I'm Just Sipping On Chamomile

Reflections on Gwen Stefani and the music of 2001

Photo credit: GQ

If you made a playlist of the songs that were playing when you became who you became, what would be on there? Mine would include:

• “So Fresh, So Clean” by Outkast

• “Music” by Madonna

• “All Good” by De La Soul

• “Get the Party Started” by Pink

• “Hey Baby” by No Doubt.

When the Coachella videos of No Doubt hit my timeline last weekend, I was riveted. Watching video after video, I soon realized I was crying. What in the world is happening to me, I thought. Am I really crying at Blake Shelton’s wife? Reader: I was.

The late '90s to early Aughts era of music holds so much nostalgia for me. It’s when I graduated from college, moved to Nashville and then moved to New York.

Proof of youth. Me in my first Queens apartment, Feb. 2001

In 2001, we listened to music on the subway via CD discman, and if you wanted to listen to more than one CD that day, you had to carry those CDs on your person. Some industrious company designed a purse that held your discman, a small CD booklet and your wallet.

I rode the L train every day from Williamsburg to Manhattan like a pack mule traversing the grand canyon. I had my discman purse, an actual purse, a gym bag, a hardback book, and probably a Vitamin Water and bagel if I was hungover.

I did all of this in stilettos because it was 2001 and we were all tottling around the city like mini Carrie Bradshaws.

My CDs of choice back then were No Doubt’s Rock Steady and Nelly Furtado’s Whoa, Nelly!. If you can’t handle me at "Platinum Blonde Life," you don’t deserve me at “I’m Like a Bird.”

I was a teeny tiny 24 year old who, despite having to walk 14 blocks to and fro the L train every day, went to Bally Total Fitness to ride the stairmaster because, you know, eating disorders. And also, Mariah Carey did it and what’s the point of living in NYC if you’re not going to do the Mariah Carey Cribs workout?

I would set my discman on the display shelf of the stairmaster and climb, climb, climb to No Doubt’s Rock Steady. I felt so metropolitan.

I had this great hair stylist in Williamsburg named Luisa. She was Peruvian and worked at a popular salon off Bedford Ave called Mousey Brown’s. One day I came in with a photo of Gwen Stefani with black ends on her signature platinum blonde hair. I was obsessed with this duel-toned hair.

Luisa did her own spin on it and amped up my already blonde hair at the roots and then dyed the bottom half of my hair black. Believe me when I say I have never looked cooler.

With my roommate Ramon and my 2001 Gwen Stefani hair.

Looking back at Stefani with 2024 eyes, there’s a lot to critique. Her hyper feminine makeup and hair juxtaposed against six-pack abs and JNCO-style track pants is not a look that’s attainable for most folks. Not to mention the whole Harajuku Girls era. Yikes.

I never saw her perform live. Maybe she never toured anywhere I lived. But I’ll tell you this, I would have had a blast seeing her perform at Coachella last weekend. Maybe I would have even dyed my hair for it.

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I love that Stefani brought Olivia Rodrigo on stage during Coachella. My colleague, Hannah Cron, who is a talented music writer, reviewed Rodrigo’s recent tour stop in Nashville and wrote about the late '90s to early Aughts influence on Rodrigo’s music. You can read it here.