No Doubt

Tragic Kingdom

Could be the album from the 1990s I have most listened to

Review Score:

(10/10)
There was a little bit of everything apparently on "Tragic Kingdom," No Doubt's major-label debut album, which spoke to the musical sensibilites of third-wave ska, '90s punk, and Blondiesque pop, not to mention new wave melodies mixed with post-grunge rock, and a heady does of Southern California platinum blonde sex appeal thrown in for good measure.. The suspicion is that producer Matthew Wilder would bear some of this responsibility. This was an album where hits like "Just a Girl" and "Spiderwebs" (yes, I put the opening on my answering machine as a material instantiation of my quest to be postmodern) were as popular with alternative listeners as those in the mainstread, with the ballad "Don't Speak" becoming the big hit (helped, no doubt, so to speak, by its self-efacing music video that tried to keep Gwen Stefani from passing go and immediately overshadowing the band a'la another legendary blonde, Deborah Harry). Sometimes the energy outstrips the melodies, but that is just part of the fun that makes "Tragic Kingdom" one of the most listenable albums of the 1990s (I know it has to be in the top 5 for me from that period and my guess would be that if it has not already passed Sarah McLachlan's "Fumblin' Towards Ecstasy" then it will in relatively short order). You know the hits, so my argument would be that the pivotal track on how much you like this album is going to be "The Climb," which carries off the attempt at pretensions a lot better than the slightly overblown title track. What works on this album works really well and consequently the misfires are easily forgiven.

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