4.22.2002 [a little later]

No Doubt.

i had the HUGEST "crush" on the band back in like...god, I don't know, '94 or so? Back around the time of that song Don't Speak.

(admittedly, i also had a huge crush, like a real one, on Gwen Stefani.)

then i got over that, forgot about them...and just recently, i got their CD, return of saturn.

i've gotta say this:

they have gotten MUCH better. not that they were bad before, but...unremarkable, you know? they were ska, and that was that.

now?

holy shit.

they've got this style that's all their own. a little coy, a little playful, a little bit of the tease. it's sweet.

there's this one song, Magic's in the Makeup. not the best of the CD, but it's got absolutely the best beginning.

it starts out with this drum intro, a measure of it, that makes you think it'll be an upbeat loud song. but then it goes into this...i don't know how to describe it. it's an electric guitar, i think, playing at the higher end (but not the highest) of its register with a beat going slow beneath it. rhythm's established - drums lead the bassline in.

and Gwen.

yeah, i admit it. i'm in love with her again. her voice is a little low in the beginning of this song. it's normal; it's not that much, not that good and not bad at all.

then you have the first bridge.

so many different faces, she sings, and it's higher up; the rhythm is stronger. it makes you wanna move to it. not just a nod, either. this is one of those that pulls you into a whole-body rhythm of your own. foot tapping, nodding to it, but with your shoulders as well - make sense?

then, the next line; lower, sort of like an aside with no chorus backing her up. a twisty sort of line (this is the coy/tease part of no doubt): depending on the different phases.

high again: my personality changes

and then there's this line.

i'm a chameleon.

it's GREAT. i can't explain it. it's just SO great. it's low again; i'm a cha-me-le-on.

but see, it's not stretched. it's very terse; the "on" is almost cut off. i'm a cha-me-le - all those are a bit stretch, higher - then it just:

-on.

snip.

oh man, it's good. it's like one of those lines i just rewind again and again. back before the mass advent of CDs (for those of you who remember that), i'd wear out my tapes doing that.

i'm a chameleon--
zzzt. rewind. replay.
i'm a chameleon--
zzt. rewind. replay.
i'm a chameleon--

zzzt.

ad nauseum.