Return of Saturn - Background

Background

After the success of No Doubt's breakthrough album Tragic Kingdom (1995), the band wrote more than twenty songs for a new album, influenced by artists such as The Cure. Having toured extensively for two and a half years since the release of Tragic Kingdom, they initially had trouble producing material and decided to experiment with new sounds. Many of the songs were written in a rented house in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, where bassist Tony Kanal was living. During early production in mid-1998 the band worked on seven tracks in Los Angeles with Matthew Wilder, who had produced Tragic Kingdom, but had creative differences with him. They planned on going to New York to work with producer Michael Beinhorn, who had produced for alternative rock acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hole, and Soundgarden.

When scheduling conflicts arose with Beinhorn, the band interviewed several producers and decided on Glen Ballard, who had produced Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill (1995), because of pressure from manager Jimmy Iovine and Ballard's belief in not using heavy production techniques. Ballard went through the band's forty demos and ruled out half of them. They frequently missed due dates, arguing that hurrying the album to cash in on the success of Tragic Kingdom was unwise since three years had passed. In early 1999, No Doubt released "New", co-produced by Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison, for the soundtrack to the 1999 film Go.

By that July, the band stopped work on the album, intending to be done with the record. Interscope, however, recommended that they continue writing so they would have a more marketable single. The band was split when singer Gwen Stefani offered to do so but drummer Adrian Young and guitarist Tom Dumont did not want to, hesitant to trust Interscope after it had sublicensed Tragic Kingdom to Trauma Records. After a brief break, Dumont sent Stefani some of his demos as a peace offering. The band returned to the studio to create more upbeat songs and penned "Ex-Girlfriend" and "Simple Kind of Life". More recording, audio mixing and audio mastering were done late that year, and David LaChapelle photographed the band for the album cover in January 2000.

The album's working title was originally announced as Magic's in the Makeup in May 1998 and later as Saturn Returns in November 1999. Stefani was confused by her feelings of depression and interest in Sylvia Plath while recording the album. Her boyfriend Gavin Rossdale told her that she was going through her Saturn return. Saturn's orbit takes 29.4 Earth years and, in astrology, the time when Saturn returns to its position during a person's birth is believed to be a period of self-evaluation. Stefani was born October 3, 1969, and many of the songs were written during her Saturn return.