33 rebellions per minute
1995
No Doubt, TRAGIC KINGDOM
Why yes, I am planning to defend every random piece of garbage poured down the endless recycling chute
that was Modern Rock radio 1995, cuz it was, for whatever reason, a good year, where the mall-rats were
peeking out from all the best holes. No Doubt, by this, their 3rd album, had become a very tight and skilled
ensemble, and had learned to relax and enjoy the studio process (so they say at least), where fortunately they
were met by a gifted and ambitious producer named Matthew Wilder who was soon to find himself able to
charge much higher rates. TRAGIC KINGDOM is a fun-sounding album, which the approximate
ska-centrism helps cause, but it's a strikingly versatile one, working in cheesy New Wave synth hooks
("Just A Girl"), metal ("Spiderwebs"), reggae ("World Go Round"), disco ("You Can Do It"), psychedelia
("the Climb"), dramatic heft ("Tragic Kingdom"), and a hit song teetering between elegance and
saccharine-overdose ("Don't Speak") with skill, self-assurance, and tricky mid-song mood-and-tempo
changes, never sounding like diletantes in over their heads. In other words, this "unfocused" record is every
bit the sylistic tour de force that Beck's "album of the year" ODELAY would be, without the odor of slack
overconfidence and casual theft.
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