No Doubt

That Gwen Stefani hasn’t become a caricature of herself is either
testament to her utter savvy or to the fact that she basically began as
a caricature in the first place — and beat everybody to the punch
line. That’s not to say that, back in the day, No Doubt’s main face was
in any way ridiculous. Rather, it’s that her high-color persona was
always ludicrously exaggerated. And if over the years, Stefani has
outgrown her original labels, she’s done so by pushing pop’s envelope
so far that there was little left for her to push forward.

Take 2004’s multiplatinum Love. Angel. Music. Baby., which
found Stefani in the good company of everyone from Nellee Hooper to the
Neptunes and which would earn the lass six Grammy nominations,
including Album of the Year. Like her clothing line, L.A.M.B., from
which the LP takes its title, the record looked all over the world for
inspiration and came out a cacophony of cultural conceits. Or take
2006’s more adult-oriented The Sweet Escape, which produced the
Akon-assisted hit song of the same name. Here Stefani’s love of the
dance floor seems superseded by her yen for balladry, despite the
yodeling first single, “Wind It Up.” But it still managed to show that
a woman of the world can get wild every once in awhile.

And if we’re a little less than forthcoming about Stefani’s work
with No Doubt, it’s only because the band has not released anything
together since 2003, when a succession of live albums and DVDs was
offset by The Singles: 1992-2003. That featured only one new
song, a cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life.” So when Stefani and
company hit the stage next Wednesday, it’ll be both a welcome reunion
for No Doubt and a chance to again see what the hot fuss was about from
the beginning.