Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
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Love. Angel. Music. Baby. is the debut solo album by the American pop and rock singer Gwen Stefani, released by Interscope Records in November 2004. The album originally began as a small side project for the No Doubt frontwoman, but grew into a large production with numerous collaborations and producers.
The album was designed as an updated version of a 1980s music record, and was influenced by artists such as early Madonna, New Order, Cyndi Lauper, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Debbie Deb and Club Nouveau. Most of the songs on the record focus on fashion and wealth. The album introduced the Harajuku Girls, four backup dancers who dress in Stefani's interpretation of the youth fashion trends of Harajuku, a district in Tokyo.
L.A.M.B. debuted to mixed reviews from contemporary music critics, receiving criticism due to its many collaborations and superficial lyrical content. The album yielded six singles and had high sales, going multi-platinum in several countries, and selling seven million copies. It earned Stefani several Grammy Award nominations in 2005 and 2006.
Conception and production
During Stefani's time with No Doubt, she began making solo appearances on albums by artists including Eve and Moby. In the production of its 2001 album Rock Steady, No Doubt collaborated with Prince, The Neptunes, and David A. Stewart on different songs and had Mark "Spike" Stent mix the album. While the band was on tour to promote the album, Stefani listened to Club Nouveau's 1987 single "Why You Treat Me So Bad" and considered recording material that modernized 1980s music.[2] She approached No Doubt bassist and former boyfriend Tony Kanal, who had introduced her to music by Prince, Lisa and Cult Jam, and Debbie Deb, and they talked about producing songs from Kanal's bedroom.[3]
In early 2003, Stefani began recording solo material.[4] She stated that she was considering recording singles to be used on soundtracks, later playing Jean Harlow in The Aviator; continuing her series of collaborations; or releasing an album under the pseudonym GS.[4][5] Jimmy Iovine, chairman and co-founder of Interscope, convinced Stefani to produce a complete studio album.[5] During her first sessions with Linda Perry, Stefani's combination of self-consciousness and writer's block resulted in an unfruitful attempt. On the second day, the two wrote a song about Stefani's writer's block and fear to make her solo album, which became "What You Waiting For?", the lead single.[2]
When the two began working on a song that Stefani stated was too personal, she left to visit Kanal. He played her a track on which he had been working and which became "Crash", another single from the album. The two tried to write new material, but gave up after two weeks. They did not return to work until six months later, when Stefani began collaborating with other artists, commenting, "If I were to write the chorus of 'Yesterday' by the Beatles, and that's all I wrote, that would be good enough to be part of that history." Stefani resumed work with Linda Perry, who invited Dallas Austin, and many other artists, including OutKast's André 3000, The Neptunes, and Dr. Dre.[2] Stefani announced the album's release in early 2004,[6] marketing it as a "dance record" and a "guilty pleasure".[2]
Lyrical content
Like pop albums of the 1980s, L.A.M.B. focuses primarily on money, with songs such as "Rich Girl" and "Luxurious" featuring descriptions of riches and wealth.[7] The album contains several references to Stefani's clothing line, L.A.M.B.,[7] and alludes to contemporary fashion designers such as John Galliano, Rei Kawakubo, and Vivienne Westwood.[8] Stefani also released a series of dolls named the "Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Fashion Dolls", designed after the costumes from her tour.[9] Although Stefani intended for the album to be a light dance record, she stated that "no matter what you do, things just come out."[10] The album's opening track "What You Waiting For?" discusses her desire to be a mother and in 2006, she and her husband, Bush singer Gavin Rossdale, had a son named Kingston Rossdale.[11] The fourth track "Cool" discusses Stefani's friendship with Kanal after he ended a romantic relationship with her in 1995.[12]
Love. Angel. Music. Baby. introduced the Harajuku Girls, an entourage of four Japanese women whom Stefani referred to as a figment of her imagination.[5] The Harajuku Girls are discussed in several of the songs, including one named after and entirely dedicated to them. They appear in most of the music videos produced for the album and those for Stefani's second album The Sweet Escape (2006).
Musical style
Love. Angel. Music. Baby. takes influence from a variety of 1980s genres to the extent that one reviewer commented, "The only significant '80s radio style skipped is the ska punk revival that No Doubt rode to success".[13] The album is primarily pop, with the synthesizers characteristic of synthpop, most popular from the late 1970s through the mid 1980s.[14] New Wave, present in some of No Doubt's later work, continues into Love. Angel. Music. Baby., drawing comparisons to The Go-Go's and Cyndi Lauper.[15] Stefani cited Club Nouveau, Depeche Mode, Lisa Lisa, Prince, New Order, The Cure, and early Madonna as major influences for the album.[16] To a lesser degree, the album draws from pop genres such as bubblegum pop, electro pop, and dance punk.[14][15][17]
L.A.M.B. includes various styles of music. Songs are influenced by electro beats designed for club play.[18] Producers Dallas Austin and Tony Kanal incorporated R&B into the song "Luxurious" which contains a sample of the Isley Brothers' 1983 slow jam single "Between the Sheets". Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, incorporate new jack swing, a fusion genre of R&B that the pair had developed and popularized during the mid 1980s.[19]
Songs
"What You Waiting For?", one of the first songs written for L.A.M.B., was chosen as the lead single as an "explanation for doing the record". The song discusses Stefani's fears of beginning a solo career, and an accompanying music video was made, in which Stefani regains her confidence after an experience inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.[20] The song received positive reviews, noted as "one of the album's undeniable highs".[7] Its single was moderately successful, reaching the top ten in most countries.[21] The second single, "Rich Girl" charted equally well.[22] The song, a ragga adaptation of the Fiddler on the Roof song "If I Were a Rich Man", features rapper Eve, with whom Stefani had worked when featured on Eve's 2001 single "Let Me Blow Ya Mind".
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"Hollaback Girl", the third track, became the album's best-selling and most popular single.[23] It was written as a response to a derogatory comment that grunge musician Courtney Love made, referring to Stefani as a cheerleader,[24] and its lyrics and music video feature a cheerleading theme. It received mixed reviews from music critics, several of whom criticized its repetitive use of the word shit,[15] but it became the first U.S. digital download to sell one million copies.[25] The fourth track "Cool" was well-received by critics,[18][26] but its single charted moderately compared to its predecessors. The song chronicles Stefani's previous relationship with Tony Kanal, and in its music video, the relationship between Stefani and Kanal, played by Daniel González, is illustrated through a series of flashbacks.[10] "Bubble Pop Electric", the fifth track, is an electro song featuring André 3000's alias Johnny Vulture. It tells of the two having sex at a drive-in movie, and it was generally well-received by critics, who drew comparisons to Grease and Grease 2.[27]
"Luxurious", whose single features rapper Slim Thug, compares riches to love.[28] The song received mixed reviews from critics and was less successful than the other singles. The seventh track, "Harajuku Girls", is a pop song produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The song was panned by critics who found the track "bizarrely" and "weirdly homoerotic"[15][18] and "teeth-gnashingly cutesy".[7] The sixth single "Crash" was not originally planned as a single since Stefani was preparing to release The Sweet Escape.[28] While on tour, Stefani discovered that she was pregnant, so a live video accompanied the single,[29] which sold poorly and was unable to reach the top forty in any country.[30] "The Real Thing", the ninth track, is a synthpop collaboration between Stefani, Perry, Wendy and Lisa, and members of New Order. It received mixed reviews: Pitchfork disapproved of it, commenting, "anyone remotely involved ... should find a stray dog and let it bite him",[31] while About.com called it "the album's finest moment".[32]
"Serious", the tenth track, is another synthpop song, similar to Madonna's work during the early 1980s.[33] A music video was produced for the song,[34] but no single or video were officially released. "Danger Zone", an electro/rock song, was well-received as one of the more well-crafted tracks similar to her work with No Doubt.[15] In 2004, Stefani found out that her husband Gavin Rossdale had an illegitimate daughter, and the song was widely interpreted to be about the incident;[7] however, it had been written before the discovery.[35] The closing track, "Long Way to Go", is an outtake from André 3000's The Love Below (2003).[36] The song discusses interracial dating and was criticized for its use of a sample of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.[31]
Critical reception
L.A.M.B. received mixed reviews from contemporary pop music critics. Allmusic called it "intermittently exciting and embarrassing",[18] and The New York Times described it as "clever and sometimes enticing" but stated that it "doesn't quite add up".[37] LAUNCHcast called the album "the hottest, coolest, best-dressed pop album of the year" and found it to be "sleek, shimmery, and dripping with all-killer-no-filler musical bling".[38] Stylus Magazine said that Stefani was a contender to fill Madonna's role, "but not enough to get seriously excited about her as the next great solo female careerist."[19] The BBC was more emphatic, stating that Stefani rivaled Madonna and Kelis.[33] The NME stated that Stefani "shamelessly plunders" 1980s music but that the album was "one of the most frivolously brilliant slabs of shiny retro-pop anyone's had the chuzpah to release all year."[39] OMH Media found the album "enjoyable, if patchy", but commented that it was too long.[40] Rolling Stone magazine included the album in its list of the top fifty albums of 2004.[41]
The album was generally criticised for its large number of collaborations and producers. The Guardian argued that although "others lend a hand...it's very much Stefani's show"; however, most others disagreed.[42] PopMatters compared the album to a second No Doubt greatest hits album,[15] and Pitchfork Media said that the large number of collaborators result in sacrificing Stefani's identity on the album.[31] Neumu found that the album's fragmentation kept it from being "a bright-and-shiny pop-music tour-de-force".[43] Most reviewers held that the collaborations prevented the album from having a solidified sound. Drawer B stated, "Stefani tries to be all things to all people here", but that the result "comes off as manipulative and contrived."[44] Entertainment Weekly shared this opinion, stating that the album "is like one of those au courant retail magazines that resembles a catalog more than an old-fashioned collection of, say, articles."[7]
Many reviewers focused on the album's light lyrical themes. Entertainment Weekly called the references to Stefani's clothing line "shameless" and stated that "each song becomes akin to a pricey retro fashion blurb",[7] and Pitchfork Media said that "the Joker's free-money parade through Gotham City was a much more entertaining display of wealth, and he had Prince, not just Wendy & Lisa."[31] Slant magazine stated that the album's "fashion fetish...gives the album a sense of thematic cohesiveness" but that the "obsession with Harajuku girls borders on maniacal".[14] The Guardian disagreed with this perspective, arguing that "her affinity with Japanese pop culture...yields a synthetic sheen...that works well with the other point of reference, hip-hop."[42]
Sales and impact
The album debuted on the U.S. Billboard 200 at number seven, selling 309,000 copies.[45] Following the April 2005 release of "Hollaback Girl", Love. Angel. Music. Baby. re-entered the top fifteen for twenty-one weeks and reached a peak at number five in June 2005.[46] The Recording Industry Association of America certified the album triple platinum that December,[35] and it went on to sell 3.8 million copies.[47] At the Billboard Music Awards, Stefani won the Digital Song of the Year award for "Hollaback Girl" and the New Artist of the Year Award, and she performed "Luxurious" with Slim Thug at the event.[48] At the 2005 Grammy Awards, Stefani received a nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "What You Waiting For?"[49] and performed "Rich Girl" with Eve.[50] At the next year's awards, Stefani received five nominations for Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.[51]
The album had similar success in Europe. L.A.M.B. reached number four on the UK Albums Chart in May 2005, on which it remained for over a year.[46] The British Phonographic Industry certified the album triple platinum on September 16, 2005, for shipping over 900,000 copies.[52] At the end of 2005, the album charted as the 20th highest selling album of the year in the UK.[53] The album reached the top ten in Finland, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden and the top twenty in Austria, Belgium, France Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.[46] The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry certified it platinum at the May 2005 Platinum Europe Awards.[54]
In Australia, the album topped the ARIA Albums Chart for two consecutive weeks in February 2005 and remained on the chart for fifty-one weeks.[46] It ended 2005 as the fourth best-selling album,[55] and was certified quadruple platinum for shipping 280,000 copies.[56] In Canada, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. peaked at number three for two weeks on the albums chart[57] and sold over half a million copies, certified quintuple platinum in April 2006.[58] L.A.M.B. debuted on the United World Chart at number six and stayed there for four weeks. It remained on the chart for nearly eleven months[46] and sold seven million copies worldwide,[59] becoming the seventh highest selling album of 2005[60] and the fortieth best selling album since 2003 selling 6,063,000 copies worldwide during its charting period.[61]
Track listing
| # | Title | Songwriters | Producer(s) | Length |
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| 1 | "What You Waiting For?" | Stefani, Linda Perry | Nellee Hooper | 3:41 |
| 2 | "Rich Girl" (featuring Eve) |
Stefani, Eve, Dr. Dre, Kara DioGuardi, Chantal Kreviazuk, Mark Batson, Jerry Bock, Mike Elizondo, Sheldon Harnick | Dr. Dre | 3:56 |
| 3 | "Hollaback Girl" | Stefani, Pharrell Williams | The Neptunes | 3:20 |
| 4 | "Cool" | Stefani, Dallas Austin | Austin | 3:09 |
| 5 | "Bubble Pop Electric" (featuring Johnny Vulture) |
Stefani, André Benjamin | Benjamin | 3:42 |
| 6 | "Luxurious" | Stefani, O'Kelly Isley, Rudolph Isley, Vernon Isley, Marvin Isley, Chris Jasper, Tony Kanal, | Hooper, Kanal | 4:25 |
| 7 | "Harajuku Girls" | Stefani, Bobby Avila, I.J. Avila, James Harris, Terry Lewis, James Wright | Harris, Lewis | 4:51 |
| 8 | "Crash" | Stefani, Kanal | Kanal | 4:06 |
| 9 | "The Real Thing" | Stefani, Perry | Hooper | 4:11 |
| 10 | "Serious" | Stefani, Kanal | Kanal | 4:48 |
| 11 | "Danger Zone" | Stefani, Austin, Perry | Austin, Hooper | 3:36 |
| 12 | "Long Way to Go" (Performed By Gwen Stefani And André 3000) |
Stefani, André Benjamin | Benjamin | 4:34 |
International bonus track
- "The Real Thing" (Wendy And Lisa Flow Jam Mix)–3:35
UK/Japan bonus track
- "What You Waiting For?" (Elevator Mix)–4:06
Bonus CD
- "What You Waiting For?" (Jacques Lu Cont TWD Mix)–8:04
- "What You Waiting For?" (Jacques Lu Cont TWD Dub)–8:21
- "What You Waiting For?" (Live)–3:43
- "Harajuku Girls" (Live)–4:37
- "Hollaback Girl" (Hollatronix Remix By Diplo)–2:45
- "Cool" (Photek Remix)–5:49
- "Hollaback Girl" (Dance Hollaback Remix By Tony Kanal)–6:52
12" Picture Disc The above tracking list (12 songs) was released on one picture. Six songs on one side and six on the other.
12" Vinyl Record The above tracking list (12 songs) was released on two black vinyl records.
Charts
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Year End Charts
| Album Chart (2004) | Peak position |
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| UK Albums Chart[62] | 79 |
| Album Chart (2005) | Peak position |
| Australia ARIA Album Chart[63] | 4 |
| Billboard Eurochart[64] | 10 |
| U.K. Albums Chart[62] | 20 |
| United World Chart[65] | 7 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Albums Chart[66] | 6 |
Achievement Charts
Credits
References
Love. Angel. Music. Baby. genre confirmation External links
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