Songoftheday 6/27/24 - And I've asked myself how much do you commit yourself?
"It's My Life" - No Doubt
from the album The Singles 1992-2003 (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 22
Today's song comes from the band No Doubt, whose fourth album on Interscope Records in 2001, Rock Steady, had returned them to A-list status and spun off three top-40 hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart with "Hey Baby", "Hella Good", and "Underneath It All", with the first and third singles winning a Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in consecutive years. But after touring, it was apparent that lead singer Gwen Stefani, who had a bit of success sidelining as a featured artist on a couple big hits for Eve and Moby, was readying her own solo career. So after touring behind the album, they put themselves as a unit on ice, but not before recording a "new" song for a greatest hits compilation for the label. But instead of a new composition, it was a cover song of one of the most beloved new wave songs of the 80's (to those in the know). "It's My Life" was originally released by the British group Talk Talk in 1984, written by lead singer Mark Hollis with producer Tim Friese-Greene. But while they stiffed in the UK at first, only scraping the British singles chart at #93, the song crossed over to America and gifted them a top-40 hit on both the pop (#31) and rock (#23) charts. Six years later, a re-release of the track went to #13 in the UK....
No Doubt chose the song among a handful of 80's gems and had Nellee Hooper (Soul II Soul, Bjork) produce the track. SO here's the thing. Most of us around at the time of Talk Talk's single more than likely associate the song with the music video, which had Hollis making emotive faces amongst footage of wild animals. Which doesn't really fit too much with the actual lyrics, which seems to picture a man who feels he's about to be jilted by love. And that's what Gwen pulls from this, using her Betty Boop meets a calmer Cyndi Lauper voice to show vulnerability in romance. And the music video finds Stefani symbolically offing the other members of her band (portrayed as old-timey cads) before getting the axe herself. The production from Hooper is just as bright and inventive as Friese-Greene's was in 1984 for its time. So against all odds No Doubt managed to pull off a rare decent cover of a 80s electropop tune and have a hit from it...
No Doubt's take on "It's My Life" returned them to the top ten on Billboard's Hot 100 for the third (and so far last) time in January of 2004. On the radio, the song peaked at #5 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, spent two weeks at #3 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 list, and rose to #20 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy-listening") format. It even hit the Alternative Rock radio chart at #32, while the dance remixes, done by Jacques Lu Cont among others, helped it go to #5 on Billboard's Dance Airplay chart and #16 on the Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the song did well, topping the charts in Poland and Czechia and reaching the top ten in Canada (#2 Radio), Norway (#3), Sweden (#4), Portugal (#5), Greece (#5), Hungary (#5), the Netherlands (#6), Ireland (#6), Italy (#7), Australia (#7), New Zealand (#8), Germany (#9), and Belgium (#9 Wallonia/#11 Flanders), while peaking at #19 in France and #20 in the United Kingdom. The Singles album, released in November of 2003, came in at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards, "It's My Life" gave No Doubt another nomination for Best Duo/Group Pop Performance, losing to Los Lonely Boys for "Heaven".
A remixed version of their earlier minor hit "Bathwater" from their Return To Saturn album, put out as a CD single with "It's My Life" attached, became a hit in the UK at #17.
Gwen would go on to have a couple big solo albums that will bring her to the series, but No Doubt would eventually reunite and be here as well.
(7/10)
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and lastly, live in concert in 2009...
Up tomorrow: A half-dollar rap star assembles a team for this lesson in tour de force.
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