Rock Steady is the fifth studio album by American rock band No Doubt, released on December 11, 2001, by Interscope Records. The band began writing the album with initial recording sessions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, then traveled to London and Jamaica to work with various performers, songwriters, and producers. Sly & Robbie, the Neptunes, and William Orbit were among the many artists the band collaborated with on the album.
As a result of these collaborations, Rock Steady touches on many musical styles, focusing on electropop, dancehall, and new wave. The band attempted to capture the vibe of Jamaican dancehall music, and experimented with writing songs without its standard instrumentation. Lead vocalist Gwen Stefani wrote her lyrics quickly in comparison to previous records, and dealt with topics ranging from partying to ruminations on her relationship with Gavin Rossdale.
Rock Steady received mostly positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2003 Grammy Awards. The album was a commercial comeback for the band, surpassing sales of their previous album Return of Saturn (2000). Rock Steady spawned four singles, two of which won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Rolling Stone ranked Rock Steady number 316 on its 2003 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Background and production
Every night on the tour to support their 2000 album Return of Saturn, No Doubt threw after-show parties where people danced to Jamaican dancehall music. During a discussion over dinner in late 2000, the band members decided they wanted to explore dancehall-style rhythms for their next album. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Bounty Killer, Cutty Ranks, and Mr. Vegas, the band began work on the album in January 2001 by creating beats on Pro Tools at guitarist Tom Dumont's apartment. The group often tried recreating beats from other song files on the computer, which resulted in modified versions of the original rhythms. When writing lyrics for previous albums, Stefani typically read works by Sylvia Plath that would make her depressed "or find different words that inspire me." In March, No Doubt traveled to Jamaica, staying at the Blue Lagoon in Port Antonio. The group would often have Red Stripe beers or rum and cokes with jerk food for breakfast; 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. The band then worked with producer and former Cars frontman Ric Ocasek in late June. The band and its A&R manager Mark Williams chose collaborators based on how well they thought the person would fit the personality of the song that No Doubt had written. As a result, the album's instrumentation contains less guitar and bass guitar than the band's previous work. Many of the album's sounds come from electronic keyboard effects, which bassist Tony Kanal called "Devo-y bleeps and Star Wars noises". Dumont created an effect similar to that of an echo chamber by placing a microphone inside a metal garbage can with the can's open end facing a drum kit. Richard B. Simon of MTV News asserted that the sound of Rock Steady was part of the decade nostalgia of the 1980s retro movement.
Stefani's vocals range from innocent to seductive, sometimes transitioning from one to the other within a song. Stefani is openhearted and unreserved as on Return of Saturn, but her approach becomes more immediate and instinctive. An overarching theme on the album is Stefani's impatience in the couple's long-distance relationship. She discusses wanting to see Rossdale on "Making Out" and "Waiting Room", and she reveals her distrust in Rossdale on "In My Head".
Composition
Musically, Rock Steady incorporates electropop, dancehall, The album maintains many of the styles present in No Doubt's previous work, while introducing influences from the music of Jamaica. "Hey Baby", "Underneath It All" and "Start the Fire" all feature dancehall and ragga, an electronic-oriented subgenre, as well as guest toasters. The latter, written using backward string samples, also contains the band's traditional ska and reggae sounds. "Platinum Blonde Life" was so strongly influenced by the Cars' work that Kanal apologized to Ocasek, though Ocasek apologized back that he had not seen the similarity.
Because of the number of collaborations, the album touches on several other styles. "Waiting Room", a song written and sung with Prince for Return of Saturn, evokes his R&B style over a drum and bass beat. "Hella Good", an electro-rock song co-written with hip hop production duo the Neptunes, is inspired by the funk songs of the late 1970s such as Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and the Commodores' "Brick House". The album's title track closes the album by tying together the many musical themes.
Release and promotion
"Hey Baby" was released as the lead single from Rock Steady in October 2001. The song peaked number at five on the Billboard Hot 100, while reaching the top five in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and the top 10 in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Norway. The positive response to "Hey Baby" from radio stations and video channels prompted the band to push forward the release of Rock Steady from December 18 to December 11. The album's second single, "Hella Good", was released on April 13, 2002, reaching number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Underneath It All" was released as the third single on August 15, 2002. It became No Doubt's highest-peaking single in the US to date, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100. "Running" was released as the album's fourth and final single on July 1, 2003. Peaking at number 62, "Running" became the band's lowest-peaking single on the Billboard Hot 100 to date. The special edition, released in Europe, includes a remix of "Hey Baby" featuring Outkast and Killer Mike and another remix by F.A.B.Z.; Roger Sanchez's remix of "Hella Good", which won a Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical in 2003; The songs from the two-song bonus disc were released through North American iTunes Stores, and those from the four-song bonus disc were released in other countries. Rock Steady Live, a live DVD of No Doubt performing in 2002 in support of Rock Steady, was released in November 2003.
Critical reception
Rock Steady received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 69, based on 15 reviews. Rolling Stones Rob Sheffield wrote it was "impressive to hear No Doubt summon the musical imagination to transcend the formula that used to imprison them". Alex Needham of 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 the second half of the album spoiled the listening experience. Kimberly Reyes of Time stated that Rock Steady was able to integrate ska, pop, New Wave, and dancehall "without sounding contrived or chaotic". Reyes added that though the album lacked the energy and sales of No Doubt's 1995 breakthrough album Tragic Kingdom, Rock Steady was "their greatest effort to date...the sound of band dropping pretense to realize its potential." Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine commenting that "[n]ot since Blondie [...] has a rock act so effortlessly, irreverently, and fashionably skidded across so many different genre boundaries at one time."
Accolades
Rock Steady was ranked number 316 on Rolling Stones list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in November 2003. In June 2003, it was included on Slant Magazines list of "50 Essential Pop Albums"
"Hey Baby" won the award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards, while Rock Steady and "Hella Good" received nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Dance Recording, respectively. At the following year's ceremony, "Underneath It All" earned the band their second consecutive Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
Commercial performance
right|thumb|Stefani, [[Stephen Bradley (musician)|Stephen Bradley, and Kanal performing on the Rock Steady Tour in March 2002]]
NME reviewer Alex Needham compared the album's revival of No Doubt's popularity to the performance of Madonna's 1998 album Ray of Light. Rock Steady was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on October 11, 2002,
The album was moderately successful outside the US. In Australia, it peaked at number 15 on the ARIA Albums Chart and spent nine non-consecutive weeks in the top 40. Blender commented that Jewel had "brushed up on two sacred pop texts, the Manual of Madonna and the Gospel According to Gwen". The magazine compared her use of a more restrained, throaty purr to Stefani's vocals and noted 0304s use of "jumpy bubblegum choruses and boop-boop-beeping keyboards" as descendants of No Doubt's production.
The cover art of fellow rock band Paramore’s second studio album Riot! (2007) resembles that of Rock Steady, featuring a similar word art design.
Track listing
Notes
- signifies an additional producer
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Rock Steady.
No Doubt
- Gwen Stefani – vocals ; additional programming
- Tony Kanal – bass guitar, keyboards ; programming ; additional programming ; saxophone
- Tom Dumont – guitar, keyboards ; programming ; additional programming
- Adrian Young – drums
Additional musicians
- Bounty Killer – vocals
- Fabien Waltmann – programming
- Sly Dunbar – programming
- Philip Steir – additional programming
- Sean Spuehler – programming
- Eric White – additional programming
- Lady Saw – vocals
- Ned Douglas – programming
- Gabrial McNair – Clavinet, trombone ; keyboards
- Robbie Shakespeare – additional melodic bass
- Andy Potts – saxophone
- Django Stewart – saxophone
- Ric Ocasek – keyboards
- Prince – keyboards, background vocals
Technical
- Nellee Hooper – production
- No Doubt – production
- Greg Collins – recording
- Simon Gogerly – additional engineering
- Anthony Kilhoffer – engineering assistance
- Ian Rossiter – engineering assistance
- Sly & Robbie – production
- Mark "Spike" Stent – additional production ; mixing
- Dan Chase – recording
- Philip Steir – additional production
- Count – additional engineering
- Mendez – additional engineering
- Rory Baker – additional engineering
- Toby Whalen – engineering assistance
- Tom Dumont – additional recording
- Tony Kanal – additional recording
- Brian Jobson – executive production
- Wayne Jobson – executive production
- William Orbit – production
- Clif Norrell – recording
- Jeff Kanan – engineering assistance
- Jennifer Young – engineering assistance
- Ric Ocasek – production
- Karl Derfler – recording
- Juan Pablo Velasco – engineering assistance
- Steely & Clevie – production
- Prince – production
- Hans-Martin Buff – recording
- Alain Johannes – additional engineering
- Steve Mandel – engineering assistance
- Wayne Wilkins – mix programming
- Paul "P Dub" Watson – mix programming
- Johnny Gould – additional mix programming
- Matt Fields – mix engineering assistance
- David Treahearn – mix engineering assistance
- Keith Uddin – mix engineering assistance
- Brian "Big Bass" Gardner – mastering
Artwork
- Gwen Stefani – album art concept
- Jolie Clemens – album design, layout
- Frank Ockenfels – collage photography
- Shawn Mortensen – back cover photography
- Cindy Cooper – album package coordination
- Ekaterina Kenney – album package coordination
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Weekly chart performance for Rock Steady
! scope="col"| Chart (2001–2003)
! scope="col"| Peak<br>position
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Belgian Alternative Albums (Ultratop Flanders)
| 30
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 21
|-
|-
! scope="row"| European Albums (Music & Media)
| 40
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Japanese Albums (Oricon)
| 48
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 2002 year-end chart performance for Rock Steady
! scope="col"| Chart (2002)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Albums (ARIA)
| 97
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 43
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian Alternative Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 11
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 25
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 2003 year-end chart performance for Rock Steady
! scope="col"| Chart (2003)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 151
|}
Decade-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Decade-end chart performance for Rock Steady
! scope="col"| Chart (2000–2009)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 166
|}