Yodel-aay-eee-ooo

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Gwen Stefani album has leaked!*

Anyone want to say anything about it? Or the single? I'm listening to it now.


Don't have the tracklist so this is without ref. to titles, but track-by-track.

1. GOATHERD. The bits that aren't Goatherd are a bit un-engaging.

2. Triffic plastic skank title track with Akon kept to an effective minimum. Could be a single!

3. Boringly half-baked song about being a sleb with really thin rinky-dink backing beat.

4. POWAH BALLAD! And a really good one too! Final Countdown style dugga-dugga beats under a WOMAN WRONGED relationship breakup tune. Should be a single! Best song so far. So far so 1986.

5. Toy soldier marching band with shouty chorus and Gwen telling new boyfriend to raise his game - fun, good ideas, a bit "Hollaback Girl" but doesn't really take off.

6. Delicate pop-n-B ballad with a big rousing chorus - this is also good, though still very 80s. The touchpoints on this (barring the modernist Grimey/Hollaback tracks) seem to be late-80s Madonna, Martika.

7. Minimal Kelis-style rhythms with added colour provided by ZX Spectrum synths. Rubbish cameo by (I think) Pharrell. Does feature the line "this sounds like Disco Tetris"!! Very odd clanking and honking coda bridges to the next track...

8. More mid-80s sort-of-a-ballad revivalism - depeche synths and beats, plus horns, plus a candyfloss chorus. Good stuff but a bit too confused to really hit me. Bridge from horns to candyfloss doesn't work.

9. Murky sinister drone-n-B with an CLEVER METAPHOR of mobile reception breaking up = relationship breaking up. Gets annoying quickly. Worst track since 3 :(

10. Another banger - it's stealing its chorus from something really really famous (classical or light opera) that irritatingly I can't remember, other than that not much to say about it. Does the usual Gwen trick of bringing in TEH BRASS just when things are getting boring, which doesn't always stop them getting boring.

11. Back to mid-tempo 80s-ish pop with pizzicato strings, refreshing after the quite oppressive last couple of tracks, this would have fitted nicely on the Paris album I think.

12. This is the last 'proper' track on the alb, it is an OMINOUS SYNTHPOP TRACK yay, called "Wonderful Life" which uses a very "Wonderful Life (By Black)" sonic palette. Good, corny, epic and a fine closing flourish. But wait there's more!

13. "Bonus track" (who's counting?) with Gwen doing mumble-rapping over a sad Spanish string sample. Then does lots of other stuff, including quoting from Hollaback, employment of a wobble board, ect ect. Overall feeling is of a casserole of all the unused ideas from the rest of the album. Rather mournful.

14. Version of GOATHERD without the Goatherd bits, for those who like their Neptunes undiluted by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Usefully demonstrates how brilliant adding the Goatherd is, but certainly some will prefer this versh.

Overall: good album, encroaches on great but often a little too busy for its own good - nothing as amazing as "What You Waiting For" or "Hollaback Girl", no must-skip tracks either. Peters out midway through and rallies. Rather too much of Gwen telling us how mad she is, not showing us.

Best tracks: 1, 2, 4, 6, 12. Worst tracks: 3, 9.


*I hate the word leaked.

Comments

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I've seen the video of the single three times now, and I still don't know what to make of it. The Sound Of Music sampling is good, as are the bass squiggles. The rest is difficult to make sense of as a pop single, especially when accompanied by typical technicolour mentalist Stefani video.

GWEN GOES GRIME

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I do like the Goatherd song. I was v worried about it beforehand but they have sampled the right bits and kept it subtle enough to not be annoying (ala Madge with her clumsy ABBA). The weeble-warble bass is GREBT but the lyrics are shockingly bad compared to Hollaback Gel.

Re: GWEN GOES GRIME

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Goatherd song is even greater now I've heard the "original Neptunes mix" on the album - obviously they had created an entirely serviceable grimey Neptunes banger that would have been an effective low-key track and then Gwen decided that obviously what the track needed was "The Lonely Goatherd" dolloped liberally on the top. I wonder what the Neps thought.

Re: GWEN GOES GRIME

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think the Goatherd song is funny rather than listenable.

Re: GWEN GOES GRIME

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think it'll be the new London Bridge, i.e. a quick transit from "what on earth were they thinking" to "YES PLS".

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I used to borderline-worship Gwen, got really excited when 'What You Waiting For?' came out and it's all been downhill from there. This may be because I find the Neptunes/Pharell's work (after their first album and associated brilliance when they still appeared for give a toss) so boring as to be essentially inaudible. :(

The new single is possibly the cringiest thing I have heard in a long time. :( She should go back to... well I don't know what but not this.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I am not a huge Neps fan either, so I recommend you hear the tracks I singled out (aside from Goatherd).

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Which track is the most like Cool? Because that's the only Gwen song I didn't think was utter shit liked.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind I *really* liked that track but think her voice is horrible most of the time.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

You want 8 or 11, maybe 12.

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

The power ballad that Tom likes was written by chubby-faced cokeboy from Keane!

I think this album is terrible! I gave it a controversial 1 star review in Gay Times.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Good work Mr Keane! More songwriting for pop stars, less 'voice of an angel' pls.

Early Winter

[koganbot]

Powah Ballad sounds a lot like Nelly Furtado's "All Good Things (Come to An End)," the one Nelly wrote with the Coldplay nutjob. Gwen's voice isn't nearly as good as Nelly's, and the melody isn't as good as "All Good Things," but the lyrics - which I haven't really paid attention to - couldn't possibly be as bad as the lyrics to "All Good Things (Come to An End)" (unless it turns out Gwen is singing "The snow forgot how to bring salvation/The goatherds were barking at the lonely moon/Gravitating around you/Hoping it would come soon so that they could die"; but I'm sure she's not).

Re: Early Winter

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Listening to the album for a second time on an actual stereo it sounded a lot worse and thinner - BUT "Early Winter" still stood out.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OH GOD i really like that one too!!!!!

This comes hot on the heels of the realisation that I unreservedly adore EVERYTHING Chris Martin has written which has been sung by someone else (Jamelia, Nelly F, Brandy sampling the 'Clocks' riff).

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME.

(other nu-Gwen I love: 'Yummy', 'Wonderful Life'; I also like the mobile phone one, with the reservation that it would be better without Gwen shouting over it; I like pretty much everything on the album but a) we've had one crazy popstar go minimal and bumpy already this year, and Kelis Was Here is better than The Sweet Escape; and b) it is hard to escape the feeling of "LAMB CUTTING ROOM FLOOR" on some of the bangers. It doesn't work as an album at all, either.)

Number 7 With A Bullet

[koganbot]

"Wind It Up" jumps to Number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100; "Fergalicious" falls from 5 to 10; nonetheless, the two are in the top ten together, which amazes and pleases me. Jessica Simpson's "Push Your Tush" is almost as radically disjointed as those two (it's steadier in that its Ohio Players sample plays through most of the track, with the exception of a barnyard break, but it's still stuffed with a lot of stuff, if you know what I mean). I had the impression it was slated to be a single, but so far this hasn't happened. It's not as good as last year's great "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'," which was similarly strange/audacious - just as "Wind It Up" isn't as good as "Hollaback Girl." You're right that "Wind It Up" sounds more normal the more you hear it. Which isn't to say that it sounds normal. Order of preference of recent mainstream pop songs in experimental/disjointed mode: Jessica Simpson "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'," Girl Authority "Hollaback Girl," Gwen Stefani "Hollaback Girl," Fergie "Fergalicious," Gwen Stefani "Wind It Up," Jessica Simpson "Push Your Tush." They're all good mind you, though I think the last two push the envelope in Transforming Not Good Into Good While Not Altogether Jettisoning The Not Goodness.