Project Pat Crook By Da Book The Fed Story Raritan
Project Pat Crook By Da Book
GWEN STEFANI “The Sweet Escape” (Interscope)Gwen Stefani is willing to let the other fashion-forward pop singers strive for profundity. With “The Sweet Escape,” her uneven, hasty-sounding second solo album, she proudly sticks to the shallows. She’s no longer the pouty, peppy, ska-powered feminist who sang “Just a Girl” with No Doubt. Now, she’s a hitmaking star and a new mother who represents only herself.As a songwriter Ms. Stefani now veers between the generalized romantic situations of pop and the detailed career chronicles of a rapper: “I know you been waiting but I been off making babies,” she sings in “Yummy,” adding, “I came back for my spotlight.” One proudly off-the-wall song, “Don’t Get It Twisted,” is about an unexpected pregnancy.Her music is polarized to match the lyrics: either sparsely rhythmic tracks where she chants as much as she sings, or pop songs that aim for choruses as catchy as Madonna’s 1980’s chart busters. The sound itself stays shallow too; except for Ms. Stefani’s voice, nearly every note on the album is synthetic or sampled.On her multimillion-selling 2004 album, “Love.
Stefani and her collaborators came up with nutty, inspired combinations. On “The Sweet Escape,” she rebooks some of the same producers and repeats some of the old tricks with less flair. She works with the Neptunes again on brittle dance tracks; Linda Perry or Tony Kanal of No Doubt assist with pop. And the echoes from her previous album are a little too strong. Her 2004 hit “Rich Girl” quoted “Fiddler on the Roof”; her new single, “Wind It Up,” quotes “The Sound of Music.” A marching-band beat carried her hit “Hollaback Girl”; military snare drums return in the new “Now That You Got It.”. With any luck Ms. Stefani’s pop songs aren’t as autobiographical as the dance tracks.
On this album her romances grow unhappy even where the music climbs toward upbeat choruses; in the album’s most tuneful songs, like “Early Winter,” “The Sweet Escape” and “4 in the Morning,” Ms. Stefani is usually either complaining or apologizing. There are clever touches scattered through the album, like “Breakin’ Up,” a collaboration with the Neptunes that compares an iffy relationship to cellphone trouble. Gi joe battlefield 1942 mods. But much of “The Sweet Escape” sounds forced and secondhand; it’s one thing to emulate Madonna, another to be playing catchup with Fergie. And superficiality is more fun when it doesn’t get so whiny.
JON PARELESZ-RO “I’m Still Livin” (Rap-A-Lot/Asylum)Z-Ro begins his new album by rapping about the streets. But “City Streets,” is an indictment, not a tribute. “Damn these city streets,” he declares, and instead of boasting that he has what it takes to survive them, he worries that he doesn’t: “I used to keep a pistol by my side/But it don’t matter if I’m strapped, I’m still gonna die.”. Image 'The Sweet Escape' by Gwen Stefani.In his native Houston and throughout the South, Z-Ro is beloved for his gloomy lyrics and his thick, mellow voice; he can switch from double-speed rhymes to a slow croon. But his new album, “I’m Still Livin,” has sneaked silently into shops: his label hasn’t done much to promote it, and Z-Ro himself has been in prison, convicted of possessing a controlled substance. (On the CD he mentions being “hooked on codeine.”) That’s too bad, not least because this melancholy album, which seems to have been recorded in a quick-and-cheap flurry of pre-prison activity, is so good; you might even call it a minor masterpiece.Z-Ro has been making solo albums since 1998 and releasing them at an impressive pace; he says, “I got 17 albums and they all selling,” though those include mixtapes and compilations. But “I’m Still Livin” is unusually single-minded: an hourlong meditation on failure and loneliness and faith.