Posted December 1, 200618 yr The Sweet Escape [Reviews] http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000JJRIN4.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V35854185_.jpg The Guardian 04/05 The No Doubt singer's solo output should be the blueprint for any aspiring pop star who doesn't want to sacrifice credibility for the sake of commercial success. Stefani is saleable, yet as cool as it's possible for a California girl who has been "off making babies" (to quote the song Yummy) to be. Several tracks date back to the 2003 sessions that produced her first solo album, LAMB, but generally The Sweet Escape feels minty-fresh. The Gateway A- I hated Gwen Stefani’s first album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. One amazing single (“Rich Girlâ€) and 13 lame-tastic, trite songs that got stuck in every bubble-headed bimbo’s iPod non-stop. But comparing her new release, The Sweet Escape to L.A.M.B. is like comparing apples to B-A-N-A-N-A-S. The first single, “Wind It Up,†is out of control with a Sound of Music snippet that has Stefani yodeling and an intelligent drum line. It definitely makes booties want to wiggle. The track most likely to give “Wind It Up†a run for its money has got to be “Early Winter.†The well-written ballad emotes without being emo. The bonus track, “Candyland,†is no bonus. It should have been deleted from the master mix, but is really the only miss on the disc. The Sweet Escape is sleek in its presentation, smart on delivery and so not what I was expecting. Stereogum Recommends From what we've read, Gwen Stefani was preparing an EP of L.A.M.B.'s bananas-lite leftovers. Pharrell thought they could pull off a full-length sequel. And that's how The Sweet Escape was born. Inspiring, right? Album two offers more of the same, which two years later is still a love/hate proposition. The beats are bizarre, yet irresistible. The production both antiseptic and progressive. And Gwen's message (delivered in her signature kewpie cadence) remains anything but oblique. From "Orange County Girl"... "Pharrell on repeat, make a hurricane in Miami/ Working with him, im gonna get myself another Grammy/ I got the L.A.M.B., and he's rocking the Ice Creams" That's one of the more poetic moments. She usually comes just short of "I'm Gwen Stefani/ And I'm singing a song/ And you're listening to it right now." Not that we're surprised by the lack of lyrical prowess: with its brazenly stupid battle cry ("Take a chance you stupid ho!") Gwen's first solo single made is clear we weren't in Anaheim anymore. It would've been nice if Gwen had at least one new trick up her sleeve. Yodeling doesn't count. And thank god "Wind It Up" is the collection's most gimmicky bit. Well, aside from the chorus of "Don't Get It Twisted," which rides a vocal line based on "Entrance Of The Gladiators" (you know, the circus music). "Don't get it twisted/ Don't get clever /This is the most craziest $h!t ever," she rhymes in bombastic chromatic scale, the catchier of Gwen's two vocal modes. The other is monotone. Both are incorporated into "Yummy," rumored to be the next single. (More blunt insights there: "I know you’ve been waiting/ But I’ve been out making babies/ And had the chef making donuts and pastries.") It's a snooze compared to the infectious ear candy of Escape's horny title track ... think old-school Madonna meets Outkast. Polygamist hip-hop hitman Akon delivers the hook in the form of undeniable woo hoos. As on L.A.M.B.'s "Real Thing," Gwen seems intent on rewriting "Time After Time." She comes closest to crafting a classic with "Early Winter." Gwen is less cloying when she's weepy, and if you're looking for a piano power ballad you can find a worse co-writer than Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley. "I just really [wanted] it to sound like 'Eyes Without A Face,'" she recently told Britain's Sunday Times. It doesn't. But It's not bad. Other highlights: the sexy moany chorus of "Fluroscent," "Breakin' Up"'s goth organ grinding, and "U Started It" a slick slice of Prince-y synth-rock. Otherwise, Sweet Escape is lowest common denominator pop. Fortunately for Gwen's rep we realize that's intentional. She knows she's silly. Unlike, say, Fergie. Gwen paid her dues in a rock band for twenty years, so in some minds she's earned the opportunity to play the obnoxious skank she's clearly not. Unlike Fergie. Bottom line: if you liked the last album, you'll like this one. We loved about 50% of L.A.M.B., and same this time around, but the tunes that work are homeruns. If you crave some banging singles, as opposed to an artistic statement, you'll be a satisfied downloader. In The News 09/10 Unique. Innovative. Melodic. Funky. Diverse. The Sweet Escape manages to incorporate various styles to offer 12 distinctly unique tunes. It starts off with the first single, The Neptunes produced Wind It Up, which combines interpretations of The Lonely Goatherd (made famous in the musical The Sound of Music) with Pharrell influences. Gwen also collaborated with Pharrell on Orange County Girl, Yummy, Breakin' Up and U Started It. Other big names who contributed to the album include Akon on The Sweet Escape and No Doubt's Tony Kanal on 4 In the Morning, Fluorescent and Don't Get It Twisted. Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley collaborated with Gwen on the smooth, soft rock Early Winter. Gwen Stefani has successfully made the transition from lead singer in a group to solo superstar. Her first album after branching out on her own after her No Doubt days, Love. Angel. Music. Baby., went quadruple platinum. Hits such as Hollaback Girl and What You Waiting For? proved that Gwen had what it takes to make it to the top - and held the promise that she could stay there for a while. The Sweet Escape lives up to the promise. Never afraid to try something new and create something completely fresh, Gwen succeeds in staying cutting edge. In this album she manages to create a sound that is simultaneously cutting edge and completely different to her older work, yet The Sweet Escape remains distinctly Gwen Stefani. An element of Gwen's success has to be ascribed to her collaborations with some industry bigwigs. She is unafraid to cross genres and draws inspiration from everyone she works with - resulting in an album that offers a great deal of varied sounds and influences. As an example… From Orange County Girl A lot of things have changed, but I'm mostly the same These are a few of my favourite things Still rolling cuz the sound of music And nothing better than a huge big hit You know I'd pay you just to let me dance, write and sing I'm just an Orange County girl, livin' in an extraordinary world The first single from the album, Wind It Up, may not have the immediate mass appeal that Hollaback Girl had, but as it hits dance floors and airwaves, it is sure to grow on the public. However, the single shouldn't be seen as indicative of the whole album's sound, as it offers a great deal more. And its diversity might be the element of The Sweet Escape that bags Gwen another Grammy. What the others say Gwen described The Sweet Escape as "surprisingly different" than her 2004 album, explaining that she started recording before the birth of her son Kingston (who the album is dedicated to) and that it had evolved until it was finally put together. "The dance sound is very 'now'. It's modern, not so retro," she said. HMV says: "The Sweet Escape sees Gwen once again pushing the boundaries of pop and creating her own cool sound that others will be desperate to follow." So is it any good? The queen of cool has created a sound that's possibly hotter than anything she's ever done before. It is clear that Gwen Stefani has come into her own as a solo artist, displaying more creative confidence than ever in The Sweet Escape. She takes more risks in The Sweet Escape, particularly through incorporating The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music in a dance tune. While the whole album is a manifestation of a clear self-belief she was still searching for when she made Love. Angel. Music. Baby., Gwen perhaps says it best in Orange County Girl: "Something fresh and in between. Writing down my feelings is something that I love, so I really don't give a f**k." Her tunes flirt with dance and hip-hop beats, but the songs are all melodic. Even ardent fans of the glamorous singer might not immediately love Wind It Up, but it's important to look beyond the first single to truly appreciate what Gwen has achieved through creating strong partnerships with musical (and business) masterminds such as Pharrell. Gwen is often compared to superstars such as Madonna and Kylie – both for their musical styles and their ability to reinvent themselves. But The Sweet Escape is proof that instead of simply reinventing herself, Gwen is able to go a step further and build on her previous success to gain the edge over the rest as the leading lady of the dance floor. NME 04/10 Last year’s coolest pop star, this year’s bargain-bin fodder Back in 2004 times were tough for pop music. Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me A River’ and Xtina’s ‘Dirrty’ were little more than million-dollar memories, and the sappy ringtone-romance of James Blunt was creeping into the collective consciousness. People were desperate for something with a lot of sass and a little class. Enter the unexpected ace up pop’s sleeve, a ska-obsessed faux-punk holed up in Primrose Hill. While Gwen Stefani’s band No Doubt had never been taken that seriously as a rock group, her solo debut, ‘Love Angel Music Baby’, steeped in ’80s nostalgia and super producers (Pharrell, André 3000) ensured that she became the most credible of pop stars. In 2006 things are very different. Credible pop is not the unique commodity it once was. New releases from Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé and pop-Lazarus Nelly Furtardo have raised the bar skyward. In this climate ‘The Sweet Escape’ was always going to have to be something special in order for Stefani to retain her pole position in the pantheon of pop; but, with a woman of her taste in control and Pharrell Williams back by her side, its chances looked good. But two minutes in, and it’s clear that this chance has been pissed away. ‘Wind It Up’ is a very bad foot to start on: it’s a trench foot which screams for amputation from the tracklisting and yet has somehow found itself promoted to lead single. It’s the dribbling, squawking child of ‘Favourite Things’ by Big Brovaz and ‘My Humps’ by the Black Eyed Peas (unquestionably two of the worst songs in pop’s oft-misfiring cannon). What bizarre line of thought led anyone to believe that yodelling, The Sound Of Music and erotic rap could be successfully moulded into a single worthy of the woman whose last emergence was heralded by the spectacular ‘What You Waiting For?’? Lyrically, Gwen’s dumb sexual bravado has all the sophistication of a teenage boy’s wet dream. “They like the way my pants, it complements my shapeâ€, she purrs, with sub-Fergie sleaze. Remember the cocky absurdity of ‘Hollaback Girl’? Well, those days have long gone, replaced by camp gimmickry. ‘Wind It Up’ only goes to show quite how far Stefani’s quality control has slipped and though nothing else on the album plunges to its depths, it’s fair to say that it never really recovers. Gwen Stefani’s greatest selling point is that she’s Gwen Stefani, an emblem of the alternative capable of existing within the mainstream without being corrupted by its homogenising forces. Sexy enough for the tabloids, trendy enough for the fashion mags, a cool big sister for the teenyboppers and a pop star credible enough to appear on the cover of NME. Well, no longer. Much of this album is a semi-baked imitation of musicians with half of her natural style and charisma. The aforementioned spectre of clueless Fergie possesses Stefani for much of this record, taking command during both the woefully oddball ‘Yummy’ and ‘Now That You Got It’ - a track so desperate to be a club banger, its fraying tapestry of hand-claps, sirens and triumphalism has all the grace of a Pepsi Max advert, while ‘Orange County Girl’’s themes are horribly similar to J-Lo’s putrid ‘Jenny From The Block’. The title track at least points towards Stefani’s own love of early Madonna records, but even this is cringey and saccharine. Much of the blame apportioned to these failings must be directed at its producers and supporting cast (including Swizz Beatz and Akon), who often seem content to substitute melody for novelty. One producer, however, who does at least do what he was brought in to is Keane’s keyboardist, Tim Rice-Oxley, and his familiar snow-dome bombast presents Stefani with ‘Early Winter’, one of the few potential hits in this collection. For all its faults there are three moments of genuine quality to be admired here. ‘4 In the Morning’ is an expertly conceived tear-jerker, the one place where her voice dictates the pace. It feels like the kind of song a teenage Stefani, miming along to Talk Talk, would have dreamt of singing one day. ‘You Started It’ is another ballad where she shines in her own image and not merely as a reflection of others. The one club track of any note is ‘Breaking Up’, on which Pharrell Williams appears to remember that he used to break musical boundaries with OCD-like regularity and offers Stefani a rattling rhythm light-years from the minimal clichés flooding the charts and drowning this album.But this is little consolation. Identity is everything in pop, but the majority of this record serves only to bury what made Gwen Stefani unique in the first place. Slant Magazine 03/05 Gwen Stefani trades in her Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack for The Sound of Music (and her Harajuku girls for the von Trapp clan) on her sophomore solo outing, only this time the allusions are a little less pervasive, if not less bewildering. Julie Andrews's "The Lonely Goatherd" is the jumping off point for The Sweet Escape's gaudy lead single, "Wind It Up," but Stefani's primary muse is another famous blonde from the movies: Michelle Pfeiffer's Elvira Hancock. It's fitting, as The Sweet Escape is a decidedly more modern (read: urban) record than its retro-dance predecessor, Love. Angel. Music. Baby., and many in the hip-hop community have pledged allegiance to Scarface, adopting Brian De Palma's gangster flick as their own and hailing Al Pacino's titular character as a modern tragic hero. Aside from the hip-hop angle (courtesy of The Neptunes, Swizz Beats, who plies Stefani with the instantly contagious "Now That You Got It," and Akon) and the straight platinum do and sunglasses Stefani sports on the cover, though, The Sweet Escape is far from a fully-realized concept album. History will likely view The Sweet Escape as a retread of Stefani's well-received solo debut, but it shares that album's general inconsistency and, thus, its peaks and valleys. The Neptunes, who produced L.A.M.B.'s biggest hit, "Hollaback Girl," are behind almost half of the album, with mixed results: The downright wacky "Wind It Up" attempts and fails to recapture the success of "Hollaback," which is partly responsible for the recent parade of minimalist, atonal hits like Fergie's boorish "London Bridge," while the "Milkshake"-esque "Yummy," which finally gives a name to Pharrell's percussive minimalism ("This sounds like disco-tetris," Stefani sings), would have made a far less divisive choice for a first single. Pharrell's understanding of melody is elementary at best—"Breaking Up" is a half-formed zygote of a song that should have been aborted—so it's refreshing to hear Stefani in her more natural habitat: Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley co-penned the cool, '80s convertible ballad "Early Winter" for the singer and, like the Tony Kanal-helmed tracks ("4 In The Morning," the aptly-titled "Fluorescent," and the reggae-hued "Don't Get It Twisted"), the results seem less forced and much less self-conscious. It's not that The Sweet Escape is an unwelcome diversion or that it comes too soon on the heels of Stefani's debut (it's been two full years), but it's starting to feel like No Doubt's future—you know, the one left in question after 2001's Rock Steady, the band's third consecutive creative zenith—is being squandered amidst all the solo stargazing.
December 5, 200618 yr This week I've seen that The Daily Express gave it 2 stars out of 5 and Heat magazine gave it 2 stars out of 5. :(
December 6, 200618 yr REVIEW: Everyone’s favourite hollaback girl is back! Gwen’s second solo album, Sweet Escape opens with “Wind it Upâ€, sampling the Sound of Music’s “Lonely Goat Herdâ€, singing about being a girl, and exactly why boys adore them. Suddenly you realise you’ve missed having Ms Stefani in your life. A mistress of the synthetic sound, with lyrics that allude to smart girlie conversations over a cuppa, Gwen’s taken all the big hitters, ranging from Nellee Hooper to Keane’s Tim Rice-Oakley to contribute. She’s mixed them all up, soaking up trends that ensure she’s played in all the gyms and Topshops nationwide, but she’s not letting anyone take over. She’s big enough for all of them. Topics span apologising for being grumpy (“The Sweet Escapeâ€) men who lie, making her cry (the Cardigans-esque “Early Winterâ€), and being an unremarkable small town girl, a la J Lo (“Orange County girlâ€). As with her first album there are a few bland fillers, and she seems to lose her way a bit with “Breakin’ upâ€, a track about frustrating mobile conversations, but there’s enough trademark majorette drumming to carry the album off. “Yummy†sums her up, coquettish, amusing, annoying and hip wiggling in equal measure. All this and a new baby. Not bad. Reviewer: Lucy Davies BBC 6 MUSIC
December 6, 200618 yr AllMusicGuide.com *** (3 stars out of 5) Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine Awkward and alluring in equal measures, Gwen Stefani's 2004 solo debut, Love.Angel.Music.Baby., did its job: it made Gwen a bigger star on her own than she was as the lead singer of No Doubt. With that established and her long-desired wish for a baby finally fulfilled, there was no rush for Gwen to get back to her regular gig, so she made another solo album, The Sweet Escape, which expanded on what really sold her debut: her tenuous connections to Californian club culture. There was always a sense of artifice behind the turn-of-the-century makeover that brought Gwen from a ska-punk sweetheart to a dance club queen, but that doesn't mean it didn't work at least on occasion, most spectacularly so on the gloriously dumb marching-band rap of "Hollaback Girl," the Neptunes production that turned L.A.M.B. into a blockbuster. There, as on her duet with Eve on "Let Me Blow Ya Mind," Gwen made the transition into a modern-day material girl with ease, but when she tried to shoehorn this ghetto-fabulous persona into her original new wave girl character, it felt forced, nowhere more so than on the Linda Perry written and produced "What You Waiting For." Gwen doesn't make that mistake again on The Sweet Escape — by and large, she keeps these two sides of her personality separate, favoring the streets and nightclubs to the comfort of her new wave home. Just because she wants to run in the streets doesn't mean she belongs there; she continues to sound far more comfortable mining new wave pop, as only a child of the '80s could. As always, it's those celebrations of cool synths and stylish pop hooks that work the best for Stefani, whether she's approximating the chilliness of early-MTV new romantics on "Wonderful Life," mashing Prince and Madonna on "Fluorescent," or lying back on the coolly sensual "4 in the Morning." Only once on the album is she able to bring this style and popcraft to a heavy dance track, and that's on the irresistible Akon-produced title track, driven by a giddy "wee-oh!" hook and supported by a nearly anthemic summertime chorus. Tellingly, the Neptunes, the architects of her best dance cuts on L.A.M.B., did not produce this track, but they do have a huge presence on The Sweet Escape, helming five of the 12 songs, all but one being tracks that weigh down the album considerably. The exception is "U Started It," a light and nifty evocation of mid-period Prince, with its lilting melody, silken harmonies, and pizzicato strings. It sounds effortless and effervescent, two words that do not apply to their other four productions, all skeletal, rhythm-heavy tracks that fail to click. Sometimes, they're merely leaden, as on the stumbling autobiographical rap "Orange County Girl"; sometimes, they're cloying and crass, as on the rather embarrassing "Yummy"; sometimes they have an interesting idea executed poorly, as on "Breakin' Up," a breakup song built on a dying cell phone metaphor that's interesting in theory but its stuttering, static rhythms and repetitive chorus are irritating in practice. Also interesting in theory is the truly bizarre lead single, "Wind It Up," where the Neptunes force fanfares and samples from The Sound of Music's "The Lonely Goatherd" into one of their typical minimalist tracks, over which Gwen spouts off clumsy material-minded lyrics touting her fashion line and her shape. Nothing in this track really works, but it's hard not to listen to it in wonder, since its unwieldy rhythms and rhymes capture everything that's currently wrong about Stefani. From the stilted production to the fashion fetish, all the way down to her decision to rap on far too much of the album, all the dance-pop here seems like a pose, creating the impression that she's a glamour girl slumming on a weekend night — something that her self-proclaimed Michelle Pfieffer in Scarface "coke whore" makeover showcased on the album's cover doesn't do much to dissuade. If the dance production on The Sweet Escape were better, these hipster affectations would be easier to forgive, but they're not: they're canned and bland, which only accentuates Stefani's stiffness. These misfires are so grand they overshadow the many good moments on The Sweet Escape, which are invariably those songs that stay true to her long-standing love of new wave pop (not coincidentally, these include every production from her No Doubt bandmate Tony Kanal). These are the moments that give The Sweet Escape its sweetness, and while they may require a little effort to dig out, they're worth the effort, since it proves that beneath the layers of bling, Gwen remains the SoCal sweetheart that has always been as spunky and likeable as she has been sexy.
December 7, 200618 yr It's being getting generally good album reviews. I can't really remember the reviews that LAMB got? Anyone refresh?
December 7, 200618 yr AllMusicGuide.com L.A.M.B. = 4 stars out of 5 The Sweet Escape = 3 stars out of 5
December 8, 200618 yr Check this out http://www.metacritic.com/search/process?s...en+stefani&ty=0 LAMB average review score = 71/100 Sweet Escape av review score = 59/100
December 8, 200618 yr Well i personally think Sweet Escape is of higher quality of Lamb :D Edited December 8, 200618 yr by :Ryan:
December 14, 200618 yr I don't know what to think yet. But I still think LAMB is a better album, it had The Real Thing and Dangerzone enough said.
December 14, 200618 yr I don't know what to think yet. But I still think LAMB is a better album, it had The Real Thing and Dangerzone enough said. Those are both great tracks :wub:
March 30, 200718 yr Well i personally think Sweet Escape is of higher quality of Lamb :D Don't know about that :P There are some tracks on LAMB that I really don't like though, for instance: Danger Zone, Long Way To Go, Luxurious. The Sweet Escape has got Wonderful Life, Now That You Got It and Breakin Up... which I don't like either. Both albums have pros and cons but I think I prefer LAMB.
March 31, 200718 yr Author I think Lamb is a better album now, but I do love the new album Imagine the best songs from the two albums on one album :wub:
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