“Spiderwebs” by No Doubt

"Spiderwebs" comes from No Doubt's third album, Tragic Kingdom, and when it went out as a single in 1996 it caught the band at full sprint. Gwen Stefani wrote it with bassist Tony Kanal after an admirer subjected her to some truly terrible poetry, and the song is her fed-up, sharp-tongued reply to would-be suitors.

Musically it's ska punk with a pop sheen: Tom Dumont's guitar chops on the offbeat, Kanal and drummer Adrian Young bounce underneath, and Phil Jordan's trumpet and Gabrial McNair's trombone give it a brassy kick, with Eric Stefani on keys and Stephen Perkins adding steelpan. Matthew Wilder produced it, and Stefani sounds equal parts amused and exasperated.

Interscope never issued it as a commercial single in the US, so it couldn't enter the Hot 100, but it reached number 18 on the airplay chart and went top 40 in Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK. Marcus Nispel's video drops the band into a wedding reception where telephones swarm in and trap the guests, and Stefani, who designed her own wardrobe for it, drew comparisons to Madonna. The band played it at the Grammys in 1997.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.