The band No Doubt recently announced that they are reuniting after having been on hiatus for the better part of the decade.  During that time the lead singer of No Doubt, Gwen Stefani, successfully pursued a solo career, got married, and had two children.   While the birth data we have for the band members is kind of sketchy at the moment, if you look at their chronology you start to see some pretty striking astrological correlations.

No Doubt was formed in 1986, and played their first show in 1987, but we don’t have a lot of information about exact dates during this period.  While we do know all of the birth dates of the band members, we don’t have any confirmed birth times for any of them.  Most sites list Gwen Stefani’s birth time as unknown and simply use a noon chart, although Astrotheme lists an exact birth time that seems to work pretty well.  I don’t usually like to rely on Astrotheme for birth times, but since the one they list is pretty close to the noon chart that I would be forced to use otherwise, I will go ahead and use it in this article.

Gwen Stefani’s Birth Chart

Regardless of if this is an accurate birth time, the chart shows some really nice indications.   The Moon is in her own sign, Mars is exalted, and Mercury and Venus are in mutual reception.  The Moon in Cancer shows that she can be a deeply emotional and sentimental person, Mars in Capricorn shows that she has a strong drive and work ethic, and the mutual reception between Venus and Mercury reflects her lyrical and singing talents.

No Doubt’s highly successful breakthrough album, Tragic Kingdom, was released on October 6, 1995, a few days after Stefani’s 26th birthday.  It was generally a pretty up-beat, fast-tempo album, often leading to the band being categorized as a sort of alternative ska band during this time.

Return of Saturn

There was a four and a half year gap between then and the release of their next album, The Return of Saturn, during which time Gwen and all of her band mates were going through their late twenties, and were all literally experiencing their Saturn return during this time.

Since Saturn makes one complete cycle around the zodiac approximately every 29 years, everyone goes through their first “Saturn return” transit during this time.  It is often characterized as more of a serious time in a person’s life, when more pragmatic concerns start to come to the forefront as people make the final transition into adulthood.

Adrian, Toni and Gwen all have their natal Saturn in Taurus, and Tom has his in the previous sign, Aries.  So, the album was named in recognition of this pretty heavy transit that the band was going through during this time, as Saturn transited through Aries and Taurus during the production of the album.

Entertainment Weekly did a pretty good interview with Gwen where she talks about the the title of the album a bit:

‘We ended up calling the album ‘Return of Saturn’ because on a personal level, from age 28 to now — the time frame of the making of this album — was really hard,” Stefani tells EW Online. ”I was like, ‘God, what’s wrong with me, who am I?,’ going through this whole evaluation of who I was in different stages of life and which one’s real.

Comparing No Doubt’s Return of Saturn to their earlier album Tragic Kingdom actually gives you a pretty good idea of how many people experience their Saturn return.  Not just in the more heavy and matured sound of the album when compared to earlier ones in general, but also in the lyrics where Gwen sings about topics like settling down and getting married, having children, and reassessing her life:

The return of saturn
Assessing my life
Second guessing…

I’m full of artificial sweetener
My hearts been deceitful
Its all artificial sweetener
I’m faking I love yous
You’re forcing me to

You really deserve love
I want to love you
But I cant seem to find myself…

Taking Gwen’s birth time for granted for a moment, we notice that Saturn is in the 7th house of the chart, and if the time is correct then much of the focus of her Saturn return would have been on relationships.   During this time she was heavily involved with the lead singer of Bush, Gavin Rossdale, and about a year and a half after the release of Return of Saturn they became engaged and subsequently got married, thus showing that she dealt with her own Saturn return rather constructively.

Post-Saturn Return

About a year and a half after Return of Saturn was released No Doubt released their next album, Rock Steady, on December 11, 2001.  All of the band members were well out of their Saturn return by this time, and not long afterward Gwen Decided to strike out on her own with a solo career for a while.

During the past few years Gwen has pretty much accomplished all of the things that she sang about almost longingly in Return of Saturn, for example such as getting married, having children, and establishing her own identity.

Now the band is reuniting almost exactly twelve years after the release of Tragic Kingdom, which is one full Jupiter cycle.  I realize that its not as catchy and the phenomena isn’t as well known as ‘return of Saturn’, but for the next album title, how about ‘Return of Jupiter‘.

Eh…  probably not.

Written by Chris Brennan

Chris is a practicing astrologer and researcher from Denver, Colorado. He specializes in Hellenistic astrology, with additional areas of interest in the history and philosophy of astrology. He writes articles regularly at the Horoscopic Astrology Blog, and he consults with clients and teaches online classes through his personal website at www.ChrisBrennanAstrologer.com

Tags: Gwen Stefani, Jupiter, No Doubt, Saturn, Saturn return

What's next?

• Subscribe to the blog via RSS feed
• Subscribe to the blog via email
• Save this page on del.icio.us
• Stumble it
• Leave a comment on this article

Share this article: