Published: December 14, 2006 11:22 am            

REVIEW: Gwen Stefani's "The Sweet Escape"

Gwen Stefani

“The Sweet Escape”

This is the type of album that makes real musicians cringe.

A long-held truth has been that pop stars can throw hastily scribbled lyrics behind a few funky-sounding samples and heavy beats to make a club hit.

But the former No Doubt frontwoman takes this nonsensical formula to a new level on her sophomore solo album.

From the album’s first moments, you know you’re in trouble. A yodeling sample taken from “Sound of Music” leads to lyrical gold like “This is the key that makes us wind up/When the beat comes on, the girls all line up” on the album’s first single, “Wind it Up.” There’s nothing wrong with a little experimenting, but superstar producers The Neptunes go too far on this track, taking it from potentially interesting to the kind of song you spend the rest of the day desperately trying to get out of your head.

Stefani spends much of the remainder of the record offering herself props for her Grammy win, mad skills behind the mic and overall greatness — the kind of insipid songwriting too flaccid for a half-bottle of Levitra to correct.

The Neptunes and other producers such as Swizz Beatz give the album that slick feel that moves a lot of units, but there’s nothing on this record worth remembering even six months from now. Stefani has vocal skills that used to shine through in No Doubt (former bandmate Tony Kanal produced one of the album’s few bright spots, “4 in the Morning,” a ballad that sounds a bit like “Don’t Speak” with a hip-hop beat behind it), but it’s obvious she’s more concerned with being a pop star than having any semblance of substance.

The only sweet escape from “Sweet Escape” will be when you turn the album off. [One star]

— Paul Lane

        

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