FEATURE:
Hella Good
No Doubt’s Rock Steady at Twenty
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NOT many albums…
are celebrating anniversaries at this time of year. No Doubt’s fifth studio album, Rock Steady, was released on 11th December, 2001. The band began writing the album with initial recording sessions in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They travelled to London and Jamaica to work with various performers, songwriters, and producers. I think that it is a very different-sounding album compared to their 1990s output. Many reviewers gave it a low score or were not that hot on it. I feel it is an album with some sensational moments – such as Hella Good and Hey Baby! -, capped by performances from a band at the top of their game. Gwen Stefani’s vocals are especially addictive and strong! I feel one problem some had with Rock Steady is that there is less of the guitar, bass and drum sound of their other albums. There are more electronic sounds from keyboards. In 2001, there were quite a lot of artists nodding back to the 1980s and that sound. Stefani, to me, is the star of Rock Steady in terms of her vocal range and the emotional impact she provides. I wonder whether, on its twentieth anniversary, there will be any reissues of the album. It is one of my favourite No Doubt albums. My favourite song of theirs, Hey Baby, is a classic from 2001. Rock Steady is a terrific album that should be played a lot more.
I want to source a couple of positive reviews for Rock Steady. In their assessment of a hugely underrated album, SLANT had this to say:
“With Rock Steady, released in December of 2001, No Doubt completed their transmogrification into life-sized cartoons and unwittingly supplied the world with its gooiest post-9/11 balm. “It’s icky, it’s sticky, ooh!” Gwen coos on the propulsive “Waiting Room,” a collaboration with the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince that was originally meant for Saturn. Prince helped the multihued frontwoman of the world’s biggest ska-pop outfit further explore her inner-kitsch and the finished product fits snugly alongside the electro-pop, dancehall, and new wave of Rock Steady than it ever would have on No Doubt’s previous effort. While slower tracks like “Running” and “Underneath It All,” co-written by The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, sound like super-polished Saturn leftovers, the album offers up more of the new wave deliciousness that was promised with 1999’s “New,” the band’s collaboration with Talking Head Jerry Harrison—“Don’t Let Me Down” and “Platinum Blonde Life,” produced by The Cars’ Ric Ocasek, both deliver a head-rush circa 1981.
Not since Blondie—an earlier example of a band eclipsed, perhaps, by its frontwoman—has a rock act so effortlessly, irreverently, and fashionably skidded across so many different genre boundaries at one time. The retro “Hella Good” previewed Gwen’s dance-pop ‘80s fetish, which came to a head on last month’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
But Rock Steady never abandons No Doubt’s more obvious roots; the dancehall rocker “Hey Baby” and the feel-good dub of “Start the Fire” find the band sunnier (and tighter) than ever. Even beneath the sheen of “Underneath It All” you can hear Tom Dumont’s signature guitar riffs. And Gwen’s lyrics are still personal, only the focus is no longer bassist Tony Kanal, but future husband Gavin Rossdale. Impatience is a central theme, whether it’s long distance lust on the William Orbit-produced “Making Out” (“The flowers arrive to my surprise/But that just ain’t good enough”), patience on “Waiting Room” (“What a price this traveling love”), and trust and suspicion on “In My Head” (witnessing her own band’s backstage antics surely didn’t help—see “Hey Baby”).
Rock Steady’s title track is the centerpiece of the album, a dub lullaby that seems to tie the whole record together thematically (“Love is like a punishment/Homegirl here to represent,” Gwen sings) and musically (not that it needed tying together, despite its seven different production teams). Rock Steady is rife with the kind of songs that conjure vivid images in the listener’s mind, and that’s a testament to both the band’s music and Gwen’s lyrics. When first hearing “Detective,” you can almost see the film noirish video that could have been. The track is home to a tarty hip-hop melody that was probably picked up somewhere between Gwen’s duet with Eve and the band’s studio dabblings with Dr. Dre and the Neptunes (only one of those collaborations, “Hella Good,” made it onto the final record). But personality crises aside, Rock Steady is as consistent an album (and as enjoyable a listen) as one can expect from a band that refuses to stand still.
I am going to end with a review from AllMusic. They started the review by stating that Rock Steady is an album from a band getting back into the swing of things having left fairly big gaps between previous releases:
“Five years separated Tragic Kingdom and its 2000 follow-up, Return of Saturn. About 15 months separated Saturn and its sequel, Rock Steady -- a clear sign that No Doubt was getting back to business, but it's really a more accurate reflection of Gwen Stefani's stature in 2001. Once Saturn started slipping down the charts -- apparently, the kids weren't ready to hear a post-new wave album about facing your thirties with your biological clock ticking -- Stefani started popping up all over the place, appearing on Moby's remix of "South Side" and duetting with Eve on "Let Me Blow Your Mind." These were major, major hits, restoring luster to Gwen Stefani, and therefore, No Doubt, while giving them some hip-hop/dance credibility (albeit rather small cred), so it was time to turn out another record to capitalize on this re-opened window. Smartly, they followed a Madonna blueprint by working with several producers -- Nellee Hooper, Sly & Robbie, Ric Ocasek, Prince, Steely & Clevie -- and running it through Mark "Spike" Stent for mixing and additional production, thereby giving it a unified sound while covering all the bases.
And they certainly cover all their bases, retaining their footing in new wave and ska revival while ratcheting up their fondness for reggae (specifically, dancehall and ragga, unfortunately; the guest toasters are the only real misstep here) and their newly acquired taste for dance and hip-hop. It's a testament to No Doubt's abilities as a band (not to mention their sheer likeability; they're just so good-hearted and unpretentious, it's hard to imagine getting angered about this band) that it neither sounds like pandering to the charts or the opening salvo in Stefani's solo career -- it simply sounds like a good, hooky, stylish mainstream pop record, something that's rather rare in 2001”.
I really love Rock Steady, and I feel that it is an album that did not get as much credit as it deserved when it came out. With some truly terrific songs throughout, go and listen to it ahead of its anniversary of 11th December. I have been dipping in and out of the album since 2001 and am still not bored of it! Twenty years after its release, Rock Steady still sounds…
AS fresh as ever.