No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom

Recorded across eleven Los Angeles studios between March 1993 and October 1995, Tragic Kingdom took so long to make that the band nearly came apart building it. Eric Stefani left before it was finished. Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal had ended a seven-year relationship and then kept touring together. Out of that came sixteen million copies sold, a diamond certification, and Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Rock Album.

The breakup is the engine. "Don't Speak" is the famous one, but "Sunday Morning," "Happy Now?" and "End It On This" are all picking at the same wound from different angles, and Kanal is playing bass on every one of them. Elsewhere the Anaheim band is still fully intact: "Just A Girl" and "Spiderwebs" run on horns and bounce and a sarcasm that landed harder than anyone expected in 1995. "The Climb" and the title track show a group with far more range than the singles let on. Matthew Wilder produced, Paul Palmer mixed, and the record moves between third-wave ska, new wave and outright pop without ever sounding like it is trying on costumes.

Seven singles across three years, and none of it should have worked. A ska-inflected record from Orange County released into the last gasp of grunge became one of the defining albums of the decade, and it holds up because the songs underneath the horns are genuinely good.

This reissue pressing includes the double-sided lyric and credits insert. On Trauma / Interscope.