Gwen's Reflection Through Planets and Femininity: Return of Saturn

NO DOUBT: RETURN OF SATURN

SCORE: 89/100 - 8.9

One of my longtime favorite albums, and a huge nostalgia hit for me every time with how much play this one got when I first moved into the house I currently live in. Some of the band's absolute best material resides on 'Return of Saturn', and they've never sounded better. It's much more cooky, spunky, and full of eclectic sounds than their previous ska record - and the blending of various genres makes this one stick like glue. 

Gwen's wacky singing style and the mixed, unique production makes this album an immediate style shower, and the multicoloured spectacle of an album cover shows you exactly what you're getting from this album. Something all over the place, mixed, and full of bright sounds that will leave songs like 'Ex-Girlfriend', 'Artificial Sweetener', and 'Staring Problem' in your  head for years to come. My expectations were for this album to carry out the high energy of the first track for the entire album, but there are a lot of slower, more funky songs - still incredibly solid, but not the kind of energy expected after a short while. The band tries new ideas and finds their footing in their new steps, and this would be paved and expanded upon for their next album.

The band had found new influences after their third album worked as their breakout into bigger stardom, and they had started to move in a new direction before Gwen would become a pop diva. They took inspiration from the Cure, and found work with the same producer who worked on 'Jagged Little Pill', leading to a soft, warm album that feels like one of their most cohesive efforts with moments of energy to keep it afloat and deeply interesting. The album's original title was 'Magic's in the Makeup' (which kept its significance to the album on track five) before being changed to 'Saturn Returns', and later the title they stuck with, 'Return of Saturn' - inspired by Gwen's conflicting feelings of depression and her boyfriend labeling it as her "Saturn return". This is a path of self-reflection, and a majority of the album was written while Stefani was within her personal Saturn return.

This album came with major issues for the band, and it was their first effort without Gwen's older brother as their keyboardist - meaning that they were now a four-piece rather than having their original lineup of five members. Eric was still writing for the band and credited as such, but the album heavily follows Gwen's desires for a more laid-back domestic form of living as opposed to her music career. It's clear that the band was starting to turn with this album - and they didn't have much left in them. This album is much slower than expected and tackles more ballads than their previous work, 'Tragic Kingdom' - but the resulting album showcases the skillsets of the band and makes for some gorgeously enjoyable tracks, even when they are slower.

"Anyone who knows me knows having a family has always been the most important thing to me. I wanted to be a mother—which is an unconditional giving of love—and a supportive wife, and suddenly, I can't even be a good girlfriend, because I can't seem to find the right time to call. I want to do it all, but I can only do one thing good, and right now I've chosen to do this. Being in a band is a bit of a selfish choice." - Stefani in an interview with Entertainment Weekly 

Gwen admits and confesses to more than she bargains for on this album, and it leads to a reflective piece that truly showcases what she was going through - and she had no idea that she would soon get the life she had yearned for so badly later down the line after changing again and again. 

It mixes influences to create one massive trifecta of sounds for the band, and they return to their roots while diving deeper into a New Wave sound that helped to push them into a completely new direction - but they never lost themselves along the way, something that drives this album as high as it winds up going. Although it does suffer from a bit of bloating here and there, this album has a wicked amount of charm and a true flair that makes it constantly worth it.