This is one of those albums it's impossible for me to be fully objective about, because of the time in my life when it came around. I was ready to take the stick out of my ass & embrace pop music (& let's be honest, pop music made by a woman), I was traveling a lot & spending a lot of time in my headphones, & I was smoking a lot of weed. These things together make this a magical album for me, & I still play it frequently when I want a quick nostalgia burst. But with the benefit of the intervening years (& sobriety), am I able to be even a little bit objective? Does Love. Angel. Music. Baby. hold up? How big a grain of salt should you take my assessment with?
When I say that very few people have done more with less musically than Gwen Stefani, I don't mean it as an insult. Objectively, her voice is rather bland & she possesses a very limited range. Her talent as a personality, fashionista, trendsetter, & collaborator eclipses her talent as a musician, which is cool, since she has a brilliance for choosing collaborators who buoy her star power. So on her 1st solo album we get contributions from heavy hitters like Linda Perry, the Neptunes, Dr. Dre, Andre 3000, & her No Doubt compatriot Tony Kanal. Personally I consider Perry this record's MVP, as 2 of her 3 contributions are among the album's best songs. These include the opener, "What You Waiting For?" & I don't think it's an accident that Gwen chose to begin the album with the most rock-inflected song of the bunch. It was also the only single released before the album dropped, probably to allay the fears of No Doubt fans who worried there wouldn't be any guitars on the album. Any trickiness in the sequencing is made up for in the sincerity of the lyric, though, as it bluntly points out the unfairness of the short window of opportunity for female pop stars: "Your moment will run out 'cause of your sex chromosome [...] Look at your watch now/You're still a super hot female."
Perry also contributes "The Real Thing," a gentle love ballad with a lyric that manages to be sweet without being cheesy: "I think I know you inside out/& we're together most days/But I still love to have you around." The quality of that song points to an essential tension in this album: ironically, the songs that hold up best are the most "retro," i.e. those rooted in '80s & '90s pop & club music. Songs like "The Real Thing," as well as "Cool" & "Serious"--which inspiration from the likes of Madonna, Berlin, Human League, Spandau Ballet, Cyndi Lauper, & Alphaville--sound fresh & exciting. On the other hand, the elements of 2000s-era pop-rap & R&B that drive songs like "Rich Girl," "Hollaback Girl" & "Luxurious" haven't aged well, in large part because they weren't that authentic in the first place. Gwen made the mistake of leaning more heavily on those those rap influences on her followup album, almost half of which was produced by the Neptunes in an attempt to ride the success of "Hollaback Girl."
(Speaking of "Hollaback Girl," sure it's an easy song to cringe at these days, but that calm picked guitar figure in the pre-chorus, which is later joined by flagrant synth horns, is so different & so pure Neptunes that you have to love it. Also love the fact that the whole song is a subliminal Courtney Love diss, especially ironic since Linda Perry made a heroic effort to revive Courtney's career that same year she was giving Gwen some of her best songs.)
The whole album doesn't break down cleanly along the '80s pop/'00s rap divide, as there are outliers like "Crash," an obvious Salt 'n Pepa tribute that features a variety of washy synth lines, none of which are as catchy as "Push It." Andre 3000's 2 contributions, the incongruously serious "Long Way to Go" & "Bubble Pop Electric," are as strange & colorful as the rest of his production from that time period--especially the latter, whose frantic kick drum triplets & pitched popcorn sounds capture the restlessness of surging teenage hormones, & the wordless countermelody sung by Gwen's backing vocals adds to the building tension. Perry's 3rd writing credit, "Danger Zone," is the closest thing the album has to filler, with a more contemporary dance sound & a melody line lifted from "Cool."
That brings us to "Harajuku Girls," which threads the needle between the album's 2 predominant sounds, & could have been the best direction to blaze forth in, if it weren't for the embarrassing Orientalist othering. I'm pretty sure Harajuku girls knew how wicked their style was & didn't need Gwen to "introduce it to the world," especially not with appropriative "eastern" sounding synths & the mocking line "the 'ranguage' of your clothing is something to encounter." The song & general aesthetic received some deserved pushback at the time, & Gwen must have felt it because she subsequently abandoned this direction.
So yeah, I don't think I have a rose-tinted lens on this album. I'm pretty aware of what's wrong with it. But I'll still listen & enjoy those 48 minutes of nostalgia. We all need albums like this, that we defend with our whole hearts even though our heads might know better.
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