In which the editors are tempted to follow the band’s title advice…
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[6.70]
Will Adams: Between this and Kimbra, I’m beginning to suspect that titling your songs “Settle Down” is the secret to awesomeness. Diplo continues his reign as one of the most fascinating producers on the market, doing a 180 from “Climax” with a fizzy concoction of electro-ska that gracefully allows the band’s instruments to shine. The strange orchestral intro makes sense at the middle eight where it returns, this time surrounded by wobbling sub synths that are aural chocolate. Luckily, everything in between it holds your focus until that moment, including a bright, summery chorus that’s just as electric as “Just a Girl”‘s was seventeen years ago. But the best thing about “Settle Down” is that it made me realize how much I’d missed Gwen Stefani’s voice. She has this thrilling charisma that helps her sell the lyric “I’m hella positive”, and her delivery of “get in line and settle down” is delivered with such conviction, it sounds as if she’s speaking directly to Santigold. Brilliant.
[8]
Anthony Easton: Gwen Stefani’s perfume, fashion, and musical careers are going so well that there does not seem to be a need for No Doubt to continue existing financially. I hope they are having fun, because this track suggests that there is no need for No Doubt to continue existing musically.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: Now that the SoCal third-wavers are all career-track thirtysomethings with kids and a mortgage, it’s more vital than ever than Gwen and the boys remain pop pluralists. No Doubt is in the enviable position of new music being an event rather than a sideline, able to appeal not just to ex-skaters with paunches and regrettable piercings, but to the younger, more heterogeneous pop audience that knows Gwen as the missing link between La Ciccone and La Germanotta. Which means “Settle Down” comes loaded with expectations — and manages to satisfy most of them. The touches of woozy film strings are a nice decorative touch, a nod to Stefani’s solo-career internationalism, but the bedrock of the song is Proper Old-Fashioned Skank of the kind that made Orange County famous (okay, “famous”), winning over the nostalgists in jorts — and Gwen’s performance, hyperactive but totally in control, re-asserts her pop dominance in a way that even if the song does nothing commercially will still be heard by all the right people. She’s back, ladies. Time to step up your game.
[8]
Alfred Soto: In the ten years since they last recorded new music, the multiformat crossover in which No Doubt and its frontwoman excelled is stronger than ever, so the band and its handlers should be able to make us forget the hiatus. I’m impressed with Gwen Stefani too: still ebullient after all these years, ready to compete with Lana Del Rey and Nicki Minaj. If you weren’t sixteen when Tragic Kingdom sold millions, like I wasn’t, then their crap ballads and at best serviceable fast ones mystified you. The guitar strums on the chorus and percolating orchestral bits remind me, however, that we’ve overrated No Doubt’s purported pop mastery, at least when their songs were ubiquitous. This song is vacant in its most literal sense: nobody home except what the listener brings.
[4]
Hazel Robinson: I felt actively resentful of having to seek this out on YouTube and listen to it, even though No Doubt are a band that have produced some of the most meaningful and amazing moments of music I have ever experienced; seeing Gwen singing ‘Don’t Speak’ on Top Of The Pops in 1997 was a transformative moment for me. The last decade has taken the heat out of the love, though and seemingly not just for me. This is an anthem to trying to grow up, get it together, settle down and that makes sense as a metered, controlled sound- they’ve always (especially Gwen) known exactly what they’re doing, though and this lacks a sense of the dramatic they used to use so well. The sound of a band adapting and maturing is better than a historical reenactment of their early funny stuff and this piece of beyond-ska-into-cod-reggae-really works well enough, when I remember it’s not trying to punch me in the emotional gut and shouldn’t be criticised for not. It’s kind of shitty to think it’s a declaration that the band are going to stop trying- Gwen Stefani is a bonkers, hypermanipulative diva and I can only imagine diminishing returns on anything not relishing that.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: Growing up, a lot of the older kids in high school had a weird hate for No Doubt. With hindsight (and Google), I’ve realized it’s because they came of age in the halcyon days of California’s ska obsession and Gwen Stefani and company were easy targets for teenage scorn: a band using elements of ska to…be popular (and do so without the stoner-friendly vibe of Sublime). At the time this made no sense to me, being too young for Tragic Kingdom. To me, No Doubt was that band always on VH-1 fronted by the woman with the pink hair who wasn’t Pink, who made catchy and at times “tropical” pop who eventually served as my introduction to Talk Talk. “Settle Down” sounds like every other single I’ve heard from them since freshman year: serviceable pop that’s nothing remarkable but boasts a sunny groove and good, just-catchy-enough chorus supplemented by a vaguely reggae vibe that guarantees this will be played to death on every LA rock radio station…and sound great while sitting on the 405. Fittingly enough, various Facebook friends have taken the time to complain about this song. Some things never change, but at least No Doubt can still write a solid pop song.
[7]
Ramzi Awn: Boasting harmonies like candy and hooks to boot, “Settle Down” strings together a 6-minute epic that somehow bridges the gap between No Doubt nostalgia and today. All of the Gwens wash over the beat like waves on the beach at noontime, and the radio will be glad for it. Just what summer needed.
[10]
Brad Shoup: There’s a crippling lack of propulsion here: the skittering backbeat recalls a child bopping around the playroom. But surely most kids would reject the joyless medicine on offer here. Yet another classic No Doubt chorus that misplaces release, catchiness, melody. So much phrasing that I wish I could assume was satire (“I’m hella positive for real,” the endless “copy that”s). All this could be mitigated if I had a fondness for Stefani’s unique vox, but to be totally honest, I’ve never been able to give her the benefit of the pout.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: As Stefani’s “eh eh eh, get in line and settle down” passed through my ears the first time, I admit I thought, wait, that’s it? Then, happily, it turned out the song had another chorus (though I guess it’s more a pre-chorus) buried in its slightly flabby running time and things got a lot better. No Doubt still, amazingly, sound young, and as ever, Gwen’s theoretically limited voice is maximised with smart production and clever, nagging songwriting. 90s throwbacks will (seemingly) always be with us, but “Settle Down” is a rarity in that it succeeds on modern pop’s terms and could fit any moderate upbeat setting you can imagine it playing in: on the dancefloor, at the beach, in your car, and in your head all damn day, every day.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: This doesn’t revive No Doubt so much as Gwen’s “Rich Girl,” but fortunately there’s a little energy left there that hasn’t settled. A little.
[6]