No Doubt aren't just 11 years older than they were when they released their last LP. They're determined to be wiser. Push and Shove leans toward synthpop-flavored ballads with grown-up themes: relationship struggles, the rewards of long-term romance. The songs are catchy, but Gwen Stefani doesn't have the voice, or the gravitas, for grandiose tunes. And do we really want a "mature" No Doubt record, anyway? The band sounds more at home on the title track, a ska/dub fusion where Stefani rhymes "La-la-la-la vida loca/We speeding it up like soca." That's the No Doubt we love: hopped-up ambassadors from a fairy-tale SoCal where la vida is, eternally, loca.

Listen to Push and Shove:

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."