gwen Stefani a lot. This album sounds like the work of a producer and not a band. She'll be happier solo anyway.

3 out of 3 = i'm gonna get the album.

"But they only had the one album in between it. ;-)

Actually, after typing that post, I was wondering if they had recorded anything in between those two at all, or whether "A Simple Kind Of Life" was just a soundtrack tune for some teen comedy or other. Still, for a strapping young lad such as myself, it seemed like AGES since No Doubt were any good...

Still, someone should steal all of Gwen's Wet'n'Wild for singing about chamomile in the "Hey Baby" single.

That is a good question. ;-)

Haha when Ned comes to Boston I'm going to bring a boom box to the restaurant and blast "Hella Good" at him all night!

Dan, please. I'm planning on eating my tapas in peace.

i liked 'underneath it all.' i can't remember reading any reviews or anything of this! so i don't know anything about it.

i love almost every song. every song, actually. the three singles songs. 'don't let me down' and 'start the fire' are incredible. it's just so neat how, like, 'start the fire' is some kind of ------- actually, it's just like that guy said up higher in the thread. it might have been another no doubt thread! the guy said something about how it was poppy dancehall crossover or whatever. but he said it in a proper way. because 'start the fire' is so dancehall! it's wicked. it really does have an 80s dancehall thing going on that's pretty cool. like, combine 80s dancehall with synthpop and electro. i don't know. i love the way it ends, too. with 'rock steady.'

if i made a list of my top three favorite albums from this year, i'd put this at number three. i really like it! i haven't even properly listened to it yet. i probably won't start hating it.

If I had to actually sum up exactly why it doesn't work, though, I think I'd have to say that what everyone else sees as some sort of collage of cool producers producing state of the art pop I see -- but more to the point, feel -- as an unfocused attempt to have it all which serves up nothing. It's generic in the worst rather than the best sense, largely because I don't find anything attractive in Ms. Gwen's singing on the one hand and nothing to comment about musically on the other. (The first person who says I hate fun can just fuck right off.)

Somebody earlier this year in one of the local papers said that Gwen S was the best storyteller in music since Morrissey. I've never ever wanted to just scream bloody murder so much. Jeez Louise.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Gwen's NOT still 12 years old, right?

It's a GREAT song if you have graphic-EQ on your car stereo and can just about take the vocal track off of it, and then it makes for AWESOME pissed-off-at-the-moronic-rush-hour-drivers freestyles.

In retrospect, I find that all of my favorite of their songs were written by Gwen's brother Eric (such as the song "Tragic Kingdom"), who quit the group right before they hit it big to become an animator for The Simpsons.

That wouldn't be nearly as fun, though. I completely understand Ned's arguing tactic here because it's exactly the same one I apply to Justin Timberlake.

Only a deep and abiding respect keeps me from saying that Ned hates fun. Whoops. :0

But shit, they were realrealgood on SNL. As others have said, Stefani is just a very capable perfomer, and that bass player ain't no slouch either.

so, in sum, music=dud but show=good.

what exactly were the neptunes responsible for on hella good?

oh, and I smiled a lot. I appreciate that.

I think the lyrics do probably make a difference; the lyrics on hella good and hey baby aren't that great but they're suitably ignorable / creatively readable. the songs where gwen starts to sound more like a 'lyricist' or 'songwriter', well, I am a snob.

And thus happiness is achieved. ;-) If the argument is that No Doubt is still a core band providing explorations on their sound, then it's like me and lima beans -- you can serve up the lima beans in eight million different ways, it's still lima beans and I still hate them. What 'neat noises' are available don't move me much and ultimately strike me as the worst possible things you could have in this context -- something that theoretically brings out more of what's at the heart of it all, but since what is at the heart of it all eats, the effect is pureeing a bunch of styles and making it sound like a ghastly trawl through a mix set where the key stuff that should have been mixed out is front and center! Yargh.