If at first you don’t ska-ceed, ska, ska again. That’s long been the mantra of ska purists—those bands unwilling to lose their punny names and awful checkerboard wardrobes—and had No Doubt stuck to such a policy, the world beyond Southern California might never have met Gwen Stefani. Worse still, ska likely wouldn’t have enjoyed its mid- to late-’90s mainstream moment, and there almost certainly wouldn’t be a Reel Big Fish T-shirt stashed in the back of thousands of closets across the nation. Thankfully, No Doubt wasn’t the typical ska group, and on its career-making third album, 1995’s Tragic Kingdom, the band tamped down the...
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