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Music CD - Gwen Stefani: The Sweet Escape
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Music CD: The Sweet Escape
Artist: Gwen Stefani
List Price: $13.98
Our Price: $4.19
Your Save: $ 9.79 ( 70% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Interscope Records
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Tracks:
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1. Wind It Up
2. The Sweet Escape - featuring Akon
3. Orange County Girl
4. Early Winter
5. Now That You Got It
6. 4 In The Morning
7. Yummy - featuring Pharrell
8. Fluorescent
9. Breakin' Up
10. Don't Get It Twisted
11. U Started It
12. Wonderful Life
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0602517144118
Format: Explicit Lyrics
Label: Interscope Records
Manufacturer: Interscope Records
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Interscope Records
Release Date: 2006-12-05
Studio: Interscope Records
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Three Stars
Comment: Having been the quirky lead singer of No Doubt ever since the late eighties, Gwen Stefani (and her fellow band members) have evolved over the years. When it was decided that she would take a break from the band to pursue a solo career, she unleashed Love. Angel. Music. Baby., which was an exhilerating odyssey of catchy retro tunes. Unfortunately, her second stab at solo work does not fair quite as well. With The Sweet Escape, Gwen ditches the electro-pop of L.A.M.B. for an R&B approach. Although lyrically her wit is as sharp as ever in "Yummy" and "Breakin' Up," the music isn't always as good as it should be . Ranging from the synth-rich rock of "Wonderful Life" to the emotionally-tinged pop of "4 In The Morning," most of the other songs sound like standard R&B tunes that have played on the airwaves constantly for the past ten years. The main thing that keeps this album together is the undeniable talent with words that Gwen possesses. Although this is nothing close to the masterpiece that L.A.M.B. was, this album isn't particularly terrible. It is merely aggravating that someone with so much talent delivered something that is mostly mediocre.
Customer Rating:
Summary: She needs to reinvent herself again
Comment: Gwen has talent, but she's not showing it anymore. Maybe she does only have once face, but I would like to see her gain a new inspiration. She's not a singer, let's establish that right now. But she is an artist, and a very creative one when she's inspired. But this album is not all that impressive. She can make great music when the chips are stacked in her favor, but seems to be running out of luck now...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sweet Escape
Comment: I love this album. This album is very good. This album is different from the previous one. The album shows that she has matured. The dance sound is very "now". It's modern, not so retro. This album has been certified Platinum despite the negative reviews.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I expect better from Gwen
Comment: it's cute, catchy, but not what Gwen's capable of. I'd like to see more... just more.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wind it in!
Comment: Let's get straight to the point. Apart from the excellent `Early Winter', is there any reason to buy Gwen Stefani's `the Sweet Escape'?
Not really I'm afraid. In truth it's a poor album, with some good bits to push around, some nuggets to be found in the gravel.
`Early Winter' would be a standout on the best of albums, `Fluorescent' swirls nicely and `Wonderful Life' lives it's title in a hot, sumptuous, free-flowing sense.
Unfortunately, for every `Early Winter' there's at least two `Wind it Up's in contradistinction.
`Wind it Up' is particularly bad. Mad `Sound of Music' yodeling, followed by feeble rap, and `'Now That You Got It' is a typically bland Gwen effort, more rap, with our heroine in her full-on `Goodfellas' brogue (it's funny how she doesn't have the daft accent on her better songs, is she trying to hide something?). `Yummy' is another stinker of the highest order, hopeless hip-hop with Pharrell saying `nigga' just to keep Gwen's new wave/controversial credentials intact.
I honestly don't know if I like Gwen or not. She's undoubtedly a fabulous woman, much admired in celebrity circles for her staunch family-first stand-point as well as her staggering good looks. And this is where my reservations come in.
With all that she's got going for her, you can't help thinking that she should be doing much better. I'm not talking about irrelevant sales figures, I'm talking of Gwen, the glorious example of blooming womanhood, who should be striding ahead of her (much less talented) contemporaries with a swagger and one quick shake of those shiny platinum locks. That she isn't is the ponderer. When she listens back to `The Sweet Escape' she knows, like everyone else does, that's it's at best, okay.
And that's just not good enough.
She's manufactured to be sure, but she's canny as well. She realises she has four good songs on `the Sweet Escape', and a big heap of filler, and yet she's convinced a lot of people (including the Stiffs that must be running EMI-America) that it's a great album. No mean feat.
She achieves in so many areas, but fails in the important one - her living up to her potential as one of the great true voices of feminism in rock.
`the Sweet Escape', the song itself, is a giveaway. With Acorn yelping away in the background, Gwen gets all confessional. Regaling her enraptured fans, worshipping at her deliciously manicured feet, with how she's been so bad, had it so bad, but come out the other side as a better person blah, blah...This is standard rock-rebel territory and in this sense she's as fraudulent as that ol' Dag Queen, Davie Bowie, using a blunt sexual image to hide the something-of- herself-that-we-actually-do-want-to-see. In the video, she's in prison stripes - wow Gwen, hit us over the head with it why dontcha?
Confession is good for the soul, but not in the case of THIS music.
She's got slick backing musicians as you'd expect, but despite all the surface shine and razzamatazz, she doesn't really sparkle as she should. (A surfeit of H2o perhaps......?) It's gonna sound odd, but I want to hear her SING more. She doesn't very often!
This is where `Early Winter' is an exception. At last she actually GIVES something, and the lush, deep music wraps itself around her. A killer combination, like mating cobras in moving, shifting sand.
That it's followed by the squeaky and irritating `Now That You Got It' sums up the albums failings in one swift interchange.
I thought it might be me being a bit unfair, I've never been big on styles jumping all over the place. I like consistency and cohesion, but even after many sympathetic listens (I want her to do well, I really do!) I'm still left with the sense that she's gone off half-cock, left the job unfinished. Those of us awaiting a threat were met by more of a shrug-of-the-shoulders, a stationary attitude. Oh that'll do.
To paraphrase a well-known modern philosopher; her songs don't seem to come from any place, and that means (of course!) that they don't move you, the eager listener, in any direction.
Next time, she needs unshackling, to cut loose, to not play it so safe. Bin the passe 'guest stars',(all on her label no doubt, oops!) get a LOUD guitar in, and stop all that predictable ghetto wittering.
Madonna came back from years of stagnation with the superb `Ray of Light', and one readily believes Gwen is quite capable of doing the same, but you feel she needs someone to give her a good kick up her perfectly formed jacksie to get the required reaction.
Alexis (14) says "So much freedom, so little choice."
Gwen (40) says "Why do you act so stoopid ?"
Answers please in the `Comments' section...
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Editorial Reviews:
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There's nothing like a Gwen Stefani disc to rip you from your pop comfort zone and, in the pleasantest way possible, knock you around a bit. On The Sweet Escape, the blows arrive roughly every four minutes: a yodel ("Wind It Up") skitters off ceremoniously before the title track, featuring Akon, catches you off guard with its infectious yelps of "Woo-hoo, YEE-hoo!," and the pouty rap of "Orange County Girl" has barely petered out before we're vectored somewhere back toward the '80s with the indie rock-ish "Early Winter." That the sound of these songs doesn't follow a formula--that they pounce wherever they please, without regard for genres or decades--is no big whoop; this is Gwen Stefani, after all, and her up-for-anything, play-along fans probably wouldn't have it any other way. More surprising is the extent to which Stefani inserts what seems to be her genuine self into the music: "4 in the Morning," a Madonna-reminiscent midtempo groover, drops the wide-eyed Betty Boop pose and basks in a rarely plumbed depth of feeling ("I give you everything that I am / I'm handing over everything that I've got / 'cause I wanna have a really true love," she sings with something like sincerity). A single track later, she's owning up to motherhood in the sexiest, most unapologetic way possible: "I know you've been waiting," she pants, "but I've been off making babies / And like a chef making donuts and pastries / It's time to make you sweat." Lyrics don't get much cleverer than the ones to "Breakin' Up," a kiss-off disguised as a dropped cell phone call, and sounds don't get much swizzier than the ones on "Now That You Got It." Which is to say that Gwen's got game--as much as on Love.Angel.Music.Baby, if not more--and that anytime she's prepared to hollaback, the world will do well to listen. --Tammy La Gorce
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