TRAGIC KINGDOM

I love album cover art, and in my music collection I came across a No Doubt CD from 1995, the cover of which I think is amazing. This was a super-successful record, one of the best-selling albums worldwide. Before taking this graphic design history class I knew the cover art looked "retro," but now maybe I can try to identify what they were going for in terms of graphic style. I don't feel I'm nearly knowledgeable enough to accurately analyze or interpret it, but I'll give it a shot.

To me, the cover has a 1950s advertisement feel. It's a quirky blend of their own unique style as a band (a mixture of ska, pop, punk, new wave, reggae, rock, hair-band guitars, white-boy funk, disco, party-bounce, and the unmistakable vocals of Gwen Stefani) and various elements and motifs from a number of graphic styles (loosely interpreted), including a tad of Art Nouveau (the circle, the beautiful woman, the gold outlines around the letters) and maybe some Early Modern (sort of a photomontage approach, some images that may be seen as unsavory or shocking, like the flies and bug-eaten fruit), geometric shapes, sans-serif type for NO DOUBT-maybe it's Avant Garde?). I'm finding that analyzing something like this is a research project unto itself, but it's pretty interesting.

It does have a variety of elements that, when combined, project familiarity, quirkiness, retro-feel, beauty, playfulness, and a little bit of darkness. I still enjoy the music from this record, and I think one could even use the same terms to describe it. Anyone ever heard it? :)