Ah! Christmas! Sacred season of the holy cash cow, when Woolworths' shelves groan under the weight of novelty songs and optimistically titled 'best ofs'. Joy unto the world!
But spare a thought for all those greatest hits CDs, purchased impulsively as gifts. Like puppies, they may look shiny and new on Christmas Day, but many face a future as homeless, unwanted dogs. Some may only be played with a few times before their owners tire of them. Many will end up forlornly gathering dust on charity shop shelves. Some, tragically, may never be loved at all.
No Doubt, however, may be one of the lucky ones, since Gwen Stefani's ska-driven power-poppers were born to become a greatest hits collection. Whereas some collections merely skim the top of a band's greatness (see recent Suede and Pet Shop Boys releases), others neatly bundle up everything that is interesting about them in one, easy to swallow pill (see Catatonia or Erasure). So while No Doubt have never made an album of particular depth or brilliance, they have occasionally spluttered into brilliance in a run of oddball singles, all gathered here.
'Just A Girl' kicks 'Singles' off in style; an amphetamine rush of squelching keyboards, pumping rhythm and gleeful catchiness which made the band's name. It also established Stefani's cartoonish persona, the vampy tramp with the bottle blonde hair and ballsy attitude - a bubblegum Courtney Love.
Even better than 'Just A Girl' is the nasty, helter-skelter punk of 'Ex-Girlfriend', which sketched out a blueprint Pink followed closely on 'Missundastood'. Unfortunately, the formula wears thin on the clumsy 'Excuse Me Mr' and the dreary 'Bathwater', which bring the attitude to the party but forget the tunes.
Ironically, their biggest hit was also their least characteristic: the bombastic power ballad 'Don't Speak'. Whilst memorable, it was undeniably soft rock, doomed to turn up forever on compilations called 'Power Of A Woman'.
In retreat from that albatross, 2001's 'Rock Steady' album saw the band adopt an experimental, hit hungry eclecticism, with distinctly mixed results. Dancehall pastiche 'Underneath It All' would be merely queasy were it not for the embarrassing guest vocal by Lady Saw, apparently superglued to the song by producers Sly and Robbie. 'Running' has a vague, wispy tune rendered unbearable by a cutesy bontempi keyboard production.
Luckily, it also included No Doubt's two best pop songs. The dayglo pop of 'Hey Baby' single-handedly made 2001's Christmas a fun place to be, with its rampant chorus and slamming rhythms. 'Hella Good', however, is a more insidious beast, with a hypnotic Neptunes bass that bodily drags the listener to the nearest dancefloor.
A hit and miss affair, then, but good enough to give a home to. It may not be for life, but neither is 'Singles' just for Christmas.
