20. No Doubt – Trapped in a Box (1992)
Their debut single offered what you might call No Doubt version 1.0, Madness-loving exemplars of the US ska revival. Ignored at the height of grunge, Trapped in a Box is fun – there’s a hint of 30s jazz about its sound – although No Doubt themselves would swiftly move on.
19. Gwen Stefani – Luxurious (2004)
From Gwen Stefani’s debut solo album, Love Angel Music Baby, this is a Nellee Hooper-produced diversion into R&B slow jam territory: G-funk synths, a sample from the Isley Brothers’ early 80s quiet storm classic Between the Sheets, a guest appearance from Gavin Rossdale (speaking French!), a mood of stoned romance and a keen melody at its heart.
18. No Doubt – I Throw My Toys Around (1998)
A deep cut worth digging out, the title suggests it was written specifically for The Rugrats Movie, but the song itself is more weighty. It’s the handiwork of Elvis Costello – who guests on vocals during the chorus – and then-partner Cait O’Riordan: a smouldering attack on female stereotyping.
17. Gwen Stefani – Red Flag (2016)
Stefani’s breakup album This Is What the Truth Feels Like wasn’t quite the roaring solo comeback she might have hoped for, garnering mixed reviews and indifferent sales. But it has its highlights, including Red Flag, on which the wilfully cluttered, synth-heavy sound seems to mirror the state of mind exposed in the lyrics.
16. No Doubt – Settle Down (2012)
No Doubt’s comeback Push and Shove was a crashing commercial disappointment – it was the lowest-selling album in the band’s history – which doesn’t necessarily reflect its contents: for proof, check out opener Settle Down, which once more shifts the band’s longstanding love of Jamaican music in the direction of the dancefloor.
15. Gwen Stefani – Used to Love You (2016)
Despite an opening track called Misery, This Is What the Truth Feels Like seldom seems overwhelmed by sadness. The lyrics of Used to Love You detail the collapse of Stefani’s marriage, but the music – poppy, bright, upbeat – tells a markedly different story: winningly, it ultimately sounds as if she is glad to be shot of him.
14. No Doubt – Hey Baby (ft Bounty Killer) (2001)
Rock Steady was the No Doubt album that went all-out for 00s pop domination – presumably in reaction to the ska- and new wave-focused Return of Saturn – dragging everyone from Pharrell Williams to Prince to Sly and Robbie into the equation. The latter produced Hey Baby, a bold diversion into dancehall with a preposterously earworm hook.
13. Gwen Stefani – Bubble Pop Electric (ft Johnny Vulture) (2004)
In between the hits on Love Angel Music Baby lurked an appealingly ludicrous collaboration with André 3000 (credited as Johnny Vulture) that seemed to spring from the same well of boundary-free creativity as his contributions to Outkast’s later albums: fizzy synth, distorted rock guitar and cutesy harmonies over a stammering, warp-speed rhythm track.
12. No Doubt – Just a Girl (1995)
For UK audiences introduced to No Doubt by Don’t Speak, the other big single on breakthrough album Tragic Kingdom might have come as a shock. It offered a snappy lyric that attacked the role of women in rock aligned to raging pop-punk, albeit with the emphasis on the pop, with a punch-the-air chorus and an impressively raw Stefani vocal.
11. No Doubt – Ex-Girlfriend (2000)
It took five years for No Doubt to follow up Tragic Kingdom: for all its pop-punk zip, Return of Saturn was an emotionally sombre return, with Stefani apparently in the throes of a late twentysomething romantic crisis, as on Ex-Girlfriend, which is simultaneously pacy and wracked.
10. Gwen Stefani – Yummy (2006)
Yummy is audibly the work of the Neptunes, who also made Kelis’s Milkshake: it’s minimal, bass-free, driven by its drum track and regularly interrupted by unpredictable bursts of out-there electronics. For some reason, it got a lukewarm reception – Stefani wanted it as a single, her record label demurred. They were wrong.
9. No Doubt – Underneath It All (ft Lady Saw) (2002)
Not all of No Doubt or Stefani’s reggae-influenced tracks work – at their poppiest, they have a tendency to sound like Ace of Base – but Sly and Robbie’s production, and the presence of guest Lady Saw, gives Underneath It All an authentic tang, complete with dubby echo. And the song on top is fantastic.
8. No Doubt – Spiderwebs (1995)
The hit from Tragic Kingdom that really betrayed No Doubt’s ska-revival roots, Spiderwebs flips off a persistent suitor who appears worrying close to becoming a stalker – “It’s all your fault I screen my phone calls” – and in the process aligns a super-hooky melody to music that flips between reggae verses and punky chorus.
7. Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl (2004)
Inspired by Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust and a bit of snark aimed Stefani’s way by Courtney Love – “She’s the cheerleader and I’m out in the smoker shed” – Hollaback Girl sets its pissed-off but defiant lyrics to a impressively stark backing made of clattering drums and honking synths.
6. No Doubt – Don’t Speak (1995)
That No Doubt had ambitions far beyond ska revivalism was underlined by Don’t Speak: it had nothing whatsoever to do with two-tone and everything to do with straight-up stadium-sized power ballads. Expertly written and emotionally powerful, it’ll turn up on oldies radio for ever.
5. Gwen Stefani – Early Winter (2008)
Of all the collaborators Stefani called upon early in her solo career, Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley was probably the most unexpected, but the song they wrote together turned out to be The Sweet Escape’s highlight: graceful but powerful, Rice-Oxley’s piano underpinned by layers of synthesiser. Clearly Stefani was inspired: her vocal is fantastic.
4. Gwen Stefani – Cool (2004)
Love Angel Music Baby features plenty of hip production fireworks, but sometimes all you need is a great song. On Cool, chugging guitars meet end-of-the-affair lyrics amplified by the melody’s wistful melancholy with timeless results. It would have been a hit at any point in the last 50 years.
3. No Doubt – Hella Good (2002)
No Doubt described their decision to work with the Neptunes as a “cultural collision”, but Hella Good sounds far more symbiotic than that suggests, not least because Chad Hugo and Williams turned up in rock-y NERD mode. The result is a pretty amazing meeting of minds: funky, poppy, but razor-sharp.
2. No Doubt – Sunday Morning (1997)
Not the biggest hit, but definitely the best song on Tragic Kingdom: ska meets Motown – by way of the Clash – with a heavy slug of pop stirred into the equation. Relationship-related bitterness abounds in the lyrics, and Stefani sings them as if she means every mean-spirited word.
1. Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For? (2004)
Stefani was consumed by doubt while making Love Angel Music Baby: beset by writer’s block, unsure why she was going solo beyond the fact that her label wanted her to. She poured it all into What You Waiting For?, which opens with a ballad-like summary of her uncertainty about leaving No Doubt – “What a family … now it’s only me” – then shifts dramatically to a potent electropop/new wave backing, expressing doubts then allaying them with salty notes-to-self: “Take a chance you stupid ho!” Detailing the record company’s expectations for a “hot track”, What You Waiting For? is the perfect answer.
