Gwen Stefani

"Love, Angel, Music, Baby"

Universal Music Group

Grade: D

No doubt Gwen Stefani needs her band back.

In Stefani's first solo album "Love, Angel, Music, Baby," she has gotten rid of her band and replaced it with a synthesizer.

This album has some familiar sounds from the latest original No Doubt album, "Rock Steady." Stefani has pulled the original techno beats the band used before to create a massacre of techno sounds.

Her lyrics coincide with the awful beats produced on the album and the lyrics follow a main theme of traditional love-making in the back seat of a car.

Stefani also seems to sneak her Japanese obsession into one of her songs, "Harajuku Girls." In it, she talks about how these specific girls are in Japan by the clothes they wear and how they act.

Stefani's first single, "What you waiting for?", has some potential from the beat of the song to become a hit. Although the lyrics seem to ask an ironic question "What you waiting for?" the answer to this question should be for it to end.

A rendition of the Notorious B.I.G song "Big Papa" appears on this album but in a slower rhythm. This rendition of "Big Papa" lures its audience in with hopes of hearing Biggie bust a rhyme, but instead Stefani fools her audience by busting out her own rhymes and remaking the song into "Luxurious."

Stefani should deal with her doubts concerning the band and move forward with them to produce an even better rock-steady vibe.

-- By Lydia Earhart, Staff Writer