Rock Steady (album) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The album received generally positive reviews from 15 critics, as Metacritic gave it 69 out of 100. Rolling Stone said it was "impressive to hear No Doubt summon the musical imagination to transcend the formula that used to imprison them" and ranked Rock Steady number 316 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Despite this, in 2009 Rolling Stone neglected to include the album in its Top 100 Albums of the 2000s. Stephen Erlewine of Allmusic referred to the album as "a good, hooky, stylish mainstream pop record". Entertainment Weekly remarked that there was "something oddly flimsy" about No Doubt that prevented it from becoming a milestone in pop music, but that the band's "party-throwing skills improve with each new gathering." Stylus Magazine commented that the band sounded like it had "growing pains" and was unsure of its place in mainstream rock, predicting that No Doubt would either become a singles band "or go all Radiohead on us and make an album of avant-jazz-electro-acid-funk-polka."

Many reviewers focused on the large number of styles that Rock Steady incorporates. PopMatters, noting that Rock Steady maintains the introspection of Return of Saturn without the latter's "longing and wistfulness", stated that "it is to No Doubt's credit...that they manage to keep the album together with little more than their collective personalities." Blender, however, called it "an intermittently engaging but overall shapeless collection...the product of happy-go-lucky musicians who once cavorted in bad track suits but now spend their days commuting between London, Jamaica and Los Angeles seeking the wisdom of expensive studio geeks." Nevertheless, Blender included the album in its 2003 list of "500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die!". The NME viewed the album's "enormous waterfront of styles" positively, noting that it had many strong potential singles, but found that some of the "empty-headed guitar pop" on the second half of the album spoiled the listening experience. Time stated that Rock Steady was able to integrate ska, pop, New Wave, and dancehall "without sounding contrived or chaotic". It added that though the album lacked the energy and sales of No Doubt's 1995 breakthrough album Tragic Kingdom, Rock Steady was "their greatest effort to date...the sound of band dropping pretense to realize its potential." Slant Magazine included Rock Steady on its list of 50 Essential Pop Albums, commenting that "not since Blondie...has a rock act so effortlessly, irreverently, and fashionably skidded across so many different genre boundaries at one time." LAUNCHcast said that "even with so many producers attempting to steer this bus along the superstar highway, they end up in a better-than-most parking lot".