No Doubt (Self Titled Album)

No Doubt is the self-titled debut studio album by the American rock band No Doubt, released March 17, 1992 on Interscope Records. The album was originally recorded as an independent release, but was re-recorded after the band was signed to Interscope. It was produced by Dito Godwin and recorded in Los Angeles.

The album was released during a period in which the United States was mainly focused on grunge music, an angst-ridden genre that was almost the complete opposite of No Doubt's upbeat commercial sound. Despite strong tours, the album failed to perform as well as the record company expected it to, selling only 30,000 copies. The record company refused to fund the release of a single from it, so No Doubt released the album's only single, "Trapped in a Box", independently. Since the band signed out of Interscope, the band independently produced and released a follow-up to No Doubt.

Production
In 1991, No Doubt were signed to Interscope Records, which was a new label at the time. The band had just finished recording an indie CD that they were going to release themselves. When they were signed by the record label, they decided to take advantage of the offer to re-record the CD in a professional studio. However, they weren't receiving any support that they expected:

The band spent less than $13,000 in the process of recording their debut album, featuring both songs written as long ago as 1987 and new songs written specifically for the disc. All of the band members continued going to school to finish their education while recording their debut album in a Los Angeles studio.[4]

To promote their album, in the summer of 1992 the band went on two two-week tours of the Western area of the United States. In the fall, they embarked on a two-and-a-half month national tour. Due to the commercial failure of their album, Interscope refused to support the tour, leaving the band to finance it themselves.[7] They played alongside bands such as Rage Against the Machine, Ugly Kid Joe, Sublime, Dance Hall Crashers, 311,[6] Public Enemy, Pato Banton and The Special Beat.[4]

Single
After the disappointing sales of No Doubt, Interscope did not wish to finance the release of a single from the record. However, the band financed the shooting of a video for the song "Trapped in a Box" out of their own pockets. Roughly $5,000 was spent on it. The video got local airplay in Orange County but, despite the band's hopes, it was never aired on either MTV or VH1, although it was played on MuchMusic in Canada. It failed to achieve status on any chart. In 2003 the song was released on No Doubt's greatest hits compilation album The Singles 1992-2003 and the video was released on the companion DVD of music videos, The Videos 1992-2003.

Within the booklet from The Singles 1992-2003 is a blurb on each song. The short paragraph on "Trapped in a Box" states:

The song is based on a poem that guitarist Tom Dumont wrote about being addicted to television and how it can control one's way of thinking.[8] 19.5degs described the song as "skiffling" and "the weakest track [on The Singles 1992-2003] in the way of singing, but [with] smart lyrics".[9] Music OMH, however, described the song as a "kooky, almost novelty single"[10] and CD Universe described the song as a "rhythmic workout".[11] Rhapsody, in a positive review, described it as "one of the album's highlights"[12] and Allmusic called it "as exciting" as two of No Doubt's more successful singles, "Hella Good" and "Just a Girl".[13]