Album Anniversaries: The Bubbly Angst of No Doubt’s ‘Tragic Kingdom’

25 years after its release, No Doubt’s third album lives on through its quirky new wave ska, breakup melodrama, and Gwen Stefani’s digestible feminism.

In Album Anniversaries, writers honor their favorite aging albums and their subsequent legacies, revealing which projects have stood the test of time.

Written by Laiken Neumann

Photo courtesy of Interscope Records

Formed in 1986 and signed to Interscope Records in 1990, the Anaheim-based band released its first self-titled album in 1992. No Doubt’s early sound injected too much pop buzz into two-tone ska to gain steady popularity earlier in the decade, and the years following the debut would introduce some hefty obstacles. Keyboardist Eric Stefani left the band to pursue animation in 1994, and in the same year, Bassist Tony Kanal ended his seven-year relationship with frontwoman Gwen Stefani. 

Despite rocky setbacks, No Doubt would be skyrocketed into the popular stratosphere the next year. Its 1995 sophomore album The Beacon Street Collection dipped into the increasingly popular grunge sound, but Tragic Kingdom, released later that year, thrusted them into the spotlight — propelling perky new wave ska, Gwen Stefani’s bubbly rebellion, her convoluted breakup with Kanal, and her borrowed aesthetics into the public psyche.

Opening with “Spiderwebs,” the track immediately establishes the band’s zany groove through its blurting horns, buzzing synths, and swerving guitar strides. Introducing its stomping rock with a splash of reggae swing, the album’s second single assures that ska isn’t the only Jamaican genre No Doubt borrows from. The track details a woman’s avoidance of unwanted advances from a man. Stefani’s shrilling, nasally voice helms the opener, injected with a playful, teasing tone that just evades whining: “It’s all your fault / I gotta screen my phone calls.”

Image courtesy of Interscope Records

No Doubt’s uninhibited ringleader, Stefani treads through each track with a punchy demeanor and animated jest, unafraid to say, “F-ck you, I’m a girl!” Hit single “Just a Girl” drips with sarcasm, derailing misogynistic perceptions of women’s ability and intelligence. Its rising guitar chords with muddled production build a tension released by Stefani’s vocal expansion: “Oh, I’ve had it up to here.” She offered an accessible rage to non-dissenters. 

Throughout Tragic Kingdom, she rejects traditional gender roles (“Hey You”) and dismissals of emotional teenagedom (“Sixteen”). More restrained than uncompromising ‘90s Riot Grrrl groups like Bikini Kill or Bratmobile, Stefani’s feminism reveled in PG-13, ‘cool girl’ rebellion without radically pushing the boundaries. Stefani was the primer for ‘girl power’ commodification later in the decade, best represented by The Spice Girls. In 1996, the pop girl group released “Wannabe” and became known for their ‘girl power’ slogan (presently rebranded as ‘people power’); that same year Stefani covered Spin, which proclaimed her a “Riot Girlie,” removing the growl of the initial movement in favor of safe femininity. Despite her wild persona, Stefani was the middle ground, and her celebrity ushered in a palatable feminism — one that could also be sold.

Tony Kanal and Gwen Stefani / Photo courtesy of Jeff Kravitz

Tragic Kingdom’s success also drew from its very own Stevie and Lindsey dynamic that Fleetwood Mac similarly benefited from. The band’s emotional entanglements were scattered throughout the album, with tracks like “Happy Now” and “End It On This” exuding a tense intimacy through Stefani’s lyrical daggers at Kanal (“The contemplator all those years / Now you must adhere / To your new career of liberation”). Upbeat hit “Sunday Morning” stomps around their post-breakup longing with hard guitar thrashes; this time around, Kanal misses Stefani, and she gets the upper hand. No Doubt showcases its signature playful bite through a blend of alternative rock and staccato reggae bounce that brought ska’s third wave to the mainstream. 

But the track that truly makes the album No Doubt’s Rumours is “Don’t Speak.” With a solemn, droning tone and Latin rock-inspired guitar, Stefani hopes to block out the pain of their breakup by ignoring it. Ripe with genuine melodrama, the track mourns the relationship like it’s the end of the world: “You and me / I can see us dying, aren’t we?” Stefani’s hushed la, la, la’s swell behind her crooning, “Don’t tell me, cause it hurts,” equating musical weeping. The pair’s emotional baggage trickles throughout the album, but “Don’t Speak” is a waterfall. Their professional relationship succeeded at the expense of their romantic one, with the song remaining No Doubt’s biggest hit to date.

While the band’s short excursion into Latin rock fared well, the album’s wide draw of influences made for a lack of cohesion. Stepping away from zappy, punk-influenced ska, “The Climb” bursts with Freddie Mercury-esque harmonies and glam rock grandeur. The disco flare of “You Can Do It” falls short, whose funk guitar lines and high-pitched vocals are more imitative than derivative. The band’s tendency to try on different looks to see what fit was an introduction to co-opting cultures — something that defined Stefani’s aesthetic as well as the group’s sonic ventures. 

Inspired by Kanal’s mother who often wore traditional Indian attire, Stefani frequently paired a bindi with sporty track pants or a glittery sports bra. But her borrowing of Indian culture relied on its exoticization for a cool look. When her seemingly inevitable celebrity catapulted her into a solo career in the 2000s, her habits would follow through her debut album Love, Angel, Music, Baby, whose aesthetics imitated Japanese street style. Whether intentional or not, Stefani painted a caricature of the culture she was infatuated with and profited off its appropriation.

Photo courtesy of fuse.tv

Amidst Tragic Kingdom’s bridled feminism, romantic tension, and cultural appropriation is a baseline of suburban angst. If not reflected in its punchy breeze of California new wave ska, it’s spotlighted on the titular closing track. A stab at Disney World, “Tragic Kingdom” sees the Anaheim-based band at potentially their most directly explicit. Written by former-keyboardist Eric Stefani, the track opens with a voice recording from the Matterhorn Bobsleds roller coaster and descends into minor key whirls of carnival-adjacent horns. With lyrics like, “The parade that’s electrical / It serves no real purpose / Just takes up a lot of juice / Just to impress us,” they reject the theme park that disrupts their homebase. It’s a finger to 'the man’ — who, in this case, is Walt Disney. 

Where 1995 offered hefty rock albums with bold feminist perspectives like Hole’s Live Through This and Garbage’s self-titled debut, Tragic Kingdom brought punk-influence ska and a digestable brand of ‘girl power.’ Gwen Stefani became an identifiable feminist icon for mainstream audiences, boasting her mish-mash, quirky aesthetic to those who didn’t recognize the harm of her cultural co-opts. While the album’s sonic influences land all over the map, its emotional investments and consistent punch yanked listeners by the ears, cementing Tragic Kingdom as a zany fixture of the decade.