Happy 20th Anniversary to No Doubt’s fifth studio album Rock Steady, originally released December 11, 2001.
As their fifth studio outing, 2001’s Rock Steady offers a glimpse into the world of No Doubt and reflects the grooves, emotions, and lingering expectations swirling around them. Coming off the meteoric rise of their widely popular third album Tragic Kingdom (1995), their follow-up effort, the underrated Return of Saturn (2000), failed to spark the imagination as much as they had hoped.
Victims of their own success and the heavy weight on their shoulders, the band lost a little of their focus and purpose. So, the approach taken for Rock Steady was to worry less and play more. Embracing the dance hall musical styles they were enjoying in post-show parties, the band set to work on creating an album as fun and free of pressure as they could.
The result is an album that definitely has an upbeat vibe to it that floats with a sense of purpose and optimism. Track after track, No Doubt bring their A-Game with their most focused and hit-heavy release. In fact, the album covers so much musical ground, both reflecting No Doubt’s sound and the music that influenced them, that it works almost like a greatest hits album.
From the get-go, the album grabs you with the high-energy banger “Hella Good,” co-written by hitmakers the Neptunes and produced by Nellee Hooper. The track builds on a funk R&B vibe inspired by Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and is the designated party starter with a preening Stefani cooing her way through the verses, as she embraces the vibrant feel of the chorus with a promise to keep the hella good times rolling.
“Hey Baby” mixes dancehall beats and grooves with new wave and concocts a dizzying moment of pop euphoria. The new wave vibe continues throughout the bouncing lust of “Making Out” and in the pulsating “Don’t Let Me Down.”
Exploring the many hues of their musical palette, the album winds its way through reggae-infused, laid-back grooves like the hip swirling “Start The Fire” and the blissful “Underneath It All” that has Stefani weighing up the pros and cons of her long-distance relationship with her then-boyfriend (and now ex-husband) Gavin Rossdale. This sense of foreboding tilts into doubting paranoia with the self-destructive “Detective” and the jealousy tinged “In My Head.” Even in these less optimistic moments, like the tinkering sweet “Running,” No Doubt still deliver the goods in a way that makes it feel good to be tapping into the conflicting emotions contained inside.
Nowhere is this less in doubt than the take-a-number expression of “Waiting Room” that sees Stefani trading bars with Prince against a primal funk beat. The track is tantalizing, teasing, and tumultuous.
The titular, album-closing “Rock Steady” is a smoothed-out ode to lasting love set against a sun setting reggae vibe. It swings the pendulum back to the album's overall sense of joy and freedom and brings the journey full circle.
With a multitude of genres explored and producers banting about, it’s easy to see how Rock Steady could have come off as disjointed or chaotic. But with Stefani, Kanal, Dumont, and Young firing on all cylinders musically and lyrically and steering the ship to a destination of their making, the album retains its focus and twenty years on, also retains its luster.
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