Gwen Stefani
The Sweet Escape

THE REVIEW

The blond girl tries again and does it with a "sweet escape" that's not quite successful...

If the previous "L.A.M.B." had amused with its catchy singles, original and sexy videos, and always lively melodies skillfully mixed by the various Pharrells of the moment, the second studio album turns out to be an excessively saccharine and sugary version of the debut album. Confident and assured by important collaborations of various sorts and with big names like Tim Rice-Oxley from Keane on piano ("Early Winter"), Akon lending his voice and production in "The Sweet Escape", the usual Pharrell with his Neptunes ("Wind It Up") and lo and behold Martin Gore with his guitar in "Wonderful Life", she perhaps didn't notice the poor final result. A result that soon took the shape of a pretentiously empty record, plastically void like her new magazine cover look: too glossy.

The sounds remain those more danceable typically 80s hip-hop with various electronic incursions like the various "Yummi" and "Break It Up" in which Stefani revels with pleasure or in "Wind It Up" where she even tackles alpine choirs sampled from the musical "The Sound of Music"... (let's hope it's not a lullaby for her son!!)... And as long as she tries to make us shake our booties with her bad-girl pop antics, things aren’t going too bad. The worst comes in the so-called ballads and little songs of the album which turn out to be boring ("In The Morning"), annoying ("Orange County Girl") where she insists a lot on reaffirming her origins as a southern girl, monotonous ("Fluorescent") and unnecessarily too long ("Early Winter"). The situation doesn't change in the insipid and repetitive "U Started It" and "Now That You Got It". The final effect is that of a jumble of styles and genres without a real purpose or even a real narrative thread. A nice copy and paste.

No hard feelings, Gwen, but this time you didn't pull us in too much; your more aggressive, sexy, and lively side didn't come through well, and the desire to dance stayed there in the corner waiting and waiting, maybe for your return with your beloved No Doubt.
Has the former front-woman of the Californian band taken herself too seriously?? Has she been dazzled by the previous success to think she could repeat it by recycling four poppy choruses, attempting to feed them again to the world of boys and girls ready to consume everything?? Once is okay. The second time is not.

One last thing Miss Gwen, that Parental Advisory on your nice close-up that so clashes with your "Sweet Escape", will it turn you into gangsta Stefani? When one says beautiful and damned...