Gwen Stefani
"The Sweet Escape"
The former No Doubt girl had a lot of people scratching their heads when she went solo. Being the cynical guy that I am, I thought of a hundred different motives for her change in style. Well, whatever the reason is, only Gwen Stefani knows. Anyway, if you listen to her new music, you might think she has multiple personalities as she switches from dance, to hip-hop, to alternative. Has she gone nuts? The answer is no. She just has so many musical influences, which is obvious after listening. To try and combine all the different styles into one CD could be a real disaster..... or it could be a wise move. On her new album The Sweet Escape, she takes a risk in what turns out to be a real catchy album. At times, some of the songs sound like it could have been done by Missy Elliot or Cyndi Lauper. That's how diverse the styles are here. A couple of songs that stood out to me were Early Winter and Wonderful Life, which sing about broken relationships and regaining a love that's lost. Most of the other songs are bouncy, "get your ass on the dance floor" songs, which are great to play to let out some stress in life. On a side note, one thing I appreciate is that she doesn't let anyone define who she is creatively. She probably knew she'd possibly face a lot of criticism for making a change in her music like this, but she continued to do her thing regardless. Another reminder that we all have different talents and gifts to bring to the world, and we'll never be able to break free as long as we live in the boxes that we try to put each other in. Overall, The Sweet Escape is a fun album to pop on and just get lost in the music. Perhaps her line on the song Don't Get It Twisted sums up the mood of this CD:
"Don't get it twisted, don't get clever, this is the most craziest shit ever..."
1 comment:
See I think her style is totally awesome. I really dig the diversity and the freedom of it because sometimes I write things that sound like they are for Pink and sometimes I write something that sounds like it was meant for Alison Krauss. I'm so all over the place. So I respect that about her and she is just cool like red lipstick, but not very deep I find. She can descend only some of the way down. I just like her though. She just doesn't give a crap about genre and I soooo respect that.
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