Tragic Kingdom (studio album)
by No Doubt

Very new wave ska based but subtle nuanced with part skate rock, part punk-pop, even part psych. I don't agree with the choices of 'Spiderwebs' & 'Don't Speak' being the picks as singles as they're mediocre at best and there's a lot better tracks than those. Could have trimmed the album as a whole by about 4 of the filler songs then it would've been an outright classic. From when Gwen was still cool. Then she went down the sad route going solo in the commercial white girl hip hop market.

Don't Speak, Happy Now and Just a Girl are great, but didn't enjoy the rest of the album and it felt like the hour dragged out quite a bit

A collection of mostly B side material with a few excellent songs scattered amongst the filler content. These tracks include Spiderwebs, Excuse Me Mr., Just A Girl and Don't Speak. They are all filled with energy and capture the sound the group are trying to go for perfectly. They all have a fantastic chorus at the centre and some simple instrumentation to back it up making for an infectious song. Every other song is the same as this except they lack the chorus and fail to hook the listener by getting stuck in their head. This makes for a repetitive listen for us and due to the elongated length of the record the sound is really tiring by the time you get to the end of the record. Also, there isn't a large amount of experimentation or uniqueness about the instrumentation and in my opinion that makes the record quite boring and makes me not want to come back. Overall, definitely worth listening to once to pick out those few fantastic songs but after that there is no reason to frequently revisit this record.

From VictorVale 04/12/2022 22:44 | #284123

Fenomenal! E bem variado quanto aos ritmos!

This comment is beneath your viewing threshold.

This is a close second to Rock Steady for me. Full of hits and great deep cuts but a ton of filler at the end

No Doubt's first proper album as not-an-11-or-so-give-or-take-piece-ska band is a set of a bunch of songs penned about Stefani's relationship and subsequent breakup with the guitarist Kaman.

It makes for quite a drama and fuel's Sefani's best lyrics of her career.

This is the first album I ever bought so I have an affinity for it, but at an attempt for objectivity, it is good not great.

Don't Speak and Just a Girl are excellent and well known singles.

Spiderwebs, Excuse Me Mr. and Sunday Morning are standouts as well.

Tragic Kingdom is overly long and loses my interest past Don't Speak docking some points for me. It would have been a service to the material to scale this down to 11 songs in a classic less is more lesson.

No Doubt gets progressively worse from here but it's Stefani's rise to fame and longevity of popularity that is the interesting tale and here is where it all started.

That and the drummer always played naked which had to at least garner a few extra fans.

From RoundTheBend 05/15/2016 05:15 | #165999

When I was 12... this was the shit.

Just amazing

From glitter-bubbles 12/18/2014 17:08 | #129612

I really wish they would come out with another album this good. Such a great album even years later!