The Beacon Street Collection was written in large part by Eric Stefani. But due to Interscope Records trying to lead the band into a music direction of their own choosing, he would eventually walk away from No Doubt to pursue an animation gig with The Simpsons rather than being told what to do. So, this album is very much in the same vein stylistically and soundwise as their Self-Titled debut. With hardly any support from their record company, they decided to build their own recording studio in their house on....Beacon Street, where they obviously get the name of their Album from. The entire recording process took all of a weekend to complete. Take THAT, Def Leppard!!!!!!

The original release of the album was minimal to their hometown. It wasn't until Tragic Kingdom exploded, that the record company reissued the album on a larger scale to capitalize from the momentum the band was generating.

As for the album itself, as before, this album relies heavily on their ska roots and I find it actually to be even better than the first. From top to bottom, it has a better overall cohesiveness with tighter songwriting and performances from the band. It's pretty amazing how well this came out given the fact that they did it all on their own, with no input from outside interferences.  If your a fan of ska and of course lots and lots of horns, this is definitely one to get. Highly recommended.

Fave Songs: All of 'em. Co-MVP goes to...Open The Gate and By The Way.

Album Cover? Not the best, that's for sure. I'd much rather the band went with the Back cover as the Front cover IMO. FYI, that's the house where they lived and recorded this album. You can see the house in all it's glory if you watch the Trapped In A Box music video as it was shot entirely on location. Unfortunately with zero support from their record company, no videos were released in support of The Beacon Street Collection. What a shame as there are a handful of songs that deserved being immortalized on film.

No Doubt contributed Oi to the World! to the Christmas album by The Vandals. Fan interest in Oi to the World! increased and in 2000 Kung Fu Records, which by now had grown in size, re-released the album with new artwork and a bonus overture, as well as a new intro for the title track. It pays to have No Doubt in your corner to get your stuff re-release. 

Rock Steady is a complete departure from their earlier stuff as well as being a 180 degree turn from their somber outing of Return Of Saturn. Where they leaned heavily on their Ska roots before, here they decided to explore Jamaican dancehall music with pop with a rock edge. Ska is only marginally hinted at here on a few songs. So if your expecting more of the same, look again. This is a good album. I like hearing something different from the band from album to album and not regurgitating the same thing over and over. So I applaud them for doing something different. Having said that, I still prefer Return Of Saturn over Rock Steady by the slimmest of margins.

In the EPIC FAIL award category, that goes to Rolling Stone Magazine  for choosing Rock Steady ahead of Tragic Kingdom in their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list. Rock Steady is at #316 and Tragic Kingdom at #441. This is just further proof that their ranking is flawed beyond justification.

Fave Songs: Hella Good, Detective, Don't Let Me Down, Platinum Blonde Life and Running. <----MVP and probably my favorite No Doubt song and the video is one of my all time favorites easily. I've always enjoyed seeing the history of the band unfolding by way of photographs.

The Album Cover is just ok. They really should have went with the back cover as the front cover IMO. Then again, I can just turn it over and say it is in fact the front cover.

The Videos 1992 - 2003 collects every single ND video the band has ever filmed into one nice little package. This was originally included in the Boom Box (Limited Edition) set and then later got it's own separate DVD release. There's nothing better than watching all the videos on a big screen TV. The video is nothing spectacular as the majority of them are fairly old. And the audio sadly is not 5.1 Dolby or any other surround mix. Even with this minor issue, I still think this is a great DVD IMO.

One if the coolest things is that if you choose Play All to watch the music videos, in between each video will play Behind The Scenes Vignettes, which can also be played as a standalone segment in the bonus section of the DVD. But the best part of the DVD for me is the Video Conversation With No Doubt where the band talk about each and every video they have done. Really Cool stuff.

Also included in the Bonus section are 2 different videos for Bathwater (Invincible Overload Remix) and Don't Speak (Alternate Edit). And then there's a Rock Steady Live preview.

This was a new series on MTV where Big rock bands would go to select locales and put on impromptu performances for unsuspecting people. As for this particular performance, it was a big deal since the concert took place here in San Diego and was on all over the local news. MTV Jammed kicked it off right with No Doubt in the series premiere. I still love watching this one. I wished **** like this happened to me when I was in High School.

I never bothered to pick up The Sweet Escape either and know even less about this one. Saw a couple of videos when they came out. Kind of shocked to see as many singles/videos for this one now.