Album: Gwen Stefani

Love Angel Music Baby, INTERSCOPE

Gwen Stefani's appeal has always rested more in her status as style icon than in any intrinsic musical qualities in her band, No Doubt. Save for a couple of hit singles in 1997, they have generally, like the whole US ska revival, been greeted over here with a puzzled lack of interest. Despite - or perhaps because of - the array of A-list producers involved in Stefani's solo debut, there's little musical character to the album; just a series of borrowed styles she plays dress-up with: "Real Thing" is Gwen fronting New Order; "Bubble Pop Electric" and "Long Way to Go" are Gwen fronting OutKast; "Danger Zone" is Gwen fronting Depeche Mode; etc, etc. The band don't even have to be present, as long as the producer can effect a reasonable simulacrum of their style. The concept for the project was a kind of "guilty pleasures" homage to the cheesy Eighties electro-pop of her youth, and while the results will doubtless furnish plenty of chart fodder, there's little in the way of a moving experience. The best t

Gwen Stefani's appeal has always rested more in her status as style icon than in any intrinsic musical qualities in her band, No Doubt. Save for a couple of hit singles in 1997, they have generally, like the whole US ska revival, been greeted over here with a puzzled lack of interest. Despite - or perhaps because of - the array of A-list producers involved in Stefani's solo debut, there's little musical character to the album; just a series of borrowed styles she plays dress-up with: "Real Thing" is Gwen fronting New Order; "Bubble Pop Electric" and "Long Way to Go" are Gwen fronting OutKast; "Danger Zone" is Gwen fronting Depeche Mode; etc, etc. The band don't even have to be present, as long as the producer can effect a reasonable simulacrum of their style. The concept for the project was a kind of "guilty pleasures" homage to the cheesy Eighties electro-pop of her youth, and while the results will doubtless furnish plenty of chart fodder, there's little in the way of a moving experience. The best tracks are shuffled to the back of the pack - a cool-jazz instrumental mix of the single "What You Waiting for?", and the second of Andre 3000's tracks, "Long Way to Go". The latter's busy arrangement and its subject matter - interracial relationships - provide a glimmer of substance that throws the rest of the album into sharp, but shallow, relief.