Gwen Stefani - Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
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Artist: Gwen StefaniEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-11-23
Music Label: Interscope Records
Soundtracks:
- What You Waiting For?
- Rich Girl
- Hollaback Girl
- Cool
- Bubble Pop Electric
- Luxurious
- Harajuku Girls
- Crash
- The Real Thing
- Serious
- Danger Zone
- Long Way To Go
Music reviews of Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
Music Review: Please. Gwen. Make. It. Stop.
Rating: 2 Stars
I've been a fan of Gwen Stefani's and No Doubt's for some time. I have a weakness for women whose voices sound sort of sweet and innocent but who are willing to sing strong lyrics with a bit of an edge to them. Juliana Hatfield (of solo and Blake Babies fame) is another such artist. Thus, when I saw that "Love.Angel.Music.Baby." had come out, I was immediately interested in it. After listening to it a few times, I've come to a couple of conclusions about it.
The first conclusion I get from this album is that I'm clearly not its intended audience. Far too many of the songs sound cheesy, pedestrian, and just too airheaded for my taste. I expected more from Gwen than she delivered here. I kept looking for the good lyrics, the trademark Gwen Stefani vocal sounds, and more substance. It's just not there. If I had to describe the album in a single phrase, that phrase would be "Self-indulgent, empty, disco-pop crap with a touch of hip-hop."
My second conclusion from listening to this album is that as successful and respected as Gwen Stefani is, she's not happy with herself as an artist and perhaps as a person. That's evident from her comments in several of the tracks about how the young Japanese girls in Harajuku are so much more stylish, so much cooler, and seemingly "better" than Gwen. It's evident from the fact that most of these tracks have a "faux hip-hop" sound to them, like the work she's done to this point in her career isn't as interesting or cool as a sort of electronic, disco-oriented, pop sound.
Here's a quick examination of the tracks on the album...
1. What You Waiting For?
Starts off sounding like a soft ballad in front of a live audience, then hops full force into an energetic pop song with some techno sounds to it. It's clear from this track, Rich Girl, and Harajuku Girls that Gwen is smitten with Japanese girls' sense of style and fashion.
2. Rich Girl
I first heard this song in an episode of Red Dwarf, the British sci-fi comedy, being sung by Rimmer when he thought he was about to become a wealthy man back on Earth. While Rimmer sang only a small part of it, I recognized it here. Gwen pulls this song off well. It's entertaining and fun to listen to, though there isn't a lot of depth to the lyrics. (That's not really a surprise given the album's "pop" audience.) Again, Stefani mentions Harajuku girls in the song.
3. Hollaback Girl
Since I couldn't decide what the heck a "Hollaback Girl" was, I decided to do a few web searches. It seems I'm not the only one who wonders. There appear to be three likely definitions for this phrase: (1) It's a woman who prefers to get in a fist fight when she's insulted, rather than "hollering back" at her attacker. (2) It's a woman who, like a cheerleader, hollers in the background of a loud scene and wants to be more visible. (3) It's a word Stefani made up for the song and the album, just to sound cool. Personally, aside from the catchy refrain, this song is pretty much stupid and pointless. If I need to be more clear, I really don't like this song... (Update 10/05/2005: I guess I must be alone in this opinion, since the song has apparently become the #1 most legally downloaded song, with 1 millions downloads. Great... This'll convince Gwen to do more crappy songs like this.)
4. Cool
This is the first song on the album that I really enjoyed. The lyrics are good, the instrumentals don't include weird buzzes, hip-hop vocals, or anything else that detracts from it. It's definitely one of Gwen's better songs.
5. Bubble Pop Electric
If I had to guess, this song is supposed to sound like something that would be a hit on the Japanase Anime fan circuit. The song title sounds like some kind of anime movie. The lyrics focus on Gwen having intercourse in the back seat of a car. I can't say that I'm overly impressed with it. It's not as bad as Hollaback Girl, but it's pretty lame.
6. Luxurious
The gist of this one is that Gwen and her lover have accumulated lots of wealth and now they can just spend their time together in luxury. I could do without the hip-hop sounding parts of this song, but overall it's pretty decent.
7. Harajuku Girls
I guess the album was building up to this song. Of 6 previous songs, Gwen's gone out of her way to mention "Harajuku Girls" in at least 3 of them and talked about Japan in another. Instrumentally, I like it fine. It's pleasant enough to listen to and is slightly catchy. Lyrically, I'm not too impressed, since it's basically Gwen's love letter to a fashionable district in Japan. Her vocals are dynamic and fun through this one, making it clear that she believes what she's singing about. But being a guy, a song about Japanese fashions doesn't impress me. Yawn!
8. Crash
Just when I was beginning to think that Gwen couldn't write a song that didn't gush about Harajuku girls, I found Crash. It's clearly "dance music" and has a definite "bubblegum pop" sound to it. This one kind of sounds like she's a fan of auto racing. Instrumentally, lyrically, and vocally, it's typical pop stuff. I'm afraid this one is another yawn-inducer to me.
9. The Real Thing
This one reminds me a lot of Madonna's stuff from the late 1980's and early 1990's. The gist of it is that Gwen's found "the real thing" romantically and wants to keep it. Lyrically, it's another of the stronger songs on the album. Vocally, it delivers more of the Gwen Stefani that I enjoy listening to. Instrumentally it's not especially powerful or memorable. Overall it's a pleasant song to listen to but not something you're likely to catch yourself singing later on. It's more like something you'd play while taking a long drive or doing something around the house.
10. Serious
Similar to the last song, this one is about Gwen finding herself in a "serious" romantic situation, and "I know it (sic) gonna need your medicine". This sounds like 80's or 90's dance club music, even including some of the cheesy organ sounds. The lyrics are pretty mainstream and uninspired. Gwen's vocals are pretty mainstream on this one, too. I suppose if you enjoy dancing this could be a great song, but I don't, so for me it's pretty mediocre and uninteresting.
11. Danger Zone
This one sounds very little like Gwen Stefani to me. It's more like some Japanese pop group or something more run-of-the-mill Top 40-ish. In places, she sounds like Madonna. Still, I actually like this track and would rank it as one of the better ones on the album.
12. Long Way To Go
This has a pop-ish Motown-ish sound to it. I can't say that I like it, mostly because of the lyrics, which have very weird lines like "...a young Martin Luther, upgrade computer" which make no sense.
As I said at the outset, I don't think I'm the intended audience for this album. There appear to be a couple of audiences. One is the teenage set who doesn't care of their songs are devoid of any real substance as long as they sound like something you can dance to. If that's your taste, you'll love this album. The other audience, and I'm guessing the main one, is the population of Harajuku, Japan. I say that because Stefani is kissing up to them in about half the tracks on the album, and adding a sound to her music that strikes me like what I'd expect to be popular in a Japanese disco or on a Japanese Top 40 station (though having not been to Japan this is just a guess). I suspect she's trying to get herself "in" with the "Harajuku Girls" so that she can be one of them on her next tour there.
Since I'm neither of the intended audiences for this album, I just don't like it that well. I enjoyed 2-3 of the songs, but that means I didn't enjoy 9-10 of them. That means about 80% of the album pretty much sucks as far as I'm concerned. On the 1-10 scale, it gets about 4 from me, mostly because of the couple of good tracks and the fact that I genuinely like Stefani's voice. If you took those good songs off the album, the rest of it would get about a 1-2 out of 10.
Description of Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
In her own unique way, Gwen Stefani has managed to shift our culture since coming onto the scene as the lead singer of No Doubt. With years of defining style and 30 million in record sales under her belt, she will again turn heads with this debut record that is as fresh as it is retro and as progressive as it is feel-good familiar.With this project, she has enlisted some of the biggest names in music (Dr. Dre, Eve, The Neptunes, Andre 3000, Nellee Hooper, Dallas Austin, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Linda Perry and Tony Kanal) to create a genre bending masterpiece that is guaranteed to be one of the most talked about records of this year (2004) and beyond.
On No Doubt's great Rock Steady, Gwen Stefani was a "girl that hangs with the boys... just sippin' on chamomile." Three years and a KROQ-nerd Talk Talk cover later, she presents a solo debut that wants it all--Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano, backseat love and lifetime devotion, '70s pop throwbacks and hip-hop beats as well as Clash adoration (she continues to be managed by the firm of Rebel Waltz, named for a mournful Sandinista! cut). Among the standout tracks are the stomping, Neptunes-driven "Hollaback Girl," the tongue-in-cheek Eve/Dr. Dre collaboration "Rich Girl," and the girl-power manifesto "What You Waiting For?"; another tune, "The Real Thing," nods toward role-model Madonna's "Holiday." Though it can't match Rock Steady's inexorable track-by-track flow, Love, Angel, Music, Baby is such state-of-the-art pop that the description almost feels like damning it with faint praise. --Rickey Wright
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