Tragic Kingdom

No Doubt: Gwen Stefani (vocals); Tom Dumont (guitar); Eric Stefani (piano, keyboards); Tony Kanal (bass); Adrian Young (drums, percussion).Additional personnel: Aloke DasGupta (sitar); Melissa Hasin (cello); Gerard Boisse, Bill Bergman (saxophone); Greg Smith (baritone saxophone); Phil Jordan, Les Lovitt (trumpet); Nick Lane (trombone); Gabe McNair (trombone, percussion); Matthew Wilder (keyboards); Stephen Perkins (steel drums).Engineers include: Matt Hyde, Phil Kaffel, George Landress.No Doubt was nominated for the 1997 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. TRAGIC KINGDOM was nominated for a 1997 Grammy for Best Rock Album. "Don't Speak" was nominated for 1998 Grammys for Song Of The Year and Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.Personnel: Gwen Stefani (vocals); Tom Dumont (guitar); Aloke Dasgupta (sitar); Melissa "Missy" Hasin (cello); Bill Bergman (saxophone); Greg Smith (baritone saxophone); Les Lovitt (trumpet); Gabrial McNair (trombone, percussion); Nick Lane (trombone); Eric Stefani (piano, keyboards); Matthew Wilder (keyboards); Adrian Young (drums, percussion); Stephen Perkins (steel drum).Audio Mixer: Paul Palmer.Recording information: Nrg; Record Plant, Hollywood, CA; Santa Monica Sound, Santa Monica, CA; Total Access Studios, Redondo Beach, CA.Director: Albhy Galuten.Photographers: Dan Arsenault; Shelly Robertson.Unknown Contributor Role: Stephen Perkins.No Doubt's members cite a strange variety of musical influences: Kiss, Prince and Madness, to name a few. And it's easy to imagine that their hometown itself, Anaheim, California (home to Disneyland), may have played a part in forming the band's schizophrenic, high-energy sound, which took TRAGIC KINGDOM, the band's second album, on a slow, steady ride up the pop charts. It finally hit No. 1 in December 1996, 14 months after it was released.This is ska-punk-new wave-dance music, with instrumentation ranging from hardcore guitar to mellow, reggae-style horns. Singer Gwen Stefani's voice is by turns peppy, almost adolescent ("Spiderwebs") and emotionally wailing; she can sound a lot like Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano ("Just A Girl"). When Stefani sings, "I'm just a girl, little ol' me/Don't let me out of your sight," she does so without a hint of girlishness; her voice is all attitude, with a warbling edge of melodrama. For the most part, these are happy songs, though No Doubt do get philosophical on "Different People": "Once in a while I sit back/And think about the planet/Most of the time I trip on it/To kick back and think of how massive it all is/And how many others are on it."

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