No Doubt's 'Tragic Kingdom' Turns 20! Gwen Stefani Looks Back on the 'Magical Time'

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Twenty years later and we're still rocking out to No Doubt's breakout hit.


WATCH: Gwen Stefani Reveals Details About Her Next Solo Album 

The band's third studio album, Tragic Kingdom, was released via Interscope Records on Oct. 10, 1995, and spawned the iconic hit singles "Just a Girl," "Spiderwebs," "Sunday Morning," and "Don't Speak." Now, on the album's 20th anniversary, Gwen Stefani is opening up about what Tragic Kingdom means to her today.

"That album really defines me when I discovered I could write songs," she tells ET. "I didn't really write songs before that and to be able to get that power, and to understand that about myself, that I had that gift ... that's what that whole album kinda represents."

No Doubt would spend the next few years touring the globe to promote the album.

"It [was] such a magical time period, but also a hard, tragic period as well, for me," Stefani says. "I just remember saying to my parents, 'We're gonna go on tour. It's gonna be a long one,' and we didn't come home for two and a half years. I went around the entire planet."


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Since Tragic Kingdom was released in October, it missed the deadline for the upcoming 1996 GRAMMYs. The album did score the band two nominations for the 1997 ceremony, but no wins. (Best Rock Album went to Sheryl Crow's self-titled effort that year, while LeAnn Rimes won the trophy for Best New Artist.) No Doubt would go on to score two GRAMMY awards, for the songs "Hey Baby" and "Underneath It All," in the mid-2000s.

"We are so excited right now," a 27-year-old Stefani told ET on the red carpet at the Feb. 26, 1997, awards. "We were just in the limousine going 'Ow! Woohoo!' the whole way over ... This is better than prom. It feels like we're at prom, but we're way older now." See the adorable moment in the video above.

Today, at 46 years old, the The Voice coach still can't wrap her head around her own impressive career.

"I never ever thought of myself as a career kinda person, or having a career," she says. "I was so passive in high school, I just wanted to be a mom, so for me to look back and look at all of the stuff that I was so blessed to be a part of, I just can't even believe it."

The Fullerton, California, native not only achieved international success, but also fulfilled her dreams of motherhood. Stefani serves as mom to three young boys with her estranged husband, Gavin Rossdale. (One month shy of their 12th wedding anniversary, Stefani filed for divorce from the Bush frontman citing "irreconcilable differences.")


WATCH: Gwen Stefani Is 'Grateful for Even the Bad Things' Amid Tumultuous Year

Stefani tells ET that these days, when she's not filming The Voice, she's hard at work in the studio recording her third solo LP.

"There's just not one day that goes by that I'm not thinking, 'Wow, how did this happen to me?' she marvels. Because, how did it? It's crazy, right?! It is. It's just extraordinary."

Never change, Gwen! See more from our sit-down with the singer in the player below.

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