No Doubt is an American alternative rock group whose music was initially influenced heavily by ska, punk and New Wave.
The group was first formed by Eric Stefani in Orange County, California in the city of Anaheim in December 1986 with John Spence as lead singer. Spence committed suicide in 1987, leaving Eric's younger sister Gwen Stefani as lead vocalist. The band developed a live following, mainly in the band's home state of California. In 1994, Eric left because he didn't like the direction the band was headed and pursued an animating career on the cartoon TV series The Simpsons.
No Doubt's self-titled first album was released in 1992 through Interscope, and featured the single "Trapped in a Box". Their second album, The Beacon Street Collection, was released independently. The release of 1995's Tragic Kingdom and the single "Just a Girl" allowed the group to achieve mainstream commercial success. A second single, "Spiderwebs", was also successful, and their third single, "Don't Speak" (1996), which was written about the dissolution of Gwen and Tony Kanal's romantic relationship, was a number one hit for 21 weeks on the airplay chart of the Billboard Hot 100. Tragic Kingdom has sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
No Doubt included its song "New" on the soundtrack to the movie Go in 1999. In 2000, the band released Return of Saturn, their highly anticipated followup to Tragic Kingdom. The album featured a darker tone and was more lyrically advanced than No Doubt's previous works. The band has spoken unkindly of the album in more recent interviews for various reasons. Consequently, they have excluded many fan-favorite songs in post-2000 concerts such as "Home Now", "Comforting Lie", "Dark Blue" and "Artificial Sweetner".
No Doubt's most recent studio album, Rock Steady, produced two hit Grammy winning singles, "Hey Baby" and "Underneath It All", with a notably more studio-influenced flavour.
Publicity for the group was mainly focused on platinum-blonde Gwen and her image which took inspiration from 1940s Hollywood and punk rock. Gwen's hairstyle and clothing have been copied by teenage girls worldwide, who are sometimes called "gwenabees".
An album featuring all their singles was released in 2003. It included their first cover version, "It's My Life" which had originally been a hit for Talk Talk. No Doubt also released a 2-CD 2-DVD box set titled Boombox . Rock Steady Live , a DVD of one of the band's Long Beach concert, has also been released.
Lead singer Gwen Stefani has taken time to record a solo album, Love Angel Music Baby, which was released November 23, 2004.
Current Members
Discography
External links
