No Doubt - Return Of Saturn

Following Tragic Kingdom was an almost impossible assignment, and No Doubt did not take it lightly. Two and a half years of touring, several dozen songs written and discarded, a reported million dollars spent, and a tumultuous stretch in the studio with producer Glen Ballard. What came out in April 2000 was not another ska-pop crossover. It was a dense, anxious new wave record about turning thirty and having no idea what you actually want.

The panic is right there in the opening seconds of "Ex-Girlfriend," Adrian Young playing drum and bass patterns at full sprint. "Simple Kind Of Life" and "Marry Me" put Gwen Stefani's ambivalence about domesticity at the center of the record without resolving it in either direction, which is what makes them land. "Bathwater" and "New" are the closest things to straight pop moments, the latter produced by Jerry Harrison. Jack Joseph Puig mixed, Bob Ludwig mastered, and the whole thing sounds deliberately overbuilt in a way that suits the subject matter.

It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. It was also the record that lost No Doubt some of the Tragic Kingdom audience and gained them a different one, and it has aged into the album fans of the band argue for hardest. Twenty-five years on, its neuroses sound less like a misstep and more like the point.

This is the original US double LP pressing, complete with the two-sided 12" color photo and lyric insert. On Interscope.