Songoftheday 5/19/23 - The waves keep on crashing on me for some reason, but your love keeps on coming like a thunder bolt...

 

 

"Hella Good" - No Doubt

from the album Rock Steady (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 15

 

Today's song comes from the California-based rock band No Doubt, who appropriated dancehall music to score a top ten hit and a Grammy Award with "Hey Baby" in the spring of 2002. For the follow-up they went for the new wave dance rock pastiche for "Hella Good", written by their lead singer Gwen Stefani and bassist Tony Kanal, along with the Neptunes, the up and coming production/writing team of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. Instead of the Neptunes producing, though, the band did the deed with Nellee Hooper, most notable for working with British group Soul II Soul and Icelandic icon Bjork. The result was a funky white-boy jam with a guitar lick that sounds like Nile Rodgers attempting to go metal.But somehow it worked stupdenously, with the band at their best party mode form. The music video, from Mark Romanek, was more mood than story, having the group and some ruffians play on a ship in the water....

"Hella Good" became No Doubt's second top-40 hit from Rock Steady on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in June of 2002. On the radio, the song peaked at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, #9 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 station list, and #29 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. The remixes of the track, done by Roger Sanchez, helped "Hella Good" spend a week at #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart, their first and biggest hit on the tally by far. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Croatia (#2) and Australia (#8), and reached the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#12), Greece (#16), New Zealand (#17), Italy (#23), Canada (#26), and Ireland (#29). At the Grammy Awards in 2003, the song was nominated for Best Dance Recording, losing to Dirty Vegas' classic club track "Days Go By". 

No Doubt and the album will be back to the series.

(9/10)

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Here's the club transformation by house music master Roger Sanchez in the "Roger's Release Yourself" mix that helped the song top Billboard's dance chart for a week...

Next up I have the band performing on Conan O'Brien's Late show in 2002...

and lastly, in concert in 2012...

SOTD will be back Monday with an Indian-tinged R&B song that was habit-forming.