Escape artist

Singer Gwen Stefani. (Universal Music Canada)

Two-thirds of the way through her terrific new album, The Sweet Escape, Gwen Stefani issues the following memorandum: “Don’t get it twisted / don’t get clever / this is the most craziest shit ever.”  She’s exaggerating, but not much. Save for Missy Elliott, Stefani may be liable for the weirdest sounds on the pop charts.

Encountering a new Stefani single feels a little like being whacked upside the head with a fresh trout. You’re stunned, then angered, by the audacity of it. Once the throbbing stops, the blow gives you new perspective. Stefani has an elastic voice and a flair for memorable hooks, but her greatest talent may be the way she challenges our preconceptions about pop. Her chutzpah is inspiring.

My first run-in with Wind It Up, The Sweet Escape’s leadoff single, was typically stupefying. It opens with Stefani yodelling lines from The Lonely Goatherd, a tune from The Sound of Music; it’s the first and last time in the song where she actually sings. That’s followed by symphonic fanfare and a lurching drumline rhythm that sounds like it was pounded out on cardboard. Stefani spits out a few spunky rhymes over a woozy bass line. Finally, the chorus arrives, a reprise of the opening string melody punctuated with shouts of “Wind it up!”

I admit: at first, I hated it. The song is bizarre — jarring, mawkish, insistently rhythmic and almost non-musical. But then so is Hollaback Girl, Stefani’s biggest single to date. She mashes up styles with wild abandon. But here’s the thing: The songs get stronger and more cohesive with every listen. Despite my initial resistance to a new Stefani song, eventually I end up yielding to its outlandish charms. My trouble now is deciding whether Wind It Up is the most ridiculous pop single of the year — or the most visionary.

(Universal Music Canada)

The Californian singer has been a musical mainstay since 1995, the year her ska band, No Doubt, released its mega-selling third album, Tragic Kingdom. (It has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.) With her stretchy voice and pogo-like stage presence, Stefani has always been a nervy performer. Yet few people were prepared to deal with her solo debut. Weirder and more manic than anything in the No Doubt songbook, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004) is a dizzy pile-up of disco, hip-hop, doo-wop, nursery rhyme, ska and ’80s synth-pop, with a little Japanese thrown in. The record was divisive, to say the least. Naysayers used words like “irritating,” “pointless” and “fluff.” At first pass, L.A.M.B. seems too cartoonish to be taken seriously: Hollaback Girl seems like little more than a schoolyard taunt set to a Stomp beat; the frenetic Bubble Pop Electric imagines a cross between the Shangri-Las and Devo; and What You Waiting For? sounds like Miss Piggy doing operatic disco.

The Sweet Escape is less dizzying, but song for song, it’s equally screwy. Wind It Up sets the tone, but Stefani keeps thing freaky with Now That You Got It, Fluorescent and the extraterrestrial groove of Don’t Get It Twisted. Much of the credit for the delirious vibe goes to Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, the production team better known as the Neptunes. They first hooked up with Stefani on No Doubt’s scorching 2001 single Hella Good, and were behind the lunacy that is Hollaback Girl. While The Sweet Escape also carries the imprint of producer Nellee Hooper and No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal, the Neptunes push Stefani to indulge her battiest impulses. The headiest cut is Yummy, a double-entendre-laden duet with Williams that the lyrics describe as “disco Tetris.” With its minimalist beat and blippy keyboard melody, the description is apt.

Stefani has been lamely compared to Madonna, but there’s little substance to the comparison beyond their shared interest in world domination. (Stefani is aggressively branching out into other media: in addition to acting in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, she now has a full-fledged clothing line.) While Madonna has always sought out the hottest producers, she remains a very conventional songwriter. And despite her numerous reinventions, Madge won’t attempt anything that could make her look foolish. Stefani has no such hang-ups. In the Wind It Up video, the new mother appears in a nun’s head dress while sporting Louis Vuitton shades. In Yummy, she blusters, “I know you’ve been waiting / But I’ve been off making babies / And like a chef making doughnuts and pastries / It’s time to make you sweat.” And did I mention that she yodels? Like Missy Elliott, Stefani is strong and sexy, but also refreshingly hammy.

Gwen Stefani performs with two of the Harajuku Girls Dec. 11, 2004, in Universal City, California. (Karl Walter/Getty Images)

While Stefani’s fearlessness is commendable, some of her quirks are less so. Lyrics are a weakness: sometimes they’re charmingly daft, other times, just plain obnoxious. What You Waiting For?, her first solo single, sounds like a self-directed pep talk (“Life is short, you’re capable”), but in subsequent tunes, she seems preoccupied with her own ingenuity (and wealth). Wind It Up is typical: “They’re trying to bite our style / Trying to study our approach / They like the way we do it / So original.”  I won’t argue with the sentiment; after all, Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie is making a nice living copping Stefani’s moves. But is it too much to ask for a little humility?

Then there’s the business of the Harajuku Girls, the four Japanese women she hired in 2004 to follow her around. (Her entourage is named after the high-fashion area near Harajuku Station in Tokyo.) Stefani’s fascination with Japanese culture appears genuine: her outrageous wardrobe reflects an Asian sensibility, and she named her publishing company Harajuku Lover Music. But the optics are unsettling. Comedian Margaret Cho has likened the shtick to a “minstrel show.”

I don’t for a second believe Stefani to be a cultural imperialist. She just has an obsessive personality. And as any soccer hooligan or Trekkie can attest, your obsessions can sometimes dim your judgment. Stefani is feisty and uninhibited; she can also be impetuous, misguided, even exasperating. But one thing she’s not is predictable. And her unpredictability, more than anything else, should ensure her a long and varied career.

The Sweet Escape is in stores Dec. 5.

Andre Mayer writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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