No Doubt "Tragic Kingdom" (1995): Track by Track!

On this episode of Surely You Can’t Be Serious, Jason and Dee dive headfirst into one of the defining albums of the 1990s: No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom. The guys trace the band’s painfully slow rise to fame — from the Orange County ska scene and early lineup tragedy to years of label frustration — and explore how those struggles helped fuel the emergence of Gwen Stefani as a brand-new pop and alternative icon. This isn’t overnight success; it’s a hard-earned breakthrough that reshaped the sound and look of mid-’90s music.

Jason and Dee break down the creation of Tragic Kingdom, its production under Matthew Wilder, and how heartbreak, ambition, and timing collided to create a cultural juggernaut. They unpack the stories behind every track, from the raw emotion of “Don’t Speak” to the attitude of “Just a Girl” and the ska-punk energy that powered the album to massive MTV and radio dominance.

Over the last three weeks, the guys put Tragic Kingdom up against two other era-defining releases — Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (Week 1) and Jewel’s Pieces of You (Week 2) — as they debate legacy, impact, and staying power. Which album truly defined the ’90s? Tune in to find out how Jason and Dee rank these iconic records.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ssh, don't speak. It's amandagantic, It's nineteen ninety five. MTVM
plugged is musty TV, and your roommate is an artist.
When it comes to frosted tips, your jeens look like
they lost a fight with a lawnmower. Toy story is
resurfacing some serious abandonment issues. You have fifteen shades of
brown lipstick and your flannel game is on point. Friendly reminder,

(00:23):
You've got mail. Nirvana still has a choke hold over
you until wait, whoa hold on a second?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
What is this?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Is this the audio equivalent of rollerblading through a mosh
pit in platform sneakers while chugging Surge and crying about
your ex?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Is this absolute chaos and.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
A push up bra Today's Fever Dream No Doubts Tragic Kingdom,
the album that simultaneously raised us, broke us, and taught
us that you can absolutely cry while scanking and skanking
For you, youngins is a dance style. Get your minds
out of the gutter. Listening to this thing is like
being emotionally body slammed by a marching band. You're vibing,

(01:05):
you're dancing, then suddenly one Stefani appears out of the fog,
screaming your diary entries back at you.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh God, I'm sorry about that. Brian here again.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Now, surely you can't be serious that this album has
both upbeat scott Chaos and catastrophic heartbreak on the same playlist.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh but they are serious.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
And don't call them Surely call them therapists, because they're
about to unpack some serious trauma. Buckle up, grabbing orbits
post around the way, girl, but pre hollibat girl.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
We are skater girls.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
We are walking into spiderwebs, waiting for you to leave
a message so we can call you back.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
O are not.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
This is tragic kingdom and it came here to fight.
We're in plaid skirts and butterfly barrettes.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Let's roll, all right, d as we wind up our
nineties ladies.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, I got a question for you, our nineties girl,
three way.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Our menage autoire of nineties ladies. Were you a napster
guy or a LimeWire guy?

Speaker 4 (02:10):
I didn't. I don't think I ever used either one
of those. Really, Yeah, you.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Missed one of the golden ages.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
I know like and I know that a lot of people.
I think probably I was like a secondhand guy like somebody.
I just found somebody who had downloaded a million things,
and I was like, okay, cool, I'll just take cares
because are as. Yeah no, that's literally what happened, Like, hey,
will you burn me a bunch of disks? And so
I think that was it. I didn't. It wasn't savvy
enough to do the napster thing.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Oh my gosh. So for those of you who are
too young to remember this or too old to realize
it was going on, basically we went through a couple
of eras in the eighties. We had BMI and Columbia House,
which was ten CDs for a penny, which that was
like Man from Heaven. I mean it was like straight.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Gold, right, pretty confident that this album was one of
those pictures.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Okay, yeah, Well then you had the napster slash LimeWire
where you could share.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Not legally, but yes, I mean, you know, what's a
little home piracy.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
We talked about home BUYERUSY and our Patreon episode.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
By the way, guys, sign up for our Patreon page.
We do one hit Wonders and I got to tell you, you know,
this is an awesome album. I listened to it over
and over again, and as I'm walking into recorded day,
all I can sing in my head is ain't nothing
going to bring the mass ride and nothing on z
mean down And you'll find out why in a little bit. Okay,
But we do one hit Wonders on our Patreon episodes

(03:28):
and they are for our paying Patreon members and for
as little five bucks a month. You can check those
episodes out go to patreon dot com slash Shirly podcast
and we've got dozens of them at this point. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
So for me, No Doubt's album Tragic Kingdom that we're
covering today, yeah, was square in the middle of the
Napstra era for me.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
I was an early adopter on No Doubt. I remember
very specifically because we had a band back then, and
we had a girl who was singing with us, and
we're trying to find girl songs and she brought in
these songs and I was like, Oh, these are great,
and I said, I'm going to get this album. And
I got the album and I can remember vividly driving
listening to this CD, probably on an aftermarket JVC radio

(04:08):
that I had like installed in my little Nissan or
whatever it. But anyway, like I'm listening to the whole album,
which is what you did back in those days. You
just listened to every song and the only two that
I remember being released were Spider Webs and Just a Girl.
And then I get to Don't Speak, and I'm like,
what the heck is this? And I just listened to

(04:30):
it over and over again. I can remember the first,
you know, next time I saw my best friend, I
was like, you've got to hear that, and he was
his mind was blown too. And then sure enough, like
just within a month or two after that, like it
was everywhere, It was everywhere. It was an MTV video,
which was the equivalent of being a single back then.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
That's right, that's right, and we'll talk about that. Yeah,
you have a girl singer in your band STD. Yes
right now, Yes, this would be a great song for
you to sing. Yes, it would thirty years later, it would.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Kill absolutely it would just go learn it today. We
have practice after we're done here, so let's see if
this comes up. Okay, very good, very good.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
All right, So just a quick overview. Tragic Kingdom is
No Doubt's third album. Their first two really did not
make a splash at all.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Right, and there's an interesting story behind all of those
and we'll we'll obviously tell it. We've got fourteen songs
to go through. So yeah. What's interesting to note is
when they finished with Tragic Kingdom, like they've finished recording it,
they've all got real jobs. They're all pretty much living
with their parents, almost all of them right in the
same house that they grew up with. And they're in there,
I mean, twenty six, still living at home and working

(05:34):
regular like Broadway, you know, gift shop or whatever it was.
And Tony Kanaal, the bass player, was working I think
at cal State, is like an administrative assistant.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
You know really, and he was He went to his.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Boss and he's like, hey, we're gonna go out on
tour just if you can please keep my job up
before we want to get back.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, thirty seven years later and he hasn't been back.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, So that is that is how little they knew
what this album was going to do.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
It's crazy, Let's jump in, Let's jump in, okay before
we do sixteen million copies.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
Sold, It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
First song on the album, second single, The song's called Spiderwhibs.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
Okay, Jason, what do you know about SKA?

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Not very much? Not very much.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
So this is probably I would say ninety nine percent
of the population's first experience with ska punk. Okay, I
mean at least the third wave of the ska movement.
That's it. Now. The reason that ska and punk got
together is because because the ska bands would play at
the same place that the punk bands were playing, and

(07:03):
eventually they would have an overlap of musicians. But what
you basically have is you kind of have this punk
style with like a horn section right right, And but
we're you and I are familiar with that because that's
the clash, right Yeah, go back and check out our
Stranger Things episode. We talked all about the clash, but
that kind of punky vibe with the horns is what
kind of defined it. But then there's also this the

(07:25):
ska part of it. Sky is basically the grandfather of reggae.
So when we did our what was it, Top Songs
nineteen eighty.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Maybe Top five songs in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
So you mentioned the tide is high, is like rock steady,
That's that's the rhythm, right's the genre?

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Yeah, so rock steady and they, I mean the no doubts,
I think they're not this next one after this, but
the one after that they're whatever would be. Fifth album
was called rock Steady, but it all began with ska,
which is a kind of Caribbean rhythm. Ska transitions into
rock steady, and rock steady transitions into reggae. Rock stead
He's kind of a slowed down version of the dancy

(08:03):
kind of ska. But if you just kind of think, okay,
take out some of the strums of reggae and then
speed it up a little bit, that's what gives you
that kind of ska sound. And so back in the
early eighties there were several bands that were doing it,
but they weren't huge except for two The Clash, which
I mentioned, and this band called Madness. You remember Maddens.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
I hope you were going to bring them up, yeah,
because when you asked me initially what my experience with
ska is One song by Madness that was a big
hit in nineteen.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Eighty three, maybe, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
That song is called Our House.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
So Our House, like you said, came out in eighty three.
It was off the album also called Madness. Before that,
in seventy nine, they had an album called One Step
Beyond Okay, and then eighty they had a song called
Absolutely that had the song baggy Trousers on it. Which
of these two things it was. But back in the
early eighties, a guy named Eric Stefani bought a Madness

(09:07):
Album's right and showed it to his little sister, who
would he would sit and play music with and like
basically drag her away from watching The Brady Bunch so
that she would come and sing while he played the piano.
And he's like, listen to this, and he played her
this Madness album and that's what inspired the style, and
this first song you get a great flavor of the

(09:28):
ska punk style.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Absolutely. You know, you talk about Eric Stefani, who is
Gwinn's older brother. She really looked up to him. She
thought he was cool, he had cool musical tastes. She's like,
you know, I sing, but really I was just kind
of a shy girl, backup singer. I didn't even play
an instrument, Like he was a musician and I was
just tag along. Well, come to find out, she's actually
the star, but he was the leader.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a big process because
this band, I mean, even though most of the country
didn't know who they were until Tragic Kingdom came out.
Had been together for eight years. I think they formed
in eighty six. That's incredible, so nearly nine years at
the point that this that this starts to hit.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
I sent you a video of their very first TV
appearance on a Southern California variety show called The Gig,
and when I watched it, the song reminded me of
Oingo Boingco. Okay, but they have a girl who looks
like Patsy Kinsett from Lethal Weapon two who is lead
singing wow, And I'm like, you get that girl with

(10:44):
that music, You're onto something.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yeah, okay, so tell me about Spiderwebs. Okay.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
So this was the second single released September ninth, nineteen
ninety six. As we talked about, not a lot of
physical singles released because they're driving CD sales.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yeah, this is the same is true for Jaggie Little
Pill album. Right. That's right, tons of what appeared to
be singles because there were music videos for them, but
really you had to go get the album to hear
the song.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
At this point in time, MTV is Casey's top forty.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
Yeah, it's more powerful.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Than any radio station. It is the radio station for
the world MTV. Yes, so not released as a commercial single,
so it's ineligible for the Hot one hundred. But it
does reach number eighteen on the Billboard Airplay Charts, which
tracked how many times it was played on the radio. Now,
this was written by Gwenn and Tony. I know, we'll
get into this later.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Gwinn did not even realize she was a songwriter until
her brother quit the band and she got dumped.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
Both of these things happening right before Tragic That's right
was released.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
That's right now the song spiderwebs. I don't know. I mean,
I know you remember the time, but you remember a
time you actually had answering machines sitting on the counter, like.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Can you kitchen a message?

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Hey, this is D. Leave a message and I'll call
you back whenever I get a chance. Yes, And then
somebody would be like, hey, D, it's Jason, and you'd
be like, oh hey Jason, Hey hey. It was the
screen calls.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
Right at this time, at this time, my message this
was in nineteen it would have been nineteen ninety sixteen
ninety seven. My message was hello, what what what? I'm sorry?
Can can you? Can you speak up. I can't I
can't hear you. Oh, actually I can't hear you because
I'm not here. Leave a message yes, And I got

(12:42):
berated by my dad. He was like, I can't believe that.
He was so mad, so mad at that. But that's
what you did back then.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
My nephew's cell phone. It's currently that very thing. It's
an only but a goodie. So but here's the here's
the story of this song. Yeah, who is stunning had
many suitors shock her well. At one week moment, a
guy came up to her. She wasn't interested, but she
gave him her number anyway, and this guy proceeded to

(13:14):
pursue her.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Strongly, relentlessly.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yes, yes, and so he would call it he she said.
He thought because she played in a band, she would
be up at like two, three, four in the morning,
and so he would leave her messages like, hey, I
wrote a song I want to play for you. She said, God,
why did I give this guy my number?

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Right?

Speaker 3 (13:31):
And he would recite poetry. And the funny thing is
so Tony Canal who is her ex She they wrote
the song together. They have never released the identity of
this guy.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
That's probably appropriate, right, he's.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Got to know who he is though. You know, if
I were like I used to chase Gwen Steffani around,
you know, in fact, I used to read poetry over
the Hey wait a minute, but actually I dug up
who this song is about.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Ready for this?

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, Dave Coolier, No, I'm just kidding. That's not true.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Oh how cool would that be of that word true?
That would be so awesome. But you're right. This song
was their attempt at making the tide is high?

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Okay, have you watched the music video for this briefly?

Speaker 4 (14:22):
I don't think I did not rewatch it in full.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Okay, so this is a music video. Once again, I'm
not going to spike the football fifteen times about Gwen
Stefani being beautiful, but she is a rock star and
she had this little gem on her forehead, and she
had the platinum blonde hair, and she has kind of
this punky style that really like Overnight caught on with

(14:47):
the girls in the night.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
It was very it was very skater girl kind of
look for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
So in this video they're they're performing at a wedding
and then next thing you know, there's like wedding cake
all over the place and it doesn't make any sense. However,
it is directed by a guy named Marcus Nispol. He
went on to direct remakes of Friday the Thirteenth, Texas
Chainshaw Massacre, and Conan the Barbarian.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
Okay, second song on the album.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
This song is called excuse me.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Mister Okay the freaking like I hear this and I'm like,
who is making music like this? This is not like
anything anybody is hearing at this time. I understand why
they thought, well, okay, you know, maybe this album will

(15:35):
do something, or we'll just go back to college and
have regular lives. It's so different than everything that was
going on at this point. And then in the middle
of what's already cool and different, you have this a
minute and thirty seconds in, you have this fantastic breakdown
that sounds like you said, like a vaudeville circus.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Act kind it is no doubt, no doubt. First joke,
that's one time Okay.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
So okay. By the way, that's a great lead into
the name of the band. The reason that the band
was called No Doubt is because their original lead singer,
guy named John Spence, would say no doubt like my
friend Jason does here all the time, all the time.
It is a catchphrase of yours, and it was of his,
and that's how they came up with the name of
the band.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
You know, John Spence was the lead singer until he
took his own life, like right before they had this
big important gig in nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, John Spence and Eric Stefani met at Dairy Queen
and decided to put a band together, and Gwynn is
tagging along singing with them, singing, you know, she'll take some,
He'll take some. And they're they're developing a following there
in Anaheim, which is I mean, it's not the rock
capital of the world, right, La looks down on these
Orange County folks, but there's definitely a scene in places

(16:56):
to play. But they had built up over the year
enough of a fan base that they were going to
play at the Roxy. Yeah, I believe it was December
twenty first, nineteen eighty seven. They said he was like
always just this positive guy, like he was the positive,
let's go member of the band, and then takes his
own life tragically. They did actually decide to disband for
a minute, but they had a trumpet player back then

(17:18):
his name was Alan Mead, and he was like, you guys,
you know, if you guys want, I'll sing, I can sing.
And they played the roxy Alan Mead sang. He left
a little while after that and when became the solo.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
Keep in mind, nineteen eighty seven is a long time
before nineteen ninety six when they break. Yeah, it's a
long time of hauland drum kits and living in your
parents' bedroom, you know.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Yeah, the tours that they would go on, well, I'll
tell you more about those later, but yeah, they were
in a rented van and sleeping on the hard floor
of the van and not in a hotel like they
would stop at gas stations and taco bells yep, because
you could get three burritos for a dollar back then, right, beat,
remember that three for a dollar?

Speaker 3 (17:58):
What a great time. Now, I do have a story
about this particular song. Yeah, it's the fourth single was
released August twenty first, nineteen ninety six. The band fought
with the label about which version would be on the album. Okay,
so Matthew Wilder, who was the producer of this album,
who has a major one hit wonder of the nineteen eighties.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
Yeah, we drop it now. I mentioned this earlier. This
is the song that was stuck in my head as
I came in today. So they tapped Matthew Wilder to
be the producer of this album. And Matthew Wilder at
the time would have been ten years earlier, like he
came in around ninety three ninety four, yep, and he
had had what we would describe as a one hit wonder.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Major one hit wonder. That song is called.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
Break my Stride, Stop, Bring Stop, Yeah, keep them moving.

(19:03):
So you listen to that song and it's definitely got
that kind of Caribbean dance to it. I feel like
he's the perfect match for this style of music that
these guys are doing.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
That didn't even occur to me until you just said that,
yeah great.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
That song reached number five okay in late nineteen eighty
three and early eighty four okay, And he goes on
to produce. Now, they were wrestling with him on this song.
He wanted them to do a like a country version
of this song, and they're like, no, we want it
to be more SKA.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
They actually kind of said, look, we're not going to
record spider webs if you don't let us at least
do our version of this song. Oh wow, Okay, so
it's a little bit of a power struggle.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
I think they gave him one attempt at it and
they ultimately won, and that's why you get this version.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah. Well, this version's fantastic. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
This reached number seventeen on Billboard's Alternative.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
Airplay chart, again not released as a hard single.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
In the music video, lots of energy, lots of high kicks,
Gwinn takes scissors to her tank top to expose her midriff,
which that became a fad.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
All right, next song, next song on the album, first single,
This is just a girl.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
Ribbon off my eyes. I'm exposed, no.

Speaker 6 (20:27):
Plum brass, don't done knowing.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
So this is one of the songs that we covered,
and I loved playing this song. And I was trying
to think of the way to describe what Gwinn's voice
sounds like in the song and a lot of the
songs on these albums, and I saw somebody describe it
as a Qubi doll, and I was like, that's close.
But now that I'm thinking about it, it's almost like a
Betty boop, like a doep. But you juxtapose that with

(21:03):
the lyrics being about I mean, it's it's obviously it's
it's sarcastic, but you can't you know, I'm a girl.
You can't drive late at night. You need to hold
my hand. Obviously sarcasm, which you know you talked about
all of the mom rock albums of the nineties. This
isn't mom rock at all. But this is still that
the girl power that was prevalent in the mid nineties,
with this and Alanas and Jewel and I mean even

(21:27):
Shania Twain, no doubt if we have a drinking game
and you drink every time, Jason says no doubt in
a way that we're not referring to the band.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
I'm gonna quit fighting and I'm just gonna embrace it.
I do have the story of this song. Okay, So
a couple of things that generated this song.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
For her.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
Number One, she's the only girl that would perform with
all these punk bands, so literally it's she's the only
girl in her band, of course, but when they're competing
against other bands, there's no girls. All her friends are guys.
And then there's also she would kind of pull that
card like I can't carry the drum kit. I'm just
a girl. I'm just a girl, a girl.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Boo boombe doo.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
But but the one thing that really set her off
was her dad lit her up one time for coming
home way too late for you know, look, there's crazy
drivers out there. It's two o'clock in the morning, you're
driving around, and she's like, you're just a girl. I'm
twenty five years I do think it's interesting k Rock

(22:42):
started playing this song. Yeah, that's the same radio station
in LA that jump started a Lance Moore set.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
Well, I mean, yes, among others a million Yeah, I caim.
We didn't mention it earlier that if you're tuning in
for the first time, we're comparing this to a Loance
Moore set Jagged Little Pill and Jewel Pieces of You.
That's a that's our Menaja Twise Jason referred to it earlier.
And there's a common thread that goes through all of
these that I'll mention sometime later on. But anywhere we

(23:08):
keep going.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Now, Okay, I want to talk about the music video
real quick.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
The opening shot is at Gwinn's grandparents'.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
House, which is where they lived and made music as
a band. Yeah, that's where they set up their practice
space put a recording studio. Their second album that we
talked about was called The Beacon Street Collection because that
house was on Beacon Street, which literally is in the
shadow of the Matterhorn, Like, I mean, they could hear
the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland from that house. And so

(23:38):
that brings us to the title of the album because
I didn't know. I mean, I don't know how many
times I read Anaheim and it's Disneyland and I'm like,
I wonder what tragic Oh, magic Kingdom, Tragic Kingdom. I
get it now.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
So this music video was directed by Mark Corer, who
directed music videos for Green Day, including Longview and basket Case.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Also filmed in the house. I think one of the
basket Case I think was filmed in the house that
they recorded in. Ironically, yeah, we've covered that album. Yeah,
go back last year and we covered it compared to
Bush sixteen Stone, which is another a big factor in
this story as well.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yep, we'll talk about him or them here in just
a second. He also directed the video for HND in
my pocket said oh nice, Okay, now there's some really
cool stuff going on image wise in this music video.
There's two bathrooms. You have the guy bathroom and the
girl bathroom, and the guy bathroom is kind of junkie
and gross and all that which we know to be true,

(24:34):
and then the girl's bathroom where everybody wants to party
in the girls bathroom. Now, if you watch the video
very closely, there is a woman who is very pregnant
who is dancing in the girl's bathroom. Okay, that's Gwinn's

(24:57):
sister Joel, who was very pregnant at the time.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
This song was featured in Clueless and Rome and Michelle's
high school reunion. But really, I mean this song is
a girl power song of the nineties.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
Absolutely. I can remember doing this song and Stupid Girl
by Garbage, which was another one. I mean, they could
have easily been in this conversation, but Garbage was definitely.
We were covering a couple of their songs and Stupid
Girl was one of them. Sleeping Girl's a good one.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah, I do want to just bring up in my
own opinion, you have Ska, you have Gwenn bringing pop
elements to her songwriting, and then you've got Tom Dumont,
who is a metal guitarist.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yeah, he I mean, keep in mind, he joins the
band in I think it was late eighty seven if
I remember correctly, maybe it might have been eighty eight.
But anyway, when he comes in, he's leaving a heavy
metal band that was called Rising because he was sick
of all of the heavy metal bands being only interested
in drinking and wearing spandex, which it was the hair
metal time, right, eighty eight eighty nine, that was when

(25:56):
that stuff was going on, and he was like, I
just want to play music. And that's another interesting thing
about this band. I mean, these guys are all focused
on the music. They're not big drug users, they're not
big alcoholics, they're all kind of clean. And Tony Kanaal,
the bass player, he's from India, like he his parents
are Indian and they moved around to better their opportunities,

(26:17):
lived in the UK for a while, finally got citizenship
in the US. His first tape that he had was
Minute Work, and he's listening to the tape with his
dad and they're like going to he's going to go
join the high school band, and he doesn't know what
instrument he's going to play, and they're listening to this tape.
And he's like, oh, that's a cool sound. What does
that sound? And his dad's like, that's the saxophone. That's
my favorite instrument. And he's like, cool, I'll play the saxophone.

(26:37):
So Tony Kanal joins the high school band playing saxophone
until he's in the tenth grade, and then the jazz
band bass player leaves. He graduates, goes away, and the
band director's like, okay, Chris is out next year. Who
wants to be our new bass player? And he had
thought Chris was like the coolest guy in the world.
So he's like, ooh, I'll do that, and so he literally,

(26:58):
like tenth grade is when he starts to play bass
for the first time, learns it over the summer. By
a year later, he's joined the band. Like they've seen
him play. He has never been in a band before.
They've seen him play in the school jazz band, and
they're like, Hey, we're going to get rid of our
bass player or he's going to leave or something like that.
Come watch us play, and so he got He goes

(27:19):
and watches them play at Fender Ballroom and he's like,
this is the coolest thing I've ever he'd never been
I mean he'd been to big arena shows. First show,
by the way, this will be important later, was Prince
obsessed with Prince Yeah, anyway, he had been to those
big arena shows, but hadn't been to one of these
like local club shows. Because he's, you know, just a
regular band nerd kid, right. Yeah, he sees what's going on.

(27:40):
He's like, I've got to be a part of this,
and after he watches him, he's like, I'm in if
you'll have me, and that's how he joins the band.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
This song put them on the map.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
I mean, let's absolutely right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
It charted at number twenty three on the Hot one hundred.
Peaked out May fourth of ninety six. That's my twenty
third birthday, by the way, it's good there you go.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, I didn't mention that Gwen Stefani October third is
her birthday, is mine? Now, she was born in sixty nine,
so she's she's six years older than I am.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
She's class of eighty seven.

Speaker 4 (28:09):
She looks like she's probably ten years younger than I
am at this point, but.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
She could have been walking the same high school hallways
as me.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
Yeah, all right, next song on the album, this song
is called happy Now.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
You had best, but she gave me from.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
So the story of how Tony joined the band is
a nice segue for this song because when he joins
the band, when is immediately smitten. After a while of
a few shows, she's just finally like, so you're gonna
kiss me? Or what?

Speaker 3 (28:52):
I love it? I love it?

Speaker 4 (28:54):
And they formed this relationship, like I said, eighty eight
eighty nine, seven years. They're together for seven years, and
then just before they start working on Tragic actually kind
of while they're working on Tragic Secdom, they break up
and this is the first song that she writes about
that breakup. And she calls him no right and says,

(29:15):
I wrote a song about you breaking up with me.
Would you like to hear it? And he was like okay,
and you listen to the lyrics of this song. You
had the best, but you gave her up because dependency
might interrupt idealistic will so hard to please. Put your
indecisive mind at ease. You broke the set. Now there's
only singles, there's no looking back, and this time I

(29:38):
mean it. Are you happy now? Oh? Tell me? Are
you happy now? This is her? You ought to know.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
It's right she's given it to him.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yeah, you know, he's like, okay, and to stay in
a band together.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
I mean, he's got a play next to her. He's like,
this is about me being a jerk. I mean, it's
a scathing breakup song.

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Yeah, I mean, and he just sa he want its base.
I think he probably wanted to date other girls.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
I think he wanted to live the life of a
touring rock star. This was the sixth single really September
twenty third, ninety seven. Yeah, we're getting into our third year.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
I was very familiar with this song by the time
it came out on the on the MTVS.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Here's what Gwynn said about this song. It's the perfect
revenge song of somebody who got hurt in love. It
really was meant to be painful. Hey, dude, listen to this. Yeah, okay,
next song is called Different People.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
So this is not one that came out as a single.
I don't think there was a video for it. I mean,
could be wrong, but there was. But this to me
is like definitive ska punk. Like this. If you're saying
I'm gonna go watch this cool ska band play, I'm like,
that's the song that they need to play. It's got
that ska, the damn about that rhythm, and it's got

(31:03):
the horns in it, and it's just, oh my gosh,
it's such a great song. I'm really actually kind of
surprised because I would say this is the hidden gem
on the album since it didn't get released, because this
is a fantastic song.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
You know, this summer we did Jimmy Buffett and we
had an episode where we had little drinks with little
bamboo umbrellas and stuff like that. This song kind of
makes it me feel like that, you know. Yeah, it's
it's a Caribbean feel exactly. Do you know who cites
this song as one of their favorites? Barack Obama loves
this song.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
I saw Gwyenn talk about I mean, it's weird. That's
out of left field, right, you know. She said one
day she's literally living in her parents' house in her
old childhood bedroom, and the next day the President of
the United States calling one of her songs his favorite.
It's a crazy Climb and Rise to Fame.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yeah, okay, so I'm going to kind of jump into
the future instead of talking about the past at this point.
But I mentioned that Tony Kanall first concert that he
saw was Prince. Right later on, they play in Minneapolis
and Prince. They get the news Prince wants to come
watch a show, and they're I mean, they're all Prince
fans because who wasn't who grew up in ladies, right,
And it's not just a matter of oh yeah, I

(32:11):
like his music. It's like he's an icon, like the
Purple One. Yeah. So they're like, oh my gosh, and
they see him, like come in. And then he later
invites them to Paisley Palace, right, and and they're like
they're like sitting down in his living room waiting for
him to arrive, and he like comes and is at

(32:31):
the top of the stairs and they said, is he floating?
It looks like he's floating down the stairs right now.
They're all just dumbstruck, mystified. He said. They tried to
jam and it was just a massive failure because they
were too in awe of him. But later he hits
up Gwenn to do a song with him. I think
that's what you're going to talk about, and offers to
help them with the song. But they get to come

(32:53):
and see him a few times and then they end
up he ends up going to a show in the
same arena and he's going at Tony's. This point is
very wealthy because this because of this album, right of course.
And he calls his wife and says, I have my
old original prints ticket framed, tell me what the seat
and box number is that I was in, and she called,

(33:13):
and she calls him and tells him, and he gets
the same seat again, like whatever, fifteen years later.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
That's fantastic. Yeah, So you mentioned the song that he
called Gwen to come work on with him. Yeah, that
song is called so Far, So Pleased, and it wasn't
what I was familiar with. When I listened to it,
I'm like, this is like a great melodic pop song
of the eighties. I just bypassed me.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
Okay, So that is off the album Rave Unto the
Joy fantastic and of course it's unto Is You In?
And the number two because of the Prince right h
came out in ninety nine and I'm listening to their voice.
Blend is spot on. It's a really great blend.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
It's better than Prince and Appollonia probably.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Yeah. I wonder if Quinn Stephani had to bathe her
had to cleanse herselves in the waters of late that's right.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
So here's the cool story I got from her time
with Prince.

Speaker 5 (34:21):
Right.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
So she goes with them, they work on this song,
they pump it out. It's a good song. I like it.
So she comes back and she's like inspired. Right, She's like,
I've just spent a whole bunch of time with Prince.
I want to do a song. She's like, I want
to make Raspberry Beret. So she came back and she
had been listening, of course, to she listened to every
note that Prince had ever put out, but she was

(34:42):
also listened to this rap artist named Tricky. I don't
know who that is.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
I'm sure I recognize that name. Ye Okay.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
So they had been working on this kind of slow,
sappy love song type of thing, and she takes that inspiration.
She kicks everybody out except for Tom I believe, Okay.
She says she was just sitting there and the lyrics
were in front of her. She's like, she started looking
at the lyrics. She's like, I think we can speed
this up and do it kind of snappy rather than

(35:09):
a slow love song. And that song became ex girlfriend.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
That's The first song off the album that comes out
after Tragic Kingdom called Return of Saturn. Yeah, it's much
more poppy. They've kind of pulled away from that ska
feel and they're they're doing a much harder pop rap
kind of thing, which was probably the right choice in
the year two thousand.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
There you go, big hit for them.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
Next song on the.

Speaker 4 (35:39):
Album Okay, This song is called hey You. I feel
like they should have called this song Ken and Barbie

(35:59):
Doll okay or just like my Ken and Barbie Doll.
Make it a nice long title. The hey You you
lose the impact of the song. It's a throwaway to
kind of title.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's not a good title, but it's a good song.
It is a good song. I would say it's one
of the undiscovered gems.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
Yeah, it's me. Yeah, it's got the sitar in there,
you know, throw back to the Beatles and Robbie Shankar stuff,
and it's it's catchy, it's got a good melody to it.
It's got an interesting topic. It's basically, hey you in
the wedding dress. You're totally deluding yourself. This isn't You're
not going to rope your dreams by doing this. You
just look like my Ken and Barbie Doll. Right.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
This was the seventh single.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Oh really seven. I didn't even realize this came out
as a single. Wow. Oh yeah, so it wasn't even
released until February of ninety eight. I had probably moved
on to other music by this time.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Five ninety six, ninety seven, ninety eight. This is the
fourth year of this album.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
Wow. Yeah, so I you know I've mentioned that Tony
Canal said, Hey, well my job for me, Okay, I'm
gonna need my minimum wage job whenever I get back,
which I mean back then it was like three twenty five. Yeah,
I like that, right, But obviously they blow up. But
when just a Girl comes out and they really catch fire,
the tour gets bigger and bigger, and they tour for

(37:14):
twenty seven months. Like they are touring for two years
after this album is released, over two.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
Years I heard her talking about this.

Speaker 4 (37:23):
You know.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
They opened with three eleven, which had their moment in
the nineties.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Sure, yeah, I like three three eleven right.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Then they started touring with a band called Bush that was.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
An important thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Now we covered Bush sixteen stone. They had a whopper
of an album. Yeah, in the mid nineties. Yeah, go
back and listen to that episode.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yeah, actually, sincerely go back and listen to that episode
because I talk about Innerscope Records on that when I
kind of give the history. Tony Field is the guy
who does this. It's a great little story. So please
go check out Bush sixteen stone. Okay, So they get
signed with Interscope. They're just I mean, they're playing opening
shows and they've got some following, they're headlining some shows,

(38:08):
but they're not huge yet, right, and SKA is not
what anybody's interested in in nineteen ninety. I mean, nineteen
ninety is like it's a desert of music.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
If you remember, he is Wilson, Phillips and Slaughter and.

Speaker 4 (38:19):
Yeah, it's really not good. Yeah, but he Tony Ferguson
of Interscopes goes and sees a show in nineteen ninety
and sees this band that's having all kinds of fun
horns on the stage, stage diving, the crowd is going
and you got the mosh pit and they're going crazy.
It's and he's like, okay, we'll sign this band. That's
nineteen ninety, right. They don't put it on an album

(38:42):
until nineteen ninety two, which is also titled No Doubt.
That album skyrockets up to thirty thousand in sales. That's
not even Golden Canada, right, And so what happened? Like
you said, they rent the vans, they go out on

(39:03):
this tour, they don't sleep in hotels. Innerscope isn't promoting
them at all, and they're going to these different towns
and they go in the record store and their album
isn't there, and they're not helping them with them pay
for the tour, and it's just this absolute struggle. As
a matter of fact, when they go to Oxford, Mississippi,
the only people that show up to the show are
guys that Adrian met early in the day. It's like, hey,

(39:27):
we're playing it, I you should come to see this.
There were more people on the stage than in the audience,
and so they would like jump off the stage to
balance it out.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
So that's crazy, man.

Speaker 4 (39:39):
So they're playing with bands back in Anaheim and they're
they're playing with bands like the Intuchables and Fishbone, and
they do one show, one show at cal State Long
Beach with a band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
which ties us back to both Pieces of You because

(40:00):
Flea played on you were Meant for Me, You Were
Meant for Me, and ties back to Jagged Little Pill
because both Flee and Dave Navarro played on you utter
know that's right. Okay, So they're signed with Innerscope. They
released this no Doubt album. It does steadily. I mean
it's after driving hundreds and thousands of miles to try

(40:21):
to promote this show by themselves. It doesn't do very
well at all.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
Right, Well, and keep in mind, this is the time
that Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Soundgarden are blowing.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
Up, yes ninety two like they just like those guys
hit the scene late ninety one, This is ninety two
that they're trying to promote this. March of ninety two
is when it came out. Right, nobody wants a pop
scot band. They want their grungy, repressed, anger, hard raw sound.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
That's why I give them credit for not donning flannel
and kind of doing the thing.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
Absolutely, yeah, they stayed their course. They did. They did,
that is absolutely true. But they're not having much success.
Stefani Gwen's brother, who is a founding member of the band.
He leaves to go be an animatory animator for the
Simpsons and Rugrats. I mean he had been doing it
before though. That was like his kind of day job
when they were very first forming the band in the

(41:14):
first place. Right. And so after this comes out, for
the next two years, in eleven different studios, they're trying
to produce this album and they're getting no help from Interscope,
and Interscope had signed them to a multi album deal.
It's just they're just like and they would keep telling
them that's not a good song for this album. You
throw it away, throw it away. And so all of
these songs that Innerscope is telling them to throw away,

(41:36):
they said, you know what, We've got enough money. We're
going to buy a sixteen track recorder. They set it
up in the Stefani's grandparents' house and they record their
own independent album with their label at The album is
called the Beacon Street Collection. The studio the label is
called the Beacon Street Label. And they release this independent album. Right,

(41:56):
the first thousand sellout within a couple of months, and
by the end of the year. Now this is early
ninety five that they released the Beacon Collection. Now, Tragic
Kingdom comes out in October. I wish I knew what
the numbers were between March and October. But when they
have success. They ended up selling one hundred thousand albums
by the end of the year, but I think a
lot of that was kind of boosted by Tragic Kingdom, right,

(42:19):
But they're selling enough of this independent album that they've
made themselves, the inn Interscope is like, okay, well we'll
help out a little bit more. They're given a little
bit more leeway. And then this is where the Magic
and the Bush story comes in.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Magic and the Bush.

Speaker 4 (42:33):
Yeah, the guys who had done Bush's album had done
sixteen Stone. We talked about them back then. It's Rob
Khane and Paul Palmer. They meet them in one of
their eleven studio recordings, and those guys have an associated
label with Interscope. It's called Trauma Records. And they see

(42:55):
something that Interscope just doesn't see, right, and they're like, hey,
let's make a deal. Let us do the album. Trauma
Records does Tragic Kingdom instead of Interscope Records, and we'll
release it and will distribute it, and we'll get it
mixed properly and all this stuff. And they said, because
this was a smaller independent label. They got the focus

(43:15):
that they really needed for this album. And then once
it's released, the guys from Trauma Records are the ones
that get them played on k rock, and they're the
ones that get them into the music stores so that
other people can buy their albums. And then of course
just a girl happens, millions and millions of dollars start
rolling in and then Interscope bulks on them, and so

(43:37):
they have to sue. Trauma Records has to sue Innerscope,
and there's a big battle about you know, breach contract
and extortion and all this other stuff. They end up
settling I read for three million, but I'm not really
trusting Wiki on that one. But it was a big
lawsuit that happened. But it was all because these guys
who had done sixteen Stone said we see something in
this band, let us give it a shot. They're the

(44:00):
reason that Tragic Kingdom did what it did, and had
had they not been there, we wouldn't know about it.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
It's incredible. Yeah, you know, obviously something else happened. The
Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale and quin Stefani fell madly.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
Love right, Well, they had started touring together. You know,
you mentioned that they had toured with three eleven a bit.
They also start touring with Bush. And she's broken up
with Tony for over a year at this point, and
Gavin Rossdale is a handsome man and she's a beautiful woman,
and bands tend to hang out, and they ended up.
They got married and were together for many years.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
They were to They dated for seven married for thirteen.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
Wow, twenty year relation.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Year relationship until. I mean, this is the big scandal.
But yeah, he was banging the nanny, right, he.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
Was banging the nanny. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
And here's the weird thing about this. So I looked
into this a little bit. Yeah, it was a multi
year affair. The nanny was her close friend and who
looked up to her and emulated her. So she looked
like Gwynn, like had her hair color style.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
It was like he banged them Mi Anie me.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Yeah, it was like the hand of the rocks the cradle.
It was kind of this weird thing. Yeah, and Gwynn
found him out. Get this, you probably remember these days,
But the iPad was connected to the phone and the
nanny sent a text to the phone that also popped
up with me on the iPad while she was looking
at the iPad.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
Right, Okay, so now she hooks. She hooked up with
Blake Shelton who she was doing.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
What was it?

Speaker 4 (45:27):
The voice? Was that what they did? The voice? Yeah?
And Blake is an Oklahoma boy from Tissamingo, Oklahoma, is
just down the road. You go down to Tissamingo, you're
probably not doing much other than maybe going to a
boomerang or I'd read which is Blake's restaurant, But you might.
You could run into Gwen Stefani. There's no doubt, that's

(45:49):
all right.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Next song on the album is called.

Speaker 7 (45:52):
The Climentrisk must be play looking down to see a
bottle a Time.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
This song has like an forties fifties feel to it
for me. And you've got this kind of interesting I
would say, I guess it's a calliope. I don't know
kid find liapy. Yeah, that kind of circus sounding instrument
that you hear in the background. I love it. I
think this is a wonderful song.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
It's funny that you say that. This song reminds me
I think we covered in our Dirty Dancing soundtrack. It
feels like the you Don't Own me song.

Speaker 4 (46:45):
Oh yeah, very similar, you know we're talking about yeah exactly,
and that's yeah, that's the right time period, exactly. Great song.
Do you got anything on this one? Nope, Maybe that's kid.
There's a lot of songs on this album. I love
the song, but we gotta keep it all got to
move fast. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
This next song is called sixteen.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
This is interesting. This is kind of the blossom. You know,
somebody's coming into their age and do they really know
what they're doing. You're trying so hard you can't cop
a feel, and then talk about you know, it's these
rotten neighborhoods that have made these rotten kids. It's I
don't know exactly how sixteen plays into it, other than

(47:39):
that's the age that everybody seems to kind of look
at you and go, well, you're old enough to not
be doing this kid stuff anymore. And that's what they're
dealing with. Again. We're getting that ska rhythm with this one,
but it's I feel like it's they're playing it with
a keyboard. I don't think this was the guitar that
I was hearing that ska rhythm on it. It was
the keyboards.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
I think this would be a good concert song. Yeah,
but for the album, I'm moving on pretty quickly to
the next one.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
Okay, what are we going on? The next one?

Speaker 3 (48:03):
Next song is called Sunday Morning. All right, So Sunday Morning.

(48:24):
This is the fifth single.

Speaker 4 (48:26):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
It's the last music video for this album.

Speaker 4 (48:29):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
And I watched this music video. She looks like May
West or something. You know, she's plucked out of a
different era and dropped into this music video in the
middle of the nineties.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
All Right.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
The big thing they do in this music video is
they make Italian food. I'm looking for the guy from
Goodfellas who's like razoring the garlic in the corner. But
so they make this big to do about making Italian food.
Then they get in a food fight at the end.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Yeah, that's I remember the food fight.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
It's kind of fun. This was released as a VHS single. Wow,
put this in your VHS recorder. I think this one's
kind of a favorite among the fans.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
I feel like this has to be another song about
her breakup with Tony Kanal, like this one very much
is about the at the kind of the anger that
she's directing towards him to.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Okay, I'm so glad you said that, because that jump
started a thing in my brain where I saw her
telling the story about the birth of this song.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
Now, she did a lot of riding with Tony despite
their breakup, right, okay, And she had to go to
the bathroom, and I think, if I'm reading between the lines,
I think she was sick to her stomach. I think
she was maybe barfing in the toilet, Okay. And so
he goes to comfort her and is playing. He said,

(49:42):
he plays the bass. He does not play guitar. He
knows like three or four chords and that's it. And
so he's playing the only three or four chords that
he knows, and he's singing through the door to her,
some stupid little ditty about I hope you feel better,
so weekend, sing some more, you get back, we'll do

(50:02):
it again. But for some however, that worked out. That
became the building blocks for this song.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
The three chords that he knew how to play on
the guitar.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
He said, he can't even sing like he was singing
playing guitar. He does neither of those. Well, and she's
barfing in the toilet.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
It's great, good one, all right.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
I mean, let's get to the heaviest of the heavy
hitters here.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
I'm gonna take a moment and I'm gonna go back
nineteen ninety five, driving in my ninety two Nissan Sentra
with my JBC CD player that I aftermarket put in,
and I'm going through the songs, and this song Don't
Speak starts like this, I don't.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Want him.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
Thirty years later, and the hair on the back of
my neck still staying kills. Man. It is so so
good and an entirely different style of music than you've
heard on any other song on this album. Got a
very Latin style of this, a classical guitar playing instead
of Tom's normal heavy, distorted guitar. And then they make

(51:21):
the video for it and they take it up like
eight notches. That's true, true, So obviously whenever the whenever
the band became big. Part of the reason they became
big is because she's beautiful, she's active on stage, they're
doing a lot of press. They're unfortunately having to talk
about the breakup a lot over and over again and over,
which is of course the subject of this song. And

(51:43):
you know you sent me like a clip of the
original way this song came out and they were it
was being played on a keyboard and the melody was
kind of the same, but the meaning of the song
was completely different. She was saying, don't speak, You're not
teaching me anything, right.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Let's listen to that version right here.

Speaker 8 (52:01):
Together, and we will forever.

Speaker 9 (52:07):
That's pressure, treasure, don't speak for you, say absolute, please
stop explain.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Okay, the bones are there, but it is not the
mega ton bomb that this song becomes.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
Well, like I said, I don't think at this point
that my opinion is at this point it wasn't about
the breakup. I think she switched because the lyrics ares
different at different Yeah, and so there's an emotion behind
it because of the breakup. But then also at this
time when they've become famous and she's become the star
of the show, they are doing all this press. They're
getting on magazines and having stories written about them, and

(52:54):
Spin magazine contacts them and says, we want to do
a cover story on you, and they're like, oh my gosh,
Spin Magazine, Oh we are cover story. And they're like,
when do we show up for the pictures and they're like,
we only need her yeah, and that I mean that's
got to hurt, Right, You've got this elative moment that
you're gonna be on the cover of one of your

(53:14):
favorite music magazines, and then you're not. It's just gonna
be the girl. And she had to feel bad too,
because it's like she's not choosing this, but it's obviously
creating some animosity between her and the band. And then
they're trying to think about what are they gonna do
for the video for this new song that's coming out
that's about a breakup? They said, what if we did

(53:36):
it like it was the breakup of the band, And
they said, we literally couldn't think of anything sadder. And
so you have these moments in the video where, like

(53:57):
you know, the magazine guys are like they have a
sure the whole band and they just take the frame
down to just her face, right, And I saw Tony
talking about this and he goes, the reason the acting's
really good in this is because we weren't really acting.

Speaker 8 (54:12):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
It's heartbreaking.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
So this song, like you said, it was originally written
as a love song. Her brother Eric Stefani helped her
write it.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Yeah, he had done most of the writing for their
songs up until he left in ninety four. So this
is really this is her coming out the band working
more together as the songwriting, but he's still got he's
definitely got his hands all over the songs. Right.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
So you said everything that I was going to say
about the song, except this was the number one song
on Billboard Airplay for sixteen weeks bread over. Yeah that's forever,
that's four or five months.

Speaker 4 (55:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Do you know the song that bested it? This song
knocked it out of its record breaking spot in the nineties.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
That's a big one, right, that is a big one.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
Yeah. That song is called Iris by the Griga Dolls. Yeah.
But yeah, but the very end of it, when she's
saying she's going through that hush hush.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
Its heartbreaker, it is. It's amazingly good. And I forgot
to mention this. You know, you talked about the other
two like Spiderwebs and just a Girl, and she was
you know, she's wearing the style that she kind of
made a thing but was definitely a style of the
Orange County Girls, which are the baggy sweatpants or baggy
you know, workout pants and the tight cropped top. In

(55:59):
this video, she's wearing what I would describe as a
mom dress, and her hair is very demur and it's
it's like they wanted to make her not hot and
sexy in this and it works perfectly.

Speaker 10 (56:12):
Did it?

Speaker 3 (56:13):
Did it make her not?

Speaker 4 (56:14):
She can't avoid it, but they toned it down for this,
and I think that the seeing her in this kind
of conservative dress, it was the right choice to make.
It was the perfect choice for this video.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Man, love it one of the truly great songs in
the nineties.

Speaker 4 (56:31):
Absolutely, I hate to leave this one.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Next song on the album is called.

Speaker 4 (56:36):
You Can Do It.

Speaker 10 (56:39):
You can do It?

Speaker 4 (57:03):
Okay. I hear this song and I'm ready for Punching
John to start right out.

Speaker 3 (57:08):
It's got a lot of disco in it.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
This is so disco, and I'll tell you, you know,
as as abhorrent as disco was in the eighties, you know,
when we were listening to Michael Jackson and Prince and
hair metal and stuff like that. By the time ninety
five hits, and even before that when I wasn't still
in high school. So I'd say probably ninety three ninety four,
girls are wearing belt bottoms again and it looks good.

(57:31):
And so for this song to be on this album
that's so heavily disco inspired. I was like, heck, yeah, man,
turn this up. Let's let's let's boogie woogie woogie.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
You know who is a big fan of this song?

Speaker 4 (57:46):
Tell me Barack Obama.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
It's not Barack Obama, right, very similar though, it's the
world famous co host of the Accidental Legends podcast, mister
Dirk Smith himself.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
Derek Smith, nice good, good called Dirk. Guys, if you
haven't checked out Accidental Legends, it will have either just
dropped their dropping their first episode on December fifteenth, Be
sure and go look up Accidental Legends, hosted by our
friends Dirk Smith and Matthew Brent. Dirk even came and
co hosted an episode. Matthew went to Shirleyfest with us.

(58:17):
The great guys. They're gonna have this great podcast where
it like it like the title might imply somebody who
became famous kind of by surprise.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
No doubt it would definitely be a candidate for that podcast,
right all right, next song.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
On the album, The song is called World Go Round.

(58:55):
This album is like a schmorgasbord of music. Here. We
just went from a Latin in romance tune to a
disco dance tune to a kind of country ska mix.
This is incredible. I can't I can't tell you how
awesome it was back in nineteen ninety five ninety six
to pop this album in and hear all of this,

(59:16):
these kinds of music. We're gonna give our final judgment
at the end of this episode as to what our
silver gold bronze are for these three albums that we've
been covering. But I got to say a big factor
in my decision is going to be the variety and
amazing changes in music that were nothing that anybody was doing,

(59:36):
and really not many people did after this, even this
is really great stuff.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
Yeah, you know, for me, No Doubt literally is the
last new music I listened to before I bailed.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
So my oldest son, Gunner, was born in two thousand
and two, okay, and I remember changing diapers to the
radio and hearing like Hella Good was the big song
at the time, right, which was a great No Doubt
song that was I think two albums after this. So
they hold a special place in my heart because they
are the last band before I bailed on pop culture.

Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
Wow. Okay, So I feel like this song is trying
to make a political statement, but it's so vague. I
don't know what the political statement is like, it just
misses its mark on the lyrics.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Here.

Speaker 4 (01:00:24):
Good thing that the music's fantastic because I don't know
what makes the world find a different way to make
their world go round.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Means I'm okay with not making a political statement on
every song.

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
I'm real good with it. But if you're going to
do it where people know what you're talking about, I'm
just saying I don't know. I don't know what this
is about. But anyway, we got to move on to
our next song.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Next song is called end it on this.

Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
So this is the last song. No, they have title
to end it on this and then they don't end it.

Speaker 11 (01:00:52):
Yes, all right here it is ended on this.

Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
It's another breakup song.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
It is like I said, the breakup between her and
Tony is maybe the epicenter for what this album became.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
It's it is the fuel for the fire for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Absolutely the only little tibbet I have on this song. Yeah,
Gwynn gave this song as a demo to her dad,
who played guitar from.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Our guitar at college.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Yeah, attle harp i think something like that. Yeah, and
they liked folk music back in the day.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
She gave this to her dad and said, hey, will
you listen to this, see what you think got any
tweaks for me?

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
And he said something, He.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Said, why don't you get home? Why stop driving so late?

Speaker 6 (01:01:52):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
Okay, So there's a quick story on the driving so late.
You know Tony's parents, like I said, they're all kinds
of good families. They're from India, so you know, they've
got a cultural take care of the family kind of thing.
And when he started playing with the band, they would
be playing on weeknights and he wouldn't come and home.
He wouldn't be home until three am. And his parents

(01:02:12):
were like, you can't keep doing this. And he's like,
you don't understand, Like this is this is real, this
is something, this is amazing, and you just you don't
get it. Please look at the guys that I'm with,
they're all people from good families. Look at their parents.
They're nice parents. We're not out there doing bad stuff.
They're like, you're one of the first acts to play,
why are you coming home at three am? What they

(01:02:34):
would do is they would play, then they would go
back to somebody's house, probably the Beacon Street place, and
they would watch videos of themselves. They basically did like
the sports trick of let's watch our film and go
that worked that didn't, and use it to improve their show.
So they weren't out partying until three am. They were

(01:02:54):
out mastering their craft by looking at what they look
like on stage and making it better for each consecutive show.

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
That's cool. Yeah, you know I heard a story that
they're drummer Adrian Young, who actually talked about in this
month's Patreon Yeah that's right. Yeah, I'm not gonna give
any details on that song, but he would play shows
completely naked, right, Like.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
He practiced completely naked.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
Go ahead, maybe that's one of the things they review, like, hmmm,
maybe put on some clothes.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
Yeah, put a sock on. D So on him joining
the band, it's another interesting story because you know, he
comes in and he's a fan, like he's the last
of the kind of core four members. He's the last
one to join, right, But he's grown up listening, I
mean grown up. He's been going to these shows and
listening to these guys, and he's got their little cassette

(01:03:46):
tapes that they've made, and so he finds out he's
been playing drums for a year and a half. And
he finds out they need a drummer, and he knows
because he's a fan, he knows the drums, and so
he shows up and he says a playing for about
eight years. And they said when they heard him play,
he knew the song so well they thought they believed him. Yeah, okay,

(01:04:06):
he's been playing years plus. He is such a like
vibrant personality, like the guy who's going to play be
a naked buck a naked on stage and you see
him and he'll make a little double horns out of
his hair, or do these weird kind of swoopy things,
or have leopard print in his buzz cut. It's he's

(01:04:29):
he seems to be a very interesting guy. I was
surprised that he is a scratch golfer. I was not
expecting that. But yeah, he apparently is a scratch golfer.
Gets invited to do the charity celebrity tournaments all the
time because he's so good. Yeah that's cool. Yeah, okay.
Last song on the album, and the song the album
is named four. This song is called Tragic Kingdom remain see.

Speaker 6 (01:04:51):
This play him when they said Sam.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
Thomas, okay, Tragic Kingdom YEP. As we mentioned before, this
was written literally where they could hear the Matterhorn ride
like it's right next to Disneyland. Yeah, and I'm trying

(01:05:16):
to figure out if that's kind of what it's about, Like,
is the is the old king Disney you know, are
are they worshiping something that was once good that is
now bad or they blind mice and the music it's
like a freaking Andrew Lloyd Weber Like this is like
Phantom of the Opera kind of style to it, once
again giving something completely new and different than any other
song on the album. It's wonderful, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
So at the beginning of it, you have the please
Be Seated, you know, the little track that you can.

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Hear the roller coaster tracks come yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
And then when it starts to me, it sounds like
it could be played over the loudspeakers, like maybe on
the Hunted Mansion ride. It's it's dark, you know, the
chorus is kind of in that minor key, and then
it goes into nightmare fuel in the last.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
Yeah, last thirty second, Yeah, last thirty seconds. So we'll
play that for you real quick. Okay, what did you
tell me?

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
All right, So, at the very very very end of it,
as it's fading out, like literally the last four or
five seconds of the song, there are some sour notes
played on a trumpet something like that, and I'm like, dude,
that's the Star Wars theme.

Speaker 4 (01:06:39):
That's it, right right. So I'll tell you this. I
remember years ago somebody go into a No Doubt concert
and they said they played the Star Wars theme like
they played the whole thing. So I just pulled it
up on YouTube. Let's see if we can.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
That's really cool, man. That's like a rock concert entrance
right there.

Speaker 4 (01:07:03):
I mean, it was great. They all come marching out,
and of course it's the Imperial March. It's not the theme.
But I there's no doubt you're right that that you
did it. I did it. Take your last drink hopefully.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
The show, okay, before we get to your final judgment. Yes,
you're at the roller rink. Okay, these three girls are
lined up. Which one do you ask to couple skate with?

Speaker 4 (01:07:22):
First jewel?

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
Number two? No hesitation?

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:07:27):
When Stefani okay can't go wrong? You can't go wrong
if by follow my face and Jewel, and when Stepani
roll off, I'm still like, hey, like okay, sky with you? Okay, Yeah,
I went to win.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
What if you're in a movie theater? Yeah all right,
so let's get onto our final judgment. Yeah, okay, d
go ahead, man, this is your thing?

Speaker 4 (01:07:56):
Okay. So Alanis Morissett has the third most like this.
The Jagged Little Pill was the third biggest selling album
of the nineties. Yes, not girl album, but there were
plenty of girls of them all number three.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
This changed what music could be, no doubt, change what
music could be. It was a shift big time. I mean,
these guys were in the wrong place at the wrong
time when they were becoming big while grunge was big.
But as you said, they stood their ground. They made
their own music and with no expectation at all, released

(01:08:32):
an album that was a groundbreaker. And then there's Jewel,
who's singing coffeehouse songs. Right, I'm not going to tell
you what I think is the best musically. I'm not
going to tell you what I think has the longest
staying power. I'm going to tell you I'm picking my

(01:08:52):
gold based on what moved me the most. Okay, it
had the same effect on me thirty years later as
it did when I listened to it back in nineteen
ninety six. Okay, only one of these albums made me cry,
like literally tears crying, and it's Jewel, And I realized
that she is the Probably you know, anybody else looking

(01:09:13):
at this is going to say, well, she's obviously the bronze.
She's obviously the bronze, and I do. I have always
found her very attractive, but I didn't know what she
looked like other than her little face on the on
the CD cover until after I had heard the CD.
But she moved me so much with those little coffeehouse
songs that for me, just from my own personal experience,

(01:09:33):
she's gold.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Okay, she's the gold. How about that?

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
Yeah? Now, the really really difficult part is figuring out
which of these other two gets silver and which gets bronze.
If I was saying music, you know, the skill of
the musicians playing, and the uniqueness in sound and even
just monumental moments for me as well, I would probably

(01:09:59):
pick Tragic Can. But if I've got to listen to
one album beginning to end, I think I'm much more
likely to pick Jagged Little Pill because it is such
and it's an unblemished album from beginning to end. There
are several songs. I mean, there's fourteen songs on Tragic Kingdom.
I'd skip some of them, Okay, I mean just because

(01:10:20):
there's a lot and I want to get to some
of the songs. I don't think there's a single song
other than the last song on Jagged Little Pill that
I would skip. And so I'm gonna say Jagged Little
Pill is my silver metal and Tragic Kingdom is bronze.
But it's a daggum neck and neck and they're all
neck and neck. We're talking hundreds of a second difference
in this race. So there you go, very good, very good.

(01:10:42):
Well this has been a fun comparison. Yeah, I will
tell you that my gold.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
I mean, I can't back down from what I think
is maybe the best album of the nineties, which I
think Jagged a Little Pill is a masterpiece.

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
Yep, no skippers.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
All songs are great, powerful, I love them. Jag a
Little Pill is mine number one. I hadn't really been
exposed to all the jewel songs Tragic Kingdom. While they
have some great peaks, I didn't really know the in
between songs, So after listening, I think I'm gonna take
if I'm walking out the door, maybe just because of
Don't Speak, I'm grabbing Tragic Kingdom, and then Jewel would

(01:11:18):
be my bronze. But I had a great time with
that one. I think it's fun. It reminds me of
hiking and skiing in Colorado. So I loved all three.

Speaker 4 (01:11:27):
Well, guys, what do you think? How do you rank
these albums? Hit us up? You can hit us up
on Facebook. You can hit us up on Twitter or
on Instagram as well. Don't get a lot of movement there,
but hey, we might change that, or this would be great.
Hit us on the comments on the YouTube video, man,
that would be fantastic. That actually gets us out there
in front of more people. And if you'd be so
kind if you've made it this far with us, to

(01:11:48):
like and subscribe on either your YouTube or on the
podcast platform that you're listening to us, that also helps
us get more exposure. We love having new fans hit
us up, and it happens all the time, telling us
about how this album moved them, or that album moved them,
or this movie was so meaningful. Or how they enjoy
listening to this podcast with their kids. So, guys, thank

(01:12:09):
you so much for what you do. Tell us what
you think, send us a message however you like, Oh,
if you want to email us Shirleypodcast at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Okay, let's talk about what we have next week.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
This is I was talking to some people. I met
some people last night. They had a stack of vinyl
LPs in a guest room records, and so I immediately
started talking to them. We talked, had great joy talking
to them, and I brought up next matchup is gonna be?
And I said Saint Elmo's Fire, and the wife was like,

(01:12:41):
shut up. She's like, I am subscribing right now. I'm like,
I haven't even gotten to part two. Part two is
the Breakfast Club. She's like, I love the brat Pack
and I said, honestly, I haven't seen sane Emos Fire yet,
and again she went shut up, and I was like, yeah,
I'm sorry. It was It was an R and I
was a little kid at the time that it came out,

(01:13:02):
so I didn't need to see it, although I did
see sixteen Candles quite a bit. And she mentioned something
about the awkwardness of the date rape that's in that movie,
which I didn't really occur to me until now, but yes,
that does make it a little weird. But anyway, we
will be doing Breakfast Club versus Saint Almost Fire, so tune.

Speaker 8 (01:13:18):
In for that one.

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
See you next week, guys.

Speaker 4 (01:13:20):
Thanks guys, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
He went on to direct remakes of Friday the Thirteenth,
Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien, Conan the Barbaria.
Let me say that again.

Speaker 10 (01:13:39):
I'll I'll take