Tragic Kingdom is the third studio album by the American rock band No Doubt, released on October 10, 1995, by Trauma Records and Interscope Records. It was the final album to feature original keyboardist Eric Stefani, who left the band in 1994. The album was produced by Matthew Wilder and recorded in 11 studios in the Greater Los Angeles area between March 1993 and October 1995. Between 1995 and 1998, the album spawned seven singles, including "Just a Girl", which charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, and "Don't Speak", which topped the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay and reached the top five of many international charts. The album received mostly positive reviews from music critics and became the band's most commercially successful album, reaching number one on the Billboard 200 as well as topping the charts in Canada and New Zealand. At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards, No Doubt earned nominations for Best New Artist and Best Rock Album. The album has sold over 16 million copies worldwide, and was certified Diamond in the United States and Canada, Platinum in the United Kingdom, and quadruple Platinum in Australia. Tragic Kingdom helped facilitate the ska revival of the 1990s, increasing the visibility and commercial success of other ska bands. The album was ranked number 441 on Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. No Doubt embarked on a tour to promote the album. It was designed by Project X and lasted two and a half years. An early 1997 performance at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim was filmed and released as Live in the Tragic Kingdom on VHS and later DVD.
Tragic Kingdom is the breakthrough album of No Doubt with the international hits "Don't Speak" and "Just a Girl". "Spiderwebs" is also a nice song, but the quality of the songs and performance (especially the singing of Stefani) varies widely. There are songs in all styles and genres resulting in an eclectic collection of tracks.
Rating: 9/10 Best songs: Excuse me Mr., Just a girl, Different people, Sixteen, Don’t speak, You can do it, World go ‘round, Tragic Kingdom
Perfect west coast ska / reggae / pop-punk album. Legendary 90s stuff. So many hits
Den här plattan skulle kanske ha varit med på den ursprungliga listan.
I listened to this a ton in the late 90’s. I love this album! I’m not usually big into the ska sound but this album showed me that I can love it. Favorite songs include Spiderwebs, Just a Girl, Sunday Morning, Don’t Speak. Oh and how great is that disco You Can Do It?! Such a fun song! Tragic Kingdom is the perfect closer. Great choice!
This definitely stood out from the crowd in the '90s and brought a lot of deserved hits.
Pop rock, alternative rock, ska punk, new wave, pop-punk. Just a girl, Don't speak. Un 4, venga.
Yay 4 Insanely ugly album cover but it's iconic and memorable
How is this not on the main list? Great share. This album had an impact.
Buen disco de rock con buenas canciones, incluso internándose en temas más reggae o incluso funky. Voz femenina muy reconocible. Podría haber tenido temas más pegadizos.
Filled with amazing singles this album is quite an adventure. Ska is generally hated but this album has to be many people’s exception. It’s fun, unique and pretty amazing. The album runs a bit long which is its biggest drawback but the singles really are classics that can be played for years. 7.4/10
Yep that's Gwen Stefani's band.
Fun, good singles
I knew the 2 hit songs. But the rest of the album is much of the same. Not bad though
Two humongous hits on the same album, "Just A Girl" and "Don't Speak". Unfortunately, the rest of this quite long record applies whyteboy ska / mall pop punk formulas on songs that very rarely warrant the time you spend on them. Don't get me wrong, the band is more than competent in terms of compositional skills and studio performance -- Gwen Stefani sure has a commending vocal timbre that hits all the right notes in a striking fashion. And the production values are top notch. Yet the whole thing ultimately feels vapid. Behind the many twists and turns of the arrangements, you can often sense a by-the-book writing process that's devoid of real personality music-wise. It's sun-drenched, sure, but also superficial. Like the worst clichés about California out there. In that context, the title-track closing the proceedings is a bit of an outlier. "Tragic Kingdom" -- the only song in here solely written by Gwen's brother Eric, right before he left the band -- is reportedly a dig at Disneyland. On a purely musical level, it's some sort of baroque extravaganza displaying Danny Elfman-adjacent goth undertones. Not exactly a pleasant listen, but a cut taking some amount of risks at the eleventh hour. At last. Eric Stefani is quite an intriguing figure by the way -- he knew the band was heading for international success, and yet he went back to become an animator for the Simpsons full-time before any of that happened. Maybe hearing the show's theme song (written by Elfman) all the time influenced him for the music of this cut, who knows? Like, it must have been in his head day in day out while he was drawing those cartoons... Interestingly, some of the track's lyrics incidentally seem to suggest the man was not made for the sort of rock'n'roll circus No Doubt had embraced by 1995: "The parade that's electrical / It serves no real purpose / Just takes up a lot of juice / Just to impress us". To be perfectly candid, those lines perfectly sum up my own take about this record: much ado about nothing. Except for those two hit singles, of course. I wouldn't call that a "tragic kingdom". Just an underwhelming one. 2.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 3. 7.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 2.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ----- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 56 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 72 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 132 (including this one) --- Émile. Ça y est, j'ai *enfin* répondu (en deux temps). Tu trouveras ça sous les reviews des disques de Blackalicious et Alexisonfire au dessus.
No Doubt is one of those bands that, if they come on the radio I don't turn the station, but I also don't seek them out. They're good, but not exactly in my Q zone. 3 stars.
Favorite songs: Just a Girl, Spiderwebs, Don't Speak ,Sixteen, Sunday Morning, Hey You Least favorite songs: The Climb, Tragic Kingdom 3/5
This is… good
Real nice