Gwen's second solo album,"The Sweet Escape" manages to incorporate various styles to offer 12 distinctly unique tunes. It opens with "Wind it Up", sampling the Sound of Music's "Lonely Goat Herd", singing about being a girl, and exactly why boys adore them. Suddenly you realise you've missed having Ms. Stefani in your life.

She collaborates with Pharrell on "Orange County Girl", "Yummy", "Breakin' Up" and "U Started It".

Other big names who contribute to the album include Akon on "The Sweet Escape" and No Doubt's Tony Kanal on "4 In the Morning", "Fluorescent and Don't Get It Twisted". Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley collaborated with Gwen on the smooth, soft rock "Early Winter".

A mistress of the synthetic sound, with lyrics that allude to smart girlie conversations over a cuppa, Gwen's taken all the big hitters, ranging from Nellee Hooper to Keane's Tim Rice-Oakley to contribute. She's mixed them all up, soaking up trends that ensure she's played in all the gyms and Topshops nationwide, but she's not letting anyone take over. She's big enough for all of them.

Topics span apologising for being grumpy ("The Sweet Escape") men who lie, making her cry (the Cardigans-esque "Early Winter"), and being an unremarkable small town girl, a la J. Lo ("Orange County girl").

As with her first album there are a few bland fillers, and she seems to lose her way a bit with "Breakin' up", a track about frustrating mobile conversations, but there's enough trademark majorette drumming to carry the album off. "Yummy" sums her up, coquettish, amusing, annoying and hip wiggling in equal measure.

"The Sweet Escape" lives up to the promise. Never afraid to try something new and create something completely fresh, Gwen succeeds in staying cutting edge.

In this album she manages to create a sound that is simultaneously cutting edge and completely different to her older work, yet "The Sweet Escape" remains distinctly Gwen Stefani.

An element of Gwen's success has to be ascribed to her collaborations with some industry bigwigs. She is unafraid to cross genres and draws inspiration from everyone she works with - resulting in an album that offers a great deal of varied sounds and influences.

All this and a new baby. Not bad.

Enjoy !

I, like so many others, am a huge fan of Gwen Stefani's solo debut, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. It has been one of my favorite guilty pleasures since the day I got it. Such a great, refeshing, fun pop sound. And when I heard she was working on her next solo record, naturally I was excited. I was also extremely curious as to what direction she would go in, because I had a hunch that Gwen wouldn't want to simply do another album that sounded exactly the same as its predecessor. I figured she wold branch out. Anyway, when I discovered the first single had dropped, "Wind It Up", I eagerly listened to it...and found myself in shock. Not the good kind either. In fact, by the time the chorus rolled around, I was actually covering my ears and I had to turn it off. After a while, after hearing the song on radio and seeing the video a couple of times, it began to grow on me. The first time I heard the entire album, I must say I was also disappointed. I thought a few tracks were incredible but as a whole, it seemed very bad, especially compared to the masterpiece that is L.A.M.B. However, began listenng to it over and over, and just like "Wind It Up" did, it grew on me and now I love it. My point is, if you don't like this at first, give it time. You might find yourself loving it. I know I did. And I will without hesitation say it's better than the first. They're both very different, however. This record definitely has another sound and focus than L.A.M.B. Now a track-by-track review...

1.)Wind It Up-The first single. Like I said, I hated it at first, but hate has become love. Unique, awesome beats. Very catchy.

2.)The Sweet Escape featuring Akon-If I'm not mistaken, this has been announced as the second single. Very catchy and sugary-sweet, yet somewhat of a twist for Gwen. The chorus is vaguely reminiscent of the 80's.

3.)Orange County Girl-A simple hip/hop/pop song. Consists of a beat and piano. Very Brooke Hogan. I think this should be a single for sure. It's Hollaback Girl Part 2, in my opinion, only better.

4.)Early Winter-AMAZING song!! Gwen co-wrote this with Tim Rice-Oxley from the popular band Keane. It has an 80's indie feel to it. Emotional and powerful. The lyrics are good as well. "It's sad/a map of the world is on you/The moon gravitates around you/the seasons escape you." Beautiful-one of my favorites.

5.)Now That You Got It-The only word that can appropriately describe this song, and I hate to say it because I think it's a stupid expression, is hot. Hot beat, catchy. The bridge is hilarious. This song also has the alarm sample used in songs like Beyonce's "Ring the Alarm." But I think it works best in this song. Awesome track, all-in-all.

6.)4 in the Morning-Another highlight. An absolutely gorgeous song, co-written with fellow No Doubt-er Tony Kanal. Good beat, beautiful synths, beautiful chorus, just wow. Gwen has also said this is her favorite song on the album. It's easy to see why.

7.)Yummy featuring Pharrell-Ok, I have NO idea why, but I absolutely LOVE this song! It's so fun and cute! Another unique beat, and the lyrics are so funny. Yes, it is mostly talking/rap with a few verses of singing, but I adore it. I can't seem to get tired of it or get it out of my head. Another fave.

8.)Fluorescent-I was surprised when I heard this, because it sounds like it could be on L.A.M.B. It's 80's Madonna/dance pop-esque. One of only three tracks that could have possibly been on the first album. I like it a lot. And I love the line, "and as I watch you sleep in the dimlight/I closemy eyes and pray/another fluorescent night/yeah, you and I."

9.)Breakin' Up-Ok, like other reviewers, I didn't like this one either when I first heard it. It's your typical hip/hop R&B song, with a regular beat and piano. Yes, it is repetitive, but I love it. Very different for Gwen, although since it's co-written with Pharrell, I guess it shouldn't surprise me so much. Like "Yummy," this is another song that I LOVE and I'm not sure why. Another favorite.

10.)Don't Get It Twisted-This song is so creative and inventive. The chorus is bouncy but not typical at all. I'd say this is the "Serious" of The Sweet Escape.

11.)U Started It-Like "Fluorescent", this track could also have been on L.A.M.B. It combines 80's pop with a bit of a soul/Neptunes sound. Good. Although Pharrell's part in this song seems a bit unneccessary. Just let Gwen sing, ok, "P?"

12.)Wonderful Life-Ohhh...this song is SOOOOO AMAZING!!! Another favorite. This could also have possibly been on L.A.M.B., although it's much better than anything from that record. Co-written with Linda Perry, it's kind of 80's electropop and the song has a dark, bittersweet, longing feel to it. It's as if Gwen is struggling through the ennui and darkness that threatens to drag her down to sing, "It's a wonderful, wonderful life." If only singing it could make it so.

I'm sorry this review is so long-winded, but I think this album is great and contrary to what everyone else seems to believe, Gwen did a great job. The Sweet Escape is NO sophomore slump. Give it a fair chance and if you truly liked Gwen's music before, there's no reason why you won't like this record.

PUT ON REPEAT:

Wind It Up

Early Winter

4 in the Morning

Yummy

Breakin' Up

Wonderful Life

PUSH THE BACK BUTTON:

The Sweet Escape

Orange County Girl

Now That You Got It

Fluorescent

Don't Get It Twisted

U Started It

PUSH THE SKIP BUTTON:

None!

It really, really grows on you. Wonderful Life, Yummy and 4 in the Morning make the entire album. I can't stop listening to it - it's great for the gym.

"The Sweet Escape" is just exactly what we need more of: shallow, atrocious, overrated filler that's saturating our society.

The album is started off with the ear-grinding, superficial "Wind It Up", which just seems to be a shameless self-promotion of her fashion line from a recycled copy of Hollaback Girl.

Then, it's followed up by "The Sweet Escape", which is tolerable, but extremely mediocre at best.

"Orange County Girl" is faux-rap. Bad faux-rap coupled with Gwen's annoyingly whiny vocals.

Tracks 4 and 6, "Early Winter" and "4 in the Morning", are nice ballads. But they're just anything that any good singer at the karaoke can do.

Tracks 5 and 7 completely take away any benefit the last two mentioned tracks had. The musical quality of them is bland, and their self-obsessed lyrics just make them worse.

Track 8, "Florescent" could've been nice, if Gwen's vocals weren't so annoying.

The next three tracks continue to go downhill with the album's superficial, bland pattern.

The album ends on a slightly nice note with track 12. However, none of the nice tracks in this album can make the album any nicer.

Final verdict: Please don't support horrible, over rated junk from coming out and save your money on something better.

Continuing her "solo project" as she claims, Gwen's second record is a mixture of success and failure. The first single `wind it up' is just awful it has a decent/so so beat but her whiny vocals and lyrics that continue the infatuation she has with her own clothing line get played out real quick. Moving on, the record does produce some catchy and genuinely enjoyable tracks; `the sweet escape' is one and `early winter' another. The latter with its strong chorus line and great music backing it up help the listener forget the previous track `orange county girl' which is really hard to hear all the way through (mind you the song is only three minutes and some seconds). I hate to say this but a white pop singer should not be rapping about growing up in orange county. All the songs produced by the neptunes (a.k.a. pharrell) are stupid, awkward and generic with the exception of `u started it' a very refreshing tune(pharrell's music production ability is over rated anyway). Please Gwen, stop trying to be ghetto fabulous and please please stop rapping/ yelling/ speaking fast etc. I suppose because `hollaback girl' was such a success she decided to evoke that theme more on this record but it does not work. Tracks like `breaking up' and `yummy' just skip right past them because you will be disappointed as they do not capture a positive side of Gwen (too fake even for her). On the contrary Gwen shines when she sings more 80's Madonna influential stuff and sticks to the new wave genre; tracks such as `florescent', `wonderful life'(which is a really good song reminding me of depeche mode), and `don't get it twisted' show a much more charismatic and genuine Gwen. Ironically the two or three songs produced by her band mate T. Kanal show case Gwen's vocal talent and remind fans why they even bothered to purchase (or even download) the record.