Songoftheday 8/30/23 - There's times where I want something more someone more like me, there's times when this dress rehearsal seems incomplete...

 

 

"Underneath It All" - No Doubt featuring Lady Saw

from the album Rock Steady (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 26

 

Today's song comes from the California pop-rock band No Doubt, whose Rock Steady album had scored a top ten pop hit as well as a Grammy Award with their reggae-appropriating "Hey Baby", and followed with a rock-disco gem of "Hella Good". For the third single from the record, the group went back to the "island life" style with "Underneath It All". As with "Hey Baby", they brought in a genre notable in the form of Marion "Lady Saw" Hall, who had been featured on indie-pop singer Vitamin C's 1999 top-40 hit "Smile". In 2001, Lady Saw released a one-off single, "Son Of A Bitch", an answer record to Shaggy's #1 hit "It Wasn't Me" with fellow artist Marsha, which popped on to Billboard magazine's R&B singles chart at #88. Written by lead singer Gwen Stefani with David Stewart from the Eurythmics, and producer by reggae veterans Sly & Robbie, the lyrics on the surface seem like that of a love song, with Gwen cooing about how this man makes her happy. However there's some darkness creeping in with lines like...

You've used up all your coupons
And all you've got left is me
And somehow I'm full of forgiveness
I guess it's meant to be

Lady Saw's verse also fawns over the guy but slips in "Aside from your temper, Everything is secure" which is rather unnerving if you paid attention over the swaying beat. But since most people just grooved to the music, the song deceptively got some type of message across, and landed another huge hit from the set...

 

 

"Underneath It All" became No Doubt's second top ten hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in November of 2002. On the radio, the song topped the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart for three weeks, spent ten weeks at #2 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, got to #27 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening" radio list, and rose to #38 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic station panel. Internationally, the single peaked at #8 in New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#18), Romania (#27), Australia (#28), Austria (#34), Canada (#34), Sweden (#39), and Ireland (#39). At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Underneath It All" won the band their second consective trophy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with Vocals.

 

A fourth single from the record, the proto synth-pop homage of "Running", climbed to #20 on both the Mainstream Top-40 and Adult Top-40 charts.  No Doubt will be back to the series.

As for Lady Saw, she put out her next studio album Strip Tease in 2004. The lead single from the record, "I've Got Your Man", went to #58 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart. She released three more reggae albums under the Lady Saw moniker before becoming "born again" and changing to recording gospel music under her birth name Marion Hall. Hall has released two albums of religious music, most recently His Grace in 2018, and this summer put out a new single, "My Mind's Made Up". 

(6/10)

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Here's the band performing the song on Top of the Pops in 2002...

and lastly, live in concert..

Up tomorrow: A jam-adjacent band is asking for directions.