Gwen_Stefani-The_Sweet_Escape-2006-DeBT_iNT torrent

ARTiST.... Gwen Stefani

TiTLE..... The Sweet Escape

LABEL..... Interscope

GENRE..... Alt. Rock

RiP.DATE.. 2011-06-03

STOREDATE. 2006-12-05

SOURCE.... CD

QUALiTY... 243 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo

TRACKS.... 12 / 46:57

SIZE...... 86.06 MB

RIPPER.... EAC Secure with LAME 3.98.4

URL.......





NR. TRACKNAME TiME



1 Wind It Up 3:09

2 The Sweet Escape 4:06

3 Orange County Girl 3:23

4 Early Winter 4:44

5 Now That You Got It 2:59

6 4 in the Morning 4:51

7 Yummy 4:57

8 Fluorescent 4:18

9 Breakin\' Up 3:47

10 Don\'t Get It Twisted 3:37

11 U Started It 3:08

12 Wonderful Life 3:58

---------------------------------------------------------



TOTAL TiME: 46:57 MIN

TOTAL SIZE: 86.06 MB





RELEASE NOTES



Awkward and alluring in equal measures, Gwen

Stefani\'s 2004 solo debut,

Love.Angel.Music.Baby., did its job: it made Gwen

a bigger star on her own than she was as the lead

singer of No Doubt. With that established and her

long-desired wish for a baby finally fulfilled,

there was no rush for Gwen to get back to her

regular gig, so she made another solo album, The

Sweet Escape, which expanded on what really sold

her debut: her tenuous connections to Californian

club culture. There was always a sense of

artifice behind the turn-of-the-century makeover

that brought Gwen from a ska-punk sweetheart to a

dance club queen, but that doesn\'t mean it didn\'t

work at least on occasion, most spectacularly so

on the gloriously dumb marching-band rap of

\"Hollaback Girl,\" the Neptunes production that

turned L.A.M.B. into a blockbuster. There, as on

her duet with Eve on \"Let Me Blow Ya Mind,\" Gwen

made the transition into a modern-day material

girl with ease, but when she tried to shoehorn

this ghetto-fabulous persona into her original

new wave girl character, it felt forced, nowhere

more so than on the Linda Perry written and

produced \"What You Waiting For.\" Gwen doesn\'t

make that mistake again on The Sweet Escape -- by

and large, she keeps these two sides of her

personality separate, favoring the streets and

nightclubs to the comfort of her new wave home.

Just because she wants to run in the streets

doesn\'t mean she belongs there; she continues to

sound far more comfortable mining new wave pop,

as only a child of the \'80s could. As always,

it\'s those celebrations of cool synths and

stylish pop hooks that work the best for Stefani,

whether she\'s approximating the chilliness of

early-MTV new romantics on \"Wonderful Life,\"

mashing Prince and Madonna on \"Fluorescent,\" or

lying back on the coolly sensual \"4 in the

Morning.\"



Only once on the album is she able to bring this

style and popcraft to a heavy dance track, and

that\'s on the irresistible Akon-produced title

track, driven by a giddy \"wee-oh!\" hook and

supported by a nearly anthemic summertime chorus.

Tellingly, the Neptunes, the architects of her

best dance cuts on L.A.M.B., did not produce this

track, but they do have a huge presence on The

Sweet Escape, helming five of the 12 songs, all

but one being tracks that weigh down the album

considerably. The exception is \"U Started It,\" a

light and nifty evocation of mid-period Prince,

with its lilting melody, silken harmonies, and

pizzicato strings. It sounds effortless and

effervescent, two words that do not apply to

their other four productions, all skeletal,

rhythm-heavy tracks that fail to click.

Sometimes, they\'re merely leaden, as on the

stumbling autobiographical rap \"Orange County

Girl\"; sometimes, they\'re cloying and crass, as

on the rather embarrassing \"Yummy\"; sometimes

they have an interesting idea executed poorly, as

on \"Breakin\' Up,\" a breakup song built on a dying

cell phone metaphor that\'s interesting in theory

but its stuttering, static rhythms and repetitive

chorus are irritating in practice. Also

interesting in theory is the truly bizarre lead

single, \"Wind It Up,\" where the Neptunes force

fanfares and samples from The Sound of Music\'s

\"The Lonely Goatherd\" into one of their typical

minimalist tracks, over which Gwen spouts off

clumsy material-minded lyrics touting her fashion

line and her shape. Nothing in this track really

works, but it\'s hard not to listen to it in

wonder, since its unwieldy rhythms and rhymes

capture everything that\'s currently wrong about

Stefani.



From the stilted production to the fashion

fetish, all the way down to her decision to rap

on far too much of the album, all the dance-pop

here seems like a pose, creating the impression

that she\'s a glamour girl slumming on a weekend

night -- something that her self-proclaimed

Michelle Pfieffer in Scarface \"coke whore\"

makeover showcased on the album\'s cover doesn\'t

do much to dissuade. If the dance production on

The Sweet Escape were better, these hipster

affectations would be easier to forgive, but

they\'re not: they\'re canned and bland, which only

accentuates Stefani\'s stiffness. These misfires

are so grand they overshadow the many good

moments on The Sweet Escape, which are invariably

those songs that stay true to her long-standing

love of new wave pop (not coincidentally, these

include every production from her No Doubt

bandmate Tony Kanal). These are the moments that

give The Sweet Escape its sweetness, and while

they may require a little effort to dig out,

they\'re worth the effort, since it proves that

beneath the layers of bling, Gwen remains the

SoCal sweetheart that has always been as spunky

and likeable as she has been sexy.