(Rachael's) Blast from the Past: No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom

(Ed's Note: So I asked my girlfriend Rachael, the lovely author behind Underrated Magazine, to write a Blast from the Past for Pop Tarts and she has! Hope you enjoy!)

I was eleven years old when No Doubt released their third album Tragic Kingdom, that pivotal age where a young girl is trying to find her way in life, and looking to anyone and everyone for guidance. I remember turning on MTV one day and seeing a platinum blonde gal in a half shirt running back and forth from one room to the next, holding up her hand and singing "I've had it up to here." Sure, I was just entering my adolescence, but I mimicked Gwen, raising my own hand, because I, too, had had it up to here.

Today, my copy of Tragic Kingdom is almost destroyed. The CD was played on repeat for almost a year, and the insert torn apart from reading and performing the lyrics. Saturdays were spent with my door shut, the album blasting, and me pretending I could be the front woman of a cool band. The music felt different, upbeat but not poppy, rock but not scary. And for a young girl, it felt like I was entering a dangerous territory. In actuality, I was finding a true empowerment with seeing a woman taking control and standing up in front of a few boys. She was rocking out just as hard, if not harder, than them. I was in awe.

Listening to each song brings back such vivid memories. I remember my friends and I trying to figure out how we could change our parent's answering machine to have a recording of the chorus of "Spiderwebs." Or the time I came up with a music video for "Don't Speak" in which I held a picture of a boy and looked to the phone, hoping he'd call." I even made my mom listen to "Sunday Morning" as loud as she'd let me in the car so I could scream out the words along with Gwen.

Tragic Kingdom holds a great deal of sentimental value for me. It was the first album I really fell in love with, from start to finish. I grew up in the time of singles, and yet I wanted so badly to divulge as much music from a band as possible. No Doubt took some interesting turns as their career grew, but I still hold this album, and their previous efforts as an innovative creation of ska, new wave, pop and rock. They weren't afraid to wear their influences proudly, but broke into the mainstream with a sound, and especially a front person, that at that time, wasn't quite the norm. Given what kind of role models young girls have to look up to in our celebrity-driven world, I am sure glad that I had my gal Gwen to show me that being a girl was tough, but so were we.
No Doubt - "Excuse Me Mr."
No Doubt - "Just A Girl"
No Doubt - "Sixteen"
No Doubt - "Sunday Morning"