by Schizoid "Schizoid" Canada Reviewed on January 20th, 2005
NO DOUBT singer Gwen Stefani gets rid of the dead weight of her full-time band for this debut solo album (apparently the album title also being the name of her new clothing line) put together by an assortment of different producers nd songwriters, where she shines fully as a vocalist taking on different styles and moods. Musically a lot of the tracks prepared for her are opposing flavours of the 2000's (pseudo big sound hip hop/r'n'b influence) and the 1980's (taking the house that Madonna and Cyndi Lauper built and expanding on it). Stefani and this album do what Garbage tried to do with "BeautifulGarbage" and failed horribly at doing by mixing the mainstream sound of today with 80's mood and intent - at times Stefani sounds like a dead ringer for Shirley Manson, especially on "Harijuku Girls", or on "Danger Zone" which would have worked great as a Garbage song in a different reality. The album becomes weak with the more conventional/urban sound found on tracks like "Long Way To Go" with it's hackneyed sentiment and sampling, not to mention the wretched r'n'bish duet vocals, also the case on "Luxurious" (although done quite well on the Dr. Dre produced "Rich Girl"). This mix bag of styles succeeds on more 'experimental' songs like "Hollandback" where Gwen squeaks out butt-kicking assertiveness over top of a Queen-ish boom-boom-stomp anthem beat, or on the unbelievably upbeat "Bubble Pop Electric" which uses layering of the different Gwen voices to ultimately win the listener over with sugar sweet melodies. If Gwen cleans house and settles on one producer for her next solo album (hopefully not the more hiphop side of things), and cleans away a bit of the overflow schmaltz factor on this, she could really make a successful solo career for herself.
Lyrics contained within GoldLyrics.com subject to US Copyright Laws and are the property of their respective authors, artists and labels. If you like the lyrics, GoldLyrics.com encourages you to buy the CDs of the albums and whenever possible, GoldLyrics.com gives a link, where you can buy the album.
