Rock Steady
Studio album by No Doubt
Released	December 11 2001
Genre	Pop, ragga, New Wave
Length	49:14
Label	Interscope
Producer	No Doubt, Nellee Hooper, Ric Ocasek, William Orbit, Prince, Sly & Robbie, Steely & Clevie, Philip Steir, Mark "Spike" Stent
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Blender link Entertainment Weekly (B+) link Rolling Stone 1/17/2002 Slant link Stylus (C) link
No Doubt chronology
Return of Saturn (2000) Rock Steady (2001) The Singles 1992-2003 (2003)
Alternate cover

Rock Steady is the fifth album by American third wave ska band No Doubt, released on Interscope Records in December 2001 (see 2001 in music). The album was primarily recorded in Los Angeles, London, and Jamaica. No Doubt worked with many collaborators, including The Neptunes, Prince, and Sly & Robbie. As a result, the album touches on many musical styles, focusing the New Wave, pop, and reggae influences present in the band's earlier work while incorporating dub, ragga, and dance styles.

The album generally received positive reviews from contemporary music critics, and it was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 45th Grammy Awards. It became a commercial comeback for the band, surpassing sales of their previous offering, 2000's Return of Saturn. It yielded four singles and generated career-highest singles chart positions in the United States.

Background and production

Discussing their next album over dinner, the band decided in 2000 to design the music around Jamaican dancehall from aftershow parties,^[1] inspired by artists such as Bounty Killer, Cutty Ranks, and Mr. Vegas.^[2] The band began work in January 2001, creating beats on Pro Tools at guitarist Tom Dumont's apartment. Singer Gwen Stefani had read works by Sylvia Plath for previous albums to find songwriting inspiration in her melancholy.^[1] For Rock Steady, she wrote the lyrics quicker and on the spot to meet the goal of writing a song a day.^[2] The next month, Stefani left Los Angeles for London to visit then-boyfriend Gavin Rossdale, and the band traveled with her to finish recording "Detective".^[1] There, they worked with Eurythmics member David A. Stewart to write "Underneath It All" in only ten minutes.^[3]

In March, they traveled to Jamaica, staying at the Blue Lagoon in Port Antonio.^[2] The band "spent most of the time swimming and getting sunburned and drinking and smoking and recording a little music."^[4] Dumont even passed out from heavy drinking while recording a track.^[1] They began working in the mid-afternoon and worked into the night, with an after-party following the session.^[2] They worked with Sly & Robbie, who produced "Underneath It All" and "Hey Baby" and brought in dancehall toasters Lady Saw and Bounty Killer, and Steely & Clevie, who produced "Start the Fire".

The band returned from Jamaica and resumed work in June, collaborating with producers Nellee Hooper and Timbaland.^[5] The Timbaland track, titled "It's a Fight", and a Dr. Dre-produced song titled "Wicked Day" were excluded from the album because their hip hop sounds did not work well on the album.^[6] The band worked with The Cars' frontman Ric Ocasek in late June.^[4] Stefani commented that No Doubt worked with so many people for the record because none were available for the time needed to make an LP, but that she would have liked to work with Ocasek longer.^[7] In late August, the band returned to London for Mark "Spike" Stent to polish off the songs with audio mixing.^[1]

Musical style

Many of the sounds come from electronic keyboard effects, such as what bassist Tony Kanal called "Devo-y bleeps and Star Wars noises".^[1] Dumont commented that many of the effects came from being unfamiliar with the equipment and "just twiddling knobs".^[8] He created a setup using a metal garbage can, its open end facing a drum kit, and a microphone inside to create an effect similar to that of an echo chamber.^[9] The band members often did not play their instruments when working on the songs.^[10] As a result, the album's instrumentation contains less guitar and bass guitar than the band's previous work.^[11]

Rock Steady maintains many of the styles present in No Doubt's previous work, while introducing several styles native to Jamaica. "Hey Baby" and "Underneath It All" both feature dancehall and ragga, an electronic-oriented subgenre of dancehall.^[12] The latter, written using backward string samples, also contains the band's traditional ska and reggae sounds.^[13] Ocasek produced "Don't Let Me Down" and "Platinum Blonde Life", the former of which was described as sounding "more like the Cars than the Cars".^[14] The synthesizer-driven riff of "Running" drew comparisons to the work of synthpop bands Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Yazoo.^[15]

Because of the number of collaborations, the album touches on several other styles. "Waiting Room", a song written with Prince for Return of Saturn, evokes his R&B style over a drum and bass beat.^[1][16] William Orbit, best known for his work on Madonna's electronica-oriented Ray of Light, incorporates trance music in the production of "Making Out". "Detective", one of the five tracks produced by Hooper, takes slight influence from hip hop music.^[17] Other songs on the album touch on house styles such as dub and trip hop.^[16]

Critical reception

The album received generally positive reviews from critics. Rolling Stone called it "impressive to hear No Doubt summon the musical imagination to transcend the formula that used to imprison them"^[15] and ranked Rock Steady number 316 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.^[14] Stephen Erlewine of All Music Guide referred to it as "a good, hooky, stylish mainstream pop record".^[12] Blender called it "an intermittently engaging but overall shapeless collection…the product of happy-go-lucky musicians who once cavorted in bad track suits but now spend their days commuting between London, Jamaica and Los Angeles seeking the wisdom of expensive studio geeks."^[18] Nevertheless, it included the album in its 2003 list of "500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die!".^[19] The NME viewed the album's "enormous waterfront of styles" positively, noting that it had many strong potential singles, but found that some of the "empty-headed guitar pop" on second half of the album spoiled the listening experience.^[20] Slant Magazine included it on its list of 50 Essential Pop Albums, commenting that "not since Blondie…has a rock act so effortlessly, irreverently, and fashionably skidded across so many different genre boundaries at one time."^[21] LAUNCHcast said that "even with so many producers attempting to steer this bus along the superstar highway, they end up in a better-than-most parking lot".^[22] PopMatters, noting that Rock Steady maintains the introspection of Return of Saturn without the latter's "longing and wistfulness", stated that "it is to No Doubt's credit…that they manage to keep the album together with little more than their collective personalities."^[17]

Sales and impact

Stefani, Stephen Bradley, and Kanal performing on the Rock Steady Tour in March 2002.

The album sold approximately three million copies,^[14] and its revival of No Doubt's popularity was compared to the performance of Madonna's 1998 album Ray of Light.^[20] It debuted and peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200, selling 255,000 copies in its first week.^[23] It is certified triple platinum.^[24] At the 2003 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album but lost to Norah Jones' Come Away with Me.^[25] The lead single "Hey Baby" and third single "Underneath It All" won the award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 2003 and 2004 Grammy Awards, respectively.^[25][26]

The album did not perform as strongly outside the United States. In September 2002, Rock Steady was certified platinum in Canada,^[27] and in the United Kingdom, the album is certified silver.^[28] It peaked at number fifteen on the ARIA Albums Chart and spent nine non-consecutive weeks in the top forty.^[29] The album was listed at number ninety-seven on the 2002 end of year chart,^[30] and the Australian Recording Industry Association certified the album gold.^[31]

Singer-songwriter Jewel released her fifth album 0304 in June 2003, reinventing and sexualizing her public image. Music critics identified Rock Steady and Ray of Light as influences on the album. Stylus Magazine compared the 0304's retro tribute to New Wave music with that on Rock Steady.^[32] Blender commented that Jewel had "brushed up on two sacred pop texts, the Manual of Madonna and the Gospel According to Gwen". It compared her use of a more restrained, throaty purr to Stefani's vocals and noted 0304's use of "jumpy bubblegum choruses and boop-boop-beeping keyboards" as descendents of No Doubt's production.^[33]

Singles

Lead single "Hey Baby" preceded the album's release. The ragga song's lyrics and accompanying music video depict groupies at the band's aftershow parties.^[7] It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100, setting a record for the band.^[34] "Hella Good", the second single, was written with The Neptunes and is inspired by funk music of the late 1970s.^[2] It was followed by "Underneath It All", a slow tempo reggae song, which discusses whether or not Rossdale was a good match for Stefani.^[15] It is the band's highest-charting U.S. single to date at number three.^[34] "Running" was released as the album's fourth and final single to minor success. The ballad's melody, written and performed on a Yamaha keyboard,^[35] drew comparisons to that of a musical box, to mixed reviews from music critics.^[17][36]

Track listing

1. "Intro" – 0:27
2. "Hella Good" (Chad Hugo, Tony Kanal, Gwen Stefani, Pharrell Williams) – 4:02
3. "Hey Baby" featuring Bounty Killer (Tom Dumont, Kanal, Prince, Stefani) – 3:27
4. "Making Out" (Dumont, Kanal, Stefani) – 4:15
5. "Underneath It All" featuring Lady Saw (Stefani, David A. Stewart) – 5:02
6. "Detective" (Dumont, Kanal, Stefani) – 2:54
7. "Don't Let Me Down" (Dumont, Kanal, Stefani) – 4:08
8. "Start the Fire" (Dumont, Kanal, Stefani) – 4:12
9. "Running" (Kanal, Stefani) – 4:02
10. "In My Head" (Dumont, Kanal, Stefani) – 3:25
11. "Platinum Blonde Life" (Dumont, Kanal, Stefani) – 3:28
12. "Waiting Room" (Prince, Dumont, Kanal, Stefani) – 4:27
13. "Rock Steady" (Kanal, Stefani) – 5:24

Bonus CD

1. "Hey Baby" featuring OutKast (dirty version) – 4:10
2. "Hey Baby" (The Homeboy Mix) – 3:50
3. "Hella Good" (Roger's Release Yourself Mix) – 7:16
4. "Ex-Girlfriend" (The Psycho Ex Mix) – 7:42
5. "Hey Baby" (video)
6. "Hella Good" (video)
7. "Underneath It All" (video)

Personnel

No Doubt

• Tom Dumont – guitar, keyboard
• Tony Kanal – bass, keyboard, saxophone
• Gwen Stefani – vocals
• Adrian Young – drums

Additional personnel

• Bounty Killer – performer
• Lady Saw – performer
• Gabrial McNair – trombone, keyboard
• Ric Ocasek – keyboard
• Andy Potts – saxophone
• Prince – keyboard, background vocals
• Robbie Shakespeare – bass
• Django Stewart – saxophone

Production

Charts

References

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