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By A. ZIATS (New York, NY, USA)
She may be fabulously wealthy, a pop music icon, married to hunky Gavin Rossdale and have her own clothing line, but I can't help feeling a little sorry for Gwen Stefani sometimes, particularly when I listen to this album. It was fairly inevitable that she'd release an album on her own, as the rest of No Doubt were starting to look like afterthoughts ever since Stefani's guest appearance on Eve's "Let Me Blow Ya Mind", but her solo debut is such a ridiculous mix of terrific pop and crushing embarrassment (sometimes in the same song) that it's tough to listen to without cringing. There are almost a dozen producers involved in this album; couldn't someone have told her when her ideas were howlingly bad?
Speaking of producers, this is hardly the first time a big-budget pop record has had a long list of them, but there's no unifying vision to this record, despite Gwen's best efforts. So the thing plays like a mix tape where all the contributors happened to use the same singer by coincidence. Every song whips you in a brand new direction, completely ill-fitting with the track that came before, from the electro-rock of "What You Waiting For?" to the hyped-up Caribbean funk of "Rich Girl" to the minimalist pounding of "Hollaback Girl" to the new wave anthem "Cool", and so on. They're all fine songs (with Eve guesting on "Rich Girl", possibly hoping for the same career bump that Stefani got from her), and there are very few outright dead spots on the album, except for the uncharacteristically dour "Long Way to Go", but the album seems more like a handful of singles stitched together than a proper album. And man, those lyrics. Even by Christina Aguilera standards, these are seriously self-absorbed lyrics. In the case of "What You Waiting For?" it almost seems like Gwen read directly from her journal, not even bothering to fix it so it rhymes. Throughout the record, the words come across like first-draft scribbles, including her unending creepy odes to Japanese girls, and the less said about that, the better. While even in her No Doubt days the songs were largely autobiographical, having a full-time band around seemed to tighten up her lyrics and sharpen their focus a bit, because I imagine the group would have laughed her out of the room if she tried to pass any of these by them.
Okay, I'm being kind of mean. To end on a bright note, the individual songs generally are terrific, with lots of great beats and excellent melodies (particularly on the 80's flashback "Cool").Gwen is in fine voice throughout, and her subtle persona-change from band leader to club diva (begun with No Doubt's ROCK STEADY album) reaches its apex here. And maybe I'm being a crank for suggesting that an album needs to have internal consistency anyway. So yeah, when all is said and done, this is a fun listen. Just don't pay too close attention to the words.
By Pocha Dot (Los Angeles)
This is not a good album as a whole. Gwen Stefani is so wrong for this, How could she do this?. The artwork and album title are attractive, I like that. "What You Waiting For" "Cool" "Danger Zone" "The Real Thing" & "Harajuku Girls" are the only good tracks on the album, the rest of it sounds like a demo. "Crash" sounds like a leftover Gillette track from 1995. "Bubble Pop Electric" is just useless, "Luxurious" sounds dated, Like she used an instrumental from Mo' Thugs and sang over it. "Long Way To Go" has a good message but is not catchy AT ALL, Who wants to listen to that? "Serious" is deceint, Sounds like a Madonna b-side. "Rich Girl" & "Hollaback Girl" are tragic messes. This album p!ssez me off, "GWEN STFANI" has so much more creativity than this, This album doesn't showcase any of her ideas or character. It's understandable that when an artist goes solo they usually don't do what they were doing when they were with their band, But this album is just lame. L.A.M.B. falls short in so many ways. The best tracks on the album are "What You Waiting For?" and "Cool". Such a shame, An artist with such so much appeal and awsomeness would dish this. Gwen shouldv'e done an Electronic/Dance album or a Club-styled album, Or even something more on the lines of what "What You Waiting For" sounded like but all the way through, Something more obscure (Euro-Pop). She had so many options, And because she's such a cool artist i'm more than sure many producers wouldv'e been excited to work with her. I just don't understand how this album came about, Gen Stefani has such an exotic appeal...or had. She also couldv'e done a really cool intro that's inspired by Lounge or Showtunes to bringout her character. Whatever Gwen.... Whatever.
By Clot33 (Roma, Italy)
I like this album, but after a while, listening to it bores me out. Individually, the songs are great, they're the kind of songs that, after listening to them, get stuck into your head for the next week, but in a good way. I would recommend buying the singles instead of the complete album.
By RJ (rjmusic)
There's only two tracks that I'll listen to was What are you waiting for? and Crash. Those are two excellent and very strong tracks. The beats were off the chain. Umm, as for the rest I do remember when this cd came out, and I thought it stunk. Holla Back Girl was way way too overplayed. Even to this day. Rich Girl was Terrible. Luxurious was halfway decent. But I thought most of this cd sucked. She luckily did a lot better when she came out with her 2nd cd, it had better production quality on it. Yea, I mean if your into corny pop music then this is the album to go far, and I have a feeling it's going to sound dated about 20 years from now. It just seemed like she was trying way to hard to be cool, but it worked for her.
By AlexM (Seattle, WA)
gwen stefani deserves her props. Even with the guiding hand of jimmy iovine and all the best producers money can buy, she put herself into the lamb project and delivered. She aint no Ashlee Simpson or Britney..she actually has creativity. The album is a smorgasbord of all the pop music gwen loved growing up, like New Order, Madonna and Debbie Debb. It's all so cutesy and tounge in cheek, but it's actually also really good. The sound of the album is very dated, but intentionally so. But who is Gwen, really? She didn't seem to know who she was when she used to sing about how the magics in the makeup, who how her vanity is a mess. Gwen has changed into a literal musical chameleon. She shapeshifts from a nostalgic betty boop in cool, into a tough talking teenager in hollaback girl, and into a kooky new wave lunatic in what you waiting for. The whole album is bonkers and all over the place. On the surface, a perfect pop album. And beyond that, a look at Gwen's psyche?
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