60 Songs That Explain the '90s - No Doubt—“Just a Girl”

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Rob explores ska-punk sensation No Doubt’s feminist anthem “Just a Girl” by discussing the rise of third-wave ska and Gwen Stefani’s turn as a solo artist. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Puja Patel Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments play together only on Spotify. Best of all, you can create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's A-N-C-H-O-R-F-M-S-M-U-S-I-C-C-A-N-D-T-A-L-K. A lot of spelling there, but just do it. Did I ever tell you guys that freshman year of college I played bass in a ska band called

Scantily Plaid? I probably did. I did. In the trailer to this show, I did. It's like the first thing I ever said. That's how important this is. to me, apparently. Scantily with a K, because that's how you name a ska band. I was quite proud of that name. Obviously, I didn't come up with the name. This was in Ohio in 1997, the precise

moment during which a new ska band might conceivably form on a college campus in Ohio, three horns and everything. I wrote a song called Rob's song. That's me. I had narcissism issues. Apparently, we played three shows total to like 25 people total. Skoband outnumbered. Audience is still one of the best onion headlines ever. First show is in a dorm basement. I don't know if we sucked, but I sucked,

the trombone player played bass better than I did. Here's how bad I sucked. After three shows, Scantily Plaid broke up and reformed without me under a new name as an emo band, another emerging subgenre. How do you like that shit? It's a tragedy.

Really? Scantily Plaid never played at an actual club, never played out of town, never recorded. That's a blessing. I don't need that sound cloud in my life. We never made it, which is to say that we never did the one thing every ska band in America dreamt of doing in 1997. Real Big Fish, for example, sold out. R-E-E-L. They were from Orange County, California. California, obviously, all the great non-Ohio and ska bands were.

No ska pun in the band name, they were iconoclasts. Real Big Fish's big hit from 1996 was called Sellout. It's meta. It's like the one meta thing in cultural history that has ever ruled. Do you, dear millennial listener, even know this term, sellout? It basically doesn't exist anymore. Big deal in the 90s, though. Sometimes it meant changing your sound to get popular,

and sometimes it just meant getting popular. Either way, real big fish got popular, and so did many other bands of their ilk. I vividly remember John Norris from MTV News, reporting on the hot new musical subgenre, sweeping the nation in 1996-97, and just the incredulousness in his voice, as he said,

ska! Like that. Ska! just flabbergasted. Also disgusted. Possibly. This was technically third wave of Ska. First wave was Jamaica in the late 50s and 60s, predating reggae. Second wave was the two-tone revival in late 70s, England mixing with punk. Third wave was the world, or Orange County invading the world and spicing up alternative rock. Why did Ska get popular again at this exact moment? Maybe it was subconscious backlash to electronica, yet another hot new musical suburb. genre, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Crystal Method. Maybe Ska sounded more physical and tactile and real

by comparison. I don't know. Maybe there's no explanation at all. A couple bands get super popular. They sound vaguely similar and boom, hot new musical subgenre. In any event, the mid-90s, third wave ska boom was so bizarre, so violently random, so obviously ephemeral. You just knew, even at its height that it was destined for immortality in terms of how ephemeral it was. You just knew that Thanos, comic book, Thanos, at this point, would snap his fingers and forget 50%, like 89% of people who loved ska would disavow all knowledge of ska, like just their pork pie hats would disintegrate. But in this moment, in this glorious, fleeting, two-tone, pork pie hat-wearing moment, real big fish could have a minor radio hit.

The best real big fish song is beer, as any true fan knows. Maybe you caught that one in the basketball soundtrack. It caught live band like Boston's mighty, mighty boss tones, who were so dedicated to the Sky Lifestyle that one guy in the band's only job was dancing, could in 1997 have an even bigger radio hit with the impression that I get. A little wordy, but they made it work.

The best mighty, mighty, mighty boss-tone song is someday, I suppose, as any true fan knows, maybe three dozen times in my life total. I remember vividly the very first time I heard a song. I remember my real-time reaction to a song. Love at First Sight. I suppose one of those times was in 1996 when I heard Here in Your Bedroom by Goldfinger. Also from Orange County, obviously, the explosion into the chorus to this song amazed me. I was amazed.

The best goldfinger song is actually, I'm kidding. It's here in your bedroom. Come on. What a baffling and lovely moment this was. Too lovely to last. Lovely, because you knew immediately, that it wouldn't last. True fans of these bands of this music would, of course, be fans forever.

But as a national mainstream phenomenon, as an MTV News topic, Third wave ska was a blip, a closed loop. The exit velocity required to power through it, to thrive beyond it, to achieve and maintain true superstardom. That took something more than an explosive chorus, or a dedicated band dancer, or a clever meta-conceit. One strategy. Maybe the only successful strategy, as it turns out, was to go to your sister into joining the band, and then let her overpower you, and then the band, and then the band.

the patriarchy. My name is Rob Harvilla. I'm a music critic at The Ringer, and this is 60 songs that explain the 90s. Just a Girl by No Doubt is one of those songs, obviously. No Doubt hailed from Anaheim, California,

Orange County again, breeding ground for so many red, ska bands, pop punk bands, alt rock bands, synth pop bands, new wave bands. What were, what are, no doubt?

Were no doubt every ska band primarily? What did no doubt want to be primarily? Doesn't matter. A breakout song is striking, as cheerfully confrontational as Just a Girl decides for you what your band is and also decides if the rest

of your band even matters. Just a Girl is the lead single off No Doubt's third album, 1995's Tragic Kingdom. It's a pun on Disneyland's on the Magic Kingdom. Did you know Tragic Kingdom has sold more than 16 million copies

worldwide. It went diamond. Ten million copies in the United States alone. I had forgotten that. The mid-90s scabom is not quite the reason no doubt happened. No doubt are not quite the reason the mid-90s scabum happened. But there are parallels.

There are overlapping bend diagrams. But mostly, there is lead singer Gwen Stefani, who took a while to emerge as No Doubt's driving force and focal point and breakout star. But once he did, look out. It took no doubt nearly a decade to become an overnight success.

The band was Eric Stefani's idea. Young Eric was intense and hyper-talented as both a musician and a cartoonist. Young Eric and his little sister, Gwen, were enamored with second wave ska, a big deal in the late 70s and early 80s, madness, the specials, the untouchables nearby in L.A., etc. It was young Eric who goaded his little sister Gwen into co-writing their first song, which was called Stick It in the Hole. It's about a pencil sharpener. My brother made me do it, Gwen later recalled,

in a Rolling Stone cover story. It was young Eric who first goaded his little sister, Gwen on stage, where she sang the song On My Radio, a big hit for a second wave scoband called The Selector at a school talent show. Gwen did so in a tweed dress sewn by her mother and patterned after Maria's dress

when Maria sings, I have confidence in me in the sound of music. because according to Rolling Stone, the sound of music was and is Gwen's greatest obsession. On my radio is a fantastic song, by the way. Forgive me, two quick personal ska asides. One is that I can't skank at all, the dance that one does to ska music. It's very simple. I can't do it.

Can't skank at all. I feel terrible. I feel obliged to confess this to you. And number two, the best ska band name in history. And this is objective. My buddy Garrett grew up in Orange County, obviously, and started a ska band called Tricky Dumptruck, which is a phonetic interpretation of the noise people make while skanking to ska music. Trigadoop, Truk! Trigadoop truck, incredible name. Anyway, early, no doubt, history is convoluted

and emotionally messy and a little harrowing. The band formed technically the Dairy queen, in my opinion, the best place to form a band in a scheme hatched by three DQ employees. Young Eric, his little sister, and a black punk rocker named John Spence, who was the singer, and who loved the iconic punk reggae band Bad Brains, and did backflips on stage and used the phrase, no doubt, a lot in conversation. Hence the band name. Eric would later say that John Spence was the inspiration for the whole band. Early, No Doubt had a full horn section. Soon they added bassist Tony Canal, and soon thereafter, Tony and Gwen, who back then was mostly a background vocalist, started dating. They'd stay together for seven years. In December, 1987, just days before a show at the Roxy in L.A. that No Doubt hoped would be their big break, John Spence took his own life.

The band broke up but immediately reformed, soon adding a metalhead guitarist named Tom Dumont and a wildman drummer named Adrian Young, who considered himself a huge No Doubt fan. No Doubt signed to a flashy new label called Interscope Records. The band's self-titled debut album came out in 1992. too. It's chaotic. No doubt played some early shows of the LA band Fishbone,

who were ska and punk and funk and metal and reggae and anything else they were into. And Fishbone are one of these bands beloved and iconic in their own right, but mostly famous for clearly influencing other bands they got really famous. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example. And no doubt, for example. No doubt the album sounds like a lighter fishbone with the occasional circus breakdown. You know, do-do-d-d-d-d-d-d-do-do-do-do. I hear that melody in my brain just recoils.

I don't know, man. It's a lot. What's most notable here is that while Eric Stefani is still the band's dominant songwriter, his little sister Gwen is now the lead singer. And co-writing songs herself, including the one called Dormat. You get the sense Gwen's already getting a little exasperated. It's probably nothing. The first single was called Trapped in a Box.

It's probably nothing. No doubt the album didn't sing. sell so hot, but the band pressed on. And in early 1995, with minimal label support, released their second album, the Beacon Street Collection, which was better and sold better. It included a song called

Total Hate 95, it's probably nothing, that featured one Bradley Noel, whose own band, Sublime was soon destined for punk, ska, reggae, whatever, superstardom in their own right. You get the sense Gwen and Bradley are really enjoying themselves. The Beacon Street Collection was recorded

quickly and cheaply and independently. with Eric Stefani more or less still running the show. But by the time this record came out, Eric had already left the band. Because by this point, no doubt, we're already deep into recording their third album, with what seemed to the band like too much label support. It's time to really go for it in major label parlance.

And so Interscope had suggested a hot shot producer named Matthew Wilder, who had poofy, curly hair, and tight pants, and a big hit in 1983 with a little ditty called Break My Stride. Yeah, that one. Sorry if that just got stuck in your head. Mine too. Occupational hazard. Eric was not into the break of my stride guy fudcing with his precious and frankly pretty chaotic songs at all.

So Eric quits his own band and gets another job as an animator on The Simpsons. Decent rebound, but he's still going to regret this. The postmortem here is that Eric basically pushed his little sister Gwen into rock stardom and drew her as a cartoon character. A little Jessica Rabbit. little gem from gem in the holograms, share from Clueless, which was a big hit in 1995, live action but cartoonish in spirit. I keep wanting to say Daria for 90s, MTV, Zichai's purposes,

but Gwen's so blonde and bubbly, she's basically the anti-Daria. In any case, Gwen gets so good at rock stardom that she blows her older brother off stage, and in short order, blows pretty much the rest of the band off stage. Now, no doubt, it's just Gwen and Tom and Adrian, Gwen's ex-boyfriend Tony, and Gwen's writing lots of heartbroken songs about her ex-boyfriend, Tony. And we've got a Fleetwood Mac Silver Springs situation brewing here. And the songs are

getting simpler and poppier and catchier and better and better. And the break of my stride guys at the helm. And Tragic Kingdom was apparently recorded in 11 different studios and sounds like it. But also, now Gwen Stefani sounds like this. Tragic Kingdom comes out in October 95, just a girl's is the lead single. Gwen Stefani, who by now is in her mid-20s, is on MTV. The rest is history. To many of the 11 million people in the United States alone who will buy this record, the very notion of no doubt is a band with three other people in it is history.

That line always struck me as so bizarre and specific that it had to be real. And indeed, Gwen once told Bam Magazine that she wrote it after her dad got mad at her for driving home from Tony's house late at night. Here we have the perfect confluence of third wave ska and third wave feminism. I had this whole riff where I was going to extensively compare third wave ska to third wave feminism. It's going to be great. Definitely, I would not have been murdered for doing it. It's just a girl feminist.

Gwen Stefani is bubbly and relentlessly girly. And the first sentence of No Doubt's first Rolling Stone cover story includes the phrase bare midriff. And in interviews Gwen gushes at great length about her new boyfriend and future husband. Gavin Rossdale. He of the derivative but hugely lucrative grunge pop band Bush. In the Rolling Stone story, no doubt's in Israel, and as a souvenir, Gwen buys Gavin some glycerin soap. So it's just a girl feminist? Sure it is. Let's not be an asshole about this. In no doubt second Rolling Stone cover story in 2002, the interviewer will observe that the band's new music is sexier, and Gwen will explain it this way. Quote, yeah, I never felt really strong growing up. I didn't know where I fit in. All the women around me that I could look at were in bands like L7 or whole. They were angry, and I didn't really feel like that. And the other ones were these folky girls, so there really wasn't anybody until I discovered blondie.

She, Debbie Harry, was sexy, and she wasn't ashamed to be rocking out. And to me, that's having it all. Because we all want to be sexy. Even guys do. It's in human nature, because we've got to have babies. It's a good point. is just a girl's ska? Not really, which is fine.

Third wave scah, which is just kicking into gear here in 1995, constitutes quite the spectrum. You can be 10% scah, just as easily as you can be a hundred percent scah. Just because I might never get another chance to say this in any sort of public forum, for the record,

the best third wave scah song by anybody other than me is William Shatner by the scofflaws. Don't take my word for it. I really like the one where he reads the Constitution. This isn't no doubt. This isn't even no doubt when no doubt sound at all like a ska band. Tragic Kingdom does have world go round, which is quite striking to me, listening now, is a gigantic pop hook that still knows its roots.

It's a ska song about the environment even, but Tragic Kingdom's legacy. The engine driving, its 11 times platinum status, boils down to three songs. There is just a girl. There is the extra energetic spider webs, which kicks off like a ska song, but is closer to pop punk if we're being picky, which let's not be assholes about this. No doubt played the very first warp tour in 1995, but they wouldn't stick with pop punk for long either. And there is Don't Speak, a monster power ballad that could have come out in 1983,

the same day as Break My Stride, with lyrics that address, surprise, Gwen and Tony's breakup. Except now the song has inspired an especially dominant MTV video, that specifically dramatizes the fact that everyone will only pay attention to Gwen now. And the other increasingly invisible guys and no doubt are pissed, and it's breaking up the band. They don't break up, of course. They've made it. The other guys get over it.

Tragic Kingdom hit number one on the Billboard album chart in December 1996, more than a year after its release. No doubt's next album, Return of Saturn, comes out in 2000 and flops by comparison. Their next album, Rock Steady, comes out in 2001 and is a huge success relative to that. And now, no doubt, are a full-blown pop band, working with the Neptunes and Prince and superstar writer-producer Nellie Hooper

and Rico Kasick from the Cars and reggae godsly and Robbie. In Rolling Stone, Tony Canow would liken rock steady to the third album in their Star Wars-esque trilogy, which would make this record Return of the Jedi, and that it's cheerful and full of Ewoks. Okay, let No Doubt cook, which is to say, let Gwen cook. From the moment that don't speak video airs,

the world is braced for Gwen Stefani's solo career, which takes forever to actually happen, or at least it takes until 2004. Love Angel Music Baby, that's Lamb for short, I'm sure Mariah Carey was thrilled, brings back the Neptunes and Nellie Hooper and Ed's Dr. Dre and Andre 3,000,

and Linda Perry, and Eve, and now Gwen Stefani is a standalone pop star for real. Hollaback girl, Herjuuku girls. I don't want to talk about this yet. She marries Gavin Rossdale. They have three kids and they divorce in 2015, reportedly because Gavin has a three-year affair with the kid's nanny. Even his method of infidelity is derivative.

Sheesh. No doubt put out a comeback album called Push and Shove in 2012 and got their asses kicked on the charts by Mumford and Sons. Nowadays, Gwen is a standalone pop star engaged to doofy country hitmaker Blake Shelton. None of this interests me. Frankly, you know what still interests me?

Sellout. Both the Real Big Fish song and the concept. I am not a Real Big Fish scholar, per se, but I suspect that early independent pre-sellout real big fish sounded basically like this. So we're back to how to even

define the term sell out now that it's part of a dead language. And for sure, for these guys, selling out to them seemed to mean just getting popular. They knew it wouldn't last, and it didn't. And their major label dropped them and then put out a greatest hits compilation against the band's will that was called greatest hit and more. That's not very nice. But real big fish are still hanging in there. So when did no doubt sell out? They have been asked this constantly. They have refuted this accusation constantly since 1995. Did they sell out when the guy who started the band left the band? Did they sell out when they stopped sounding like circus music?

Did they sell out when Gwen Stefani took over? Did they sell out when just a girl blew up or when don't speak really blew up? Did Gwen sell out when she finally went solo? This issue, this moral conundrum, mattered a great deal when no doubt first got famous. And it doesn't matter one bit now. And just a girl, for starters, definitely. still matters. So there's your answer. The same answer for all of those questions. That answer being who gives a shit. No doubt I've always sounded like themselves. And Gwen has always sounded like

Gwen. Just a band. Just a girl. I do hope the sound of music is still Gwen's greatest obsession. She's been telling the world that she's terminally uncool for 25 years now. But I just don't believe it. My guest today is Pujia Patel, pitchfork editor-in-chief, formerly of Spin Magazine and Deadspin and The Village Voice, thank you very much for being here today. Bouger. Thanks for having me, Rob. Of course. Tell me about the first time you heard, no doubt, it's just a girl, or I guess the first

time that it clicked for you. I was very, very, very young when this song came out and when Tragic Kingdom came out. I think I was nine years old and had a habit. I had a very cool friend who lived two doors down. for me, who was two or three years older than me, and all of her friends were two or three years older than her. So she would smuggle cool music to me. So that's how I got, you know, the jagged little pill cassette that I hid behind my desk

so that my parents wouldn't see it. Anyhow, so I had heard from her that no doubt was cool. I didn't have MTV. And I believe I was in the process of complaining to my mother about how I didn't have MTV. and I needed to understand what was cool in the world. And she happened to have a friend over who, like a week later, gave me tragic kingdom. And literally, I consumed the album from front to back.

Like, I didn't know just a girl as a single. I knew, no doubt, as an entity. And that album as a whole, which is unfortunate. Album artists, yes. Is that unfortunate? Given that there are so many songs on that album that do not need to be. on that album. It's a little unfortunate, but... That's fair enough. That's fair enough. Yes. It's pretty long. Pretty long.

I think the funny thing about that album in Gwen Stefani and that song is that it sounds like it's written by my friend. Like, it sounds like it's written by a fellow teenager who is a little bit older and a little bit cooler and could talk back to her parents in a way that I certainly could not, you know. So the cool music, what was the cool music other than no doubts in Alana Smorset at this point? Like, what's cool to you as a nine-year-old in 1995? You know, maybe my timeline's a little bit off.

Maybe I was maybe two years older than that. Maybe it was more like 96, 97 when I really engage with this album. But around then, Fiona Apple had just come out. Right. Weezer was cool. Oh, yes. Unfortunately, Weezer was cool. Tori Amos was cool, though I don't think I fully understood her.

I don't want to say it. Okay. I was going to say Dave Matthews Band was certainly on the come-up around then. Oh, totally. That's timeless. You know, Lady Bird, I think, has enshrined, you know, Dave Matthews Band crash into me. It's like, it holds up totally, I think. You don't have to be.

embarrassed at all by crashing to me. Did you find just a girl at the time empowering in a girl-powered sort of way they're consciously or subconsciously? Like, did you buy into any of that at all? One billion percent because I didn't know any better, you know? Yeah. I mean, truly, think about being that age. Like, maybe you are also dealing with this already with children who are about to be, or close to being teenagers.

but like the indignancy of being told what to do. Right, right. Even if that's just going to sleep or not using the internet at the time we had dial-up. So it was, you know. Oh, yes, right. Big deal. But yeah, I also think there was this super strong cultural divide, which comes into play, obviously, with the fact that I was an Indian kid.

Yeah. You know, living in this super, super, super, super white suburban. with conservative leanings, you know. And I didn't go to summer camp, and I didn't have cable, and my friends were fully through school. I didn't necessarily have this, like, deep pop culture understanding when I was really young. So Gwen Stefani talking about how, you know, even the coil, like, I've had it up to here, like repurposing the mom language.

Right, right. And felt like, yeah, like, give it to them, you know? Like, I, I too want to read past my bedtime. You want to drive late at night, you know, seven years from now when you can actually drive, yes. Right, right. I mean, at the time, I think I was just like, you're really giving it to them, you know? But since then, it's just this totally comedic thing now that I have, or I think a few years later, once I fully got the context. of what that song was and what was living around it.

Right. Once you got MTV or got to see the Just a Girl video for the first time, like, was it how you pictured it, how you pictured her? That's a good question. You know, I don't think so. I think that I always wished that she had more friends that were women. I mean, in that video, correct me if I'm wrong. In that video, it's like the guys are in one room and she's in the pristine room with

These older women kind of babysitting her or something. They're bathrooms. Like, there are two, like, just old women sitting in chairs, like, sort of overseeing her. And, like, they don't, it's like the Walk This Way video, the Run DMC, Aerosmith video where, like, but they don't break down the wall. Like, eventually, they just come over the wall or something. But they come by to eventually. But, yeah, she starts out alone. Yes.

The band breaks into her room. I think it is. Right, right. But wouldn't it be cooler if she was. breaking into theirs. That would be far more profound, yes. You know, so, I mean, I think that she was, I think that she was always, like, hot and subversive.

And, you know, the kind of like skater punk meets Delia's aesthetic was something that was in vogue, certainly among kids my age at the time. Yeah. But I don't know that I was like, I want to be you. I don't think I ever had that with her. Did your parents disapprove? Like, did they know? notice? Did they hear it?

No, but my parents loved music and I don't think they would have disapproved. Like, my mom was such a stand of empowered women in music, though a very different set of them. You know, she would adored Tina Turner. So I don't think that she would have been any kind of way about it, really. Yeah. If anything, the Bindy would have won her over. Well, right. I did want to ask about the Bindi, like what she's wearing in the Just a Girl video, which she did. She wore often at the time. Did that strike you any kind of way at the time? I feel like I have a problematic answer to this.

This is we'll get through this together. You know, I really cannot express how much the kind of like at-home cultural divide between me and my peers. really affected the way I engaged with music and kind of pop culture in general at the time. So I have to say, she did some work for me. You know, like, I was the kid who was participating in, like, the cultures across the world, show and tell days at school. And, you know, I was the person who would spend my summer vacations in India or had, you know, people in saris and bindies that lived at my house.

And, you know, like, very proudly represented my culture as much as I possibly could. Yeah. And kids are not nice, you know, like there were plenty of extremely conservative, very white children who were really rude about it. So I do think that in a weird way, her doing that helped me as a kid, you know, like it made it cooler to be me just the fact that she had an Indian boyfriend. and, like, embraced his culture. Now, did it make me a little bit mad? Yes. Did it make me madder as I grew older?

Absolutely. Yeah. Do I think that the way that she kind of skates her way through different cultures and their meaningful cultural garb or whatever else is extremely infuriating? Yes. But being an 11-year-old, seeing a famous, like, cool, rebellious woman wearing a bindi felt cool.

Yeah. Because, yeah, like 2004, she finally makes a solo record and there's Heru Juku girls. You know, like, do you find her to be like a fundamentally well-meaning person who's just like very clumsy in her enthusiasm? Or does it feel more sort of predatory, you know, like she's just trying on costumes and not really reckoning with what it means? I think it's firmly the latter. Okay.

I mean, I remember there were either rumors or an interview with a former Harajuku girl and her posse, and they were told that they should only speak in Japanese while in public. So, you know, using culture for aesthetic in that way is, I feel like she is not as well-meaning as she might appear. Right. Especially if it's to her benefit, you know, like she made tons of money. She launched a clothing line and first line and everything else tied to it. So, yeah. Yeah. You mentioned thinking at the time when she first sang just a girl that she was maybe like 18 years old.

Like she was in her mid-20. She wasn't that much older. But like, did she strike you immediately as like an especially childlike or idealistic or even like naive person? That's a good question. I definitely not idealistic. But she suffers from a certain. kind of like privileged self-centered affliction, right? Right.

There's a starry-eyed spaciness to her. And I remember that the song Just a Girl is in that movie Clueless, and it actually plays as Cher is complaining to her dad in their very, like, luxurious Beverly Hills Mansion, that she has to do some sort of family favor. And then she's, her inner monologue is going about how her dad bought her this new Jeep. And she's just like driving it off the road and crashing into things and is just like, you know, wide-eyed and in love with the world. And has no concept of the kind of wreckage that is falling behind her and she drives this brand of Jeep.

So, I mean, that's how I think about Gwen Stefani. I think about her as this person who is just like, I have this vehicle that I can drive and, and people will pay attention to me if I do it, and I can weave in and out of whatever I feel like in the moment, which might not be the most forgiving read, honestly. I think it's a fair read, though. From Pitchfork's perspective, from music criticism's perspective, like do no doubt get the respect they deserve,

or is critical respect not something that no doubt particularly needs? I do think they've gotten the critical respect that they deserve. I think it's, you know, what was the second album, Rocksteady? The second album was Return of Saturn. Which was actually the fourth album. Rocksteady is the fifth. That's correct.

Right, right, yes. The Return of Saturn didn't do very well. And Rocksteady is sort of like the pop stuff and hell of good. And that's when they sort of get back on track. And she becomes a solo star, you know, in the 2000s. Yeah. I mean, if you look at the way that people wrote about her in the mid-90s, it's disgusting. I mean, it's like entirely.

almost every single feature written about her in the mid-90s is by a man who was mocking her from the onset, you know? And I can understand, you know, music media at the time is reckoning with like the end of grunge and like the end of riot girl. And you've got Courtney Love who is like the queen of grunge, if only by proximity to Kurt. And then you've got Kathleen Hanna, who is like, girls to the front. And like, let's start this feminist collective. And Joan Jett is producing her biggest single. And then you've got Gwen Stefani at the same time who is like, Daddy is mad at me because I came home late from hanging out with my boyfriend.

But also, why are you living at home? You know, so like you have all these things at the same time. And I do think because, you know, You know, you've got Courtney to reckon with and you've got Kathleen, Hannah, to reckon with. Like, there was a very unfair bias against Gwen Stefani. And, like, the critical reception to me, and I remember this even just from being a kid and driving around with my friends in their cars. Like, I feel like don't speak is what broke, no doubt, in the biggest of ways, right? Yes, the video especially, but yes, definitely.

Yeah. And so, I mean, critically, I feel like the critical claim came a little too late, in part because a lot of, like, men were rolling their eyes at this, like, cute girl who was, you know, her worries and her concerns and her motivations were not necessarily as deep and dark as some of the other women in her sphere. Right, because no doubt played the very first warp tour in 1995. the same year as Traged Kingdom and Warped Tour obviously become this huge phenomenon that's very bro-y and very aggressive. And like, I like the image of Gwen Stefani singing just a girl from the very beginning. But then I worry that, like, I'm putting too much weight on this song for it to be this huge cultural impact thing. When it's just a frivolous pop song, like it's fine as that. Like, it doesn't have to stand in as this big sociocultural thing.

Like, is there too much weight on this song now? No, because it's also meaningful that it, It was so relatable to so many young women, right? And the fact that it felt diaristic in a way that was teenagey in itself is important and meaningful, right? The fact that there was an anthem of this kind that wasn't a mirror to girls just want to have fun, but like an evolution of that is powerful, you know. Yeah. Gwen Stefani was in a Super Bowl ad, you know, in 2021. Is this still a person that you think about or care about?

as a pop star, as a celebrity, as an artist, as anything, really? No, I couldn't care less about Gwen Stefani in 2021. And I mean that in the most respectful ways. Okay, then. I think this has been fantastic, Pugia. Thank you so much for talking. I think that's a fine note to end on. Thanks for having me, Rob.

Thanks very much to our guest this week, Pugia Patel. thanks to our producers, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales. And thanks to you, as always, for listening. And now, without further ado, here is no doubt with just a girl. We'll see you next week.