The Sweet Escape is the second solo effort by the pop-rock singer Gwen Stefani. Released in December 2006, it is the follow-up album to the enormously successful 2004 release Love.Angel.Music.Baby. that sold 3.7 million copies.
How do you follow up that kind of success with a second effort? Chances are you don’t! What one needs to do is create a good solid album. Something that you want to make - The Sweet Escape is this kind of album.
Originally Stefani did not want to do another solo effort. In fact, she has been working out with No Doubt but she had some tracks leftover from the L.A.M.B. sessions that she wanted to release. She took the tracks, which include "Wonderful Life" and created a different style of CD then her last one.
There will be many who feel that she is moving too far off the road that created her success, but sometimes the lack of change is what keeps an artist from being who they are and becoming something that their fans think that they should be. It is easy for a follow up to be nothing more than a rehash of the same material that created the previous success, The Sweet Escape is not a redux.
The down side with creating a fresh start is that you will have many fans who will want to downgrade the performances and down grade the album. To give this album its do, one has to come to it on its own merits and not strictly compare it to L.A.M.B.
Does The Sweet Escape stand on its own? I think that it does. On the first track, “Wind it Up,” she yodels to The Sound of Music tune “The Lonely Goatherd” –which by the way is a strange little ditty that I really like. It is part excitement, part clunky and really addictive. It harks back the L.A.M.B. album but is still different.
Article comments
1 - Georgia Gwens biggest fan!
Hi. I just have to say what im gunna say in a min bcuz i am sooo anoyed about what people are saying about Gwen and half of it is not true!!.
Why do people keep saying she is to old to do songs and act like she dose well i think the way she looks is fine to do the dances she dose and im anoyed that people take it out on gwen and no over clebs for being older than about 30 Gwen Stefani is only 37 and so what she has a awsome voice !! u dont complain about madonna and she is in her 40's. why are people going n about that gwen is bringing out her own perfume n people have to complain about it soo what it is up to her what she dose i will sure be buying the perfume and the people that say horrible stuff about that don't have to buy her perfume!!.Why do people keep saying she is horrible and selfish to her fans?. well when i went to her concert me and my best friend and some over people got to go on the stage and sing and dance with her and the people that say she is mean selfish have got it all wrong it is them that is mean and selfish!!!!
2 - BazaarAdriatic
I love this album. Gwen is always on point.