The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day: SKApril!

No Doubt, "Paulina" from No Doubt (T.L.A.M.)

Skammentary: "Paulina" is a humorous little ditty about loneliness & masturbation with a nice syncopated rhythm, a worthy enough participant in this SKApril. No Doubt, though, are here as something of a charity case. Long before Gwen Stefani was an electro-pop Whore of Babylon, No Doubt was a Southern California ska band; she is the subject of Reel Big Fish's song, "She's Famous Now," having at one time dated R.B.F. front man Aaron Barrett. Few of No Doubt's songs are full-blown ska songs, & during the height of third-wave ska's popularity in the late 1990s, No Doubt & Sublime were used as the poster bands for the "new" genre. This is risible, as No Doubt's breakthrough album, Tragic Kingdom, contains no ska songs: "Spiderwebs" has a ska intro & outro & "Sunday Morning" has offbeat "ska guitar" under the verses, but neither is a ska song. But, No Doubt were more widely known than "one-hit wonders" like the aforementioned Reel Big Fish & The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, so that was that.

Anywho, the charity case angle. No Doubt are one of a handful of bands that didn't make the cut for the first SKApril in 2011, but made the second, SKApril '12, when I was looking, now as then, to provide as broad a survey of ska as practicable. During SKApril '14, when it became clear No Doubt would once again not make the cut, they were one of a handful of bands marked out for special attention in SKApril '15. Here I think I should type out the word SKApril again. My own version of Affirmative Action? I suppose. Doesn't that make me a hypocrite, because I oppose Affirmative Action in college admissions & hiring? I would submit, as many have posited, that a difference of degree is a difference of kind, that picking ska songs for a profoundly obscure blog's annual, month-long celebration of ska music is fundamentally different from admitting students to university or hiring employees. If one cannot accept the distinction, I shan't lose any sleep over one's accusation of my hypocrisy. Would "Paulina" have made the cut without the special emphasis on those of No Doubt's ilk? Likely not, but then if I didn't have a hard & fast rule that no band can furnish more than one song per SKApril, this whole month would probably just the Bosstones' The Magic of Youth repeated almost thrice. (I dig that album. It is eleven songs long.)

I enjoy "Paulina" on its own merits & I hope you will, too.