Rating: N
As with Kelly Osbourne, Lisa Marie Presley and Solange Knowles, the musical quality of an album by pop princess Gwen Stefani depends largely on the contributions of her hired collaborators and song doctors. If the beats and/or lyrics provided to Stefani aren’t bangin’, neither is her album. She’s been working with reliable hitmakers, but even Linda Perry, Swizz Beatz, Nellee Hooper and the Neptunes have their share of duff tracks, and it appears that’s all they had to offer when Stefani came calling. Even by superficial pop standards, lines like ‘I guess I feel all right but it hurts when I think’ (4 In The Morning) or ‘My heart had a crash when we spoke, how can I fix what you broke’ (Early Winter) are just embarrassing, but that’s nothing compared to head-scratchers like ‘I’m diet drama wanna spend the night?’ (Yummy), which sounds like something Pharrell Williams convinced her to sing on a bet. Even Jewel knew that yodelling shtick was played out way back in 95.
