Gwen Stefani - L.A.M.B

Alex Yamakazi - Friday, 28 January, 2005 - Print Version

Love Angel Music Baby... Let's Amass More Bucks... Let's Advertise My Brand... Lamely Advertising Materialistic Bollocks... Learn About Music Bimbo... Let's All Market Blondes... Lame And Musically Bad...

Drawn by the siren-like twin forces of being a Gwen fan from way back and the catchy single "What you waiting for" I bought this album fully expecting to enjoy it. Many listens in I'm still TRYING to enjoy it and failing miserably. Not only does this album disappoint musically it's also sad to see a woman who was once an icon for strong, independent, stylish women allow herself to be so blatantly commercialised.

"What you waiting for" is an extremely catchy, quirky pop track with a very slick, well produced music video. Unfortunately, from there on in the album is massively derivative. Yes it is meant to have an 80's feel but this can be achieved without blatantly ripping off other people's sounds. Track by track she serves up a Frankenstein's monster incorporating Prince melodies, Salt'n'Pepper style rapping, New Order synth lines and Cindy Lauper vocals. This is all blended randomly with extremely bland mainstream rapping and even some R&B. To her credit she hasn't just sampled 80's songs and put a beat behind them like so many dance acts have in the last few years, but retro can be done without resorting to the laziness of just regurgitating the sounds of others.

Quite recently Gwen launched her own fashion label. A logical step as Gwen has always been noted for her unique style. She's stretching her credibility taking the cross promotional move of naming both the label and the album L.A.M.B but just to make sure everyone gets the point she has liberally peppered the album with references to said label. Music and fashion have always been linked but aren't we already bombarded with enough advertising messages? I thought marketing was meant to be getting more sophisticated. It doesn't get much more in your face than this.

Gwen also refers repeatedly to the Japanese street culture of Harajuku Girls. "Damn" they do have some "wicked style" but her repeated references to them are clichéd, one dimensional and almost dehumanising to the point where she seems to objectify them in a creepy fetishistic type of way.

The combination of themes and genres on the album seems obvious and artificial, almost as if it was constructed by cool hunters after an extensive series of slightly misguided market research interviews. and perhaps it was...

Irony can only account for so much.

Alex Yamakazi

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