Love, Angel, Music, Baby - Gwen Stefani
Metascore
71 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 22
  2. Negative: 3 out of 22
  1. Welcome to the hottest, coolest, best-dressed pop album of the year.
  2. One of the most frivolously brilliant slabs of shiny retro-pop anyone's had the chutzpah to release all year. [20 Nov 2004, p.56]
  3. 80
    When LAMB is good, it's very good indeed.... It's one of the most audacioius pop albums of the year. [Jan 2005, p.120]
  4. It's too club-centric, too fashion-obsessed, too willfully weird to be a No Doubt album... a glitzy, wild ride that's stranger and often more entertaining than nearly any other mainstream pop album of 2004.
  5. A ferocious declaration of independence. [Jan 2005, p.124]
  6. It's an irresistible party: trashy, hedonistic and deeply weird.
  7. Love.Angel.Music.Baby. is big, brash, and divisive -- but as such it deserves to be heard and re-heard.
  8. This is undoubtedly the best excuse for a solo outing since Justin Timberlake's Justified.
  9. An ultra sleek and, it has to be said, generally impressive, 80s-inspired party record.
  10. Only a pair of beefy co-writes with rock mauler Linda Perry detract from the overall tingliness.
  11. Style trumps substance in Stefani's world, making "Love, Angel, Music, Baby" an ideal guilty pleasure.
  12. A few songs sound tossed-off, but a few of the stranger ones work.
  13. And while LAMB is adventurous and playful--with nary a ska-punk riddim to be found--it's when Gwen reaches back and goes totally '80s that the CD reverberates with unwavering charm.
  14. Love. Angel. Music. Baby. has been acclaimed as a bright-and-shiny pop-music tour-de-force, but once the initial thrilling rush of the stylistic sheen and artistic conception has abated, the album seems too fragmented to be anointed as such.
  15. The fascinating thing about Gwen Stefani’s record is not how different it sounds from No Doubt, but how similar it sounds to the producers that she works with and how their collaborations usually fall flat because of the rehashing of tired ideas and plodding predictability of her arrangements.
  16. 60
    An only sometime thing. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.112]
  17. A clever and sometimes enticing solo debut that doesn't quite add up. [22 Nov 2004]
  18. The ostentatiousness of it all grows irritating. [3 Dec 2004, p.83]
  19. LAMB has one mega-hit, one okay song, three stillborns, and seven full-fledged embarrassments.
  20. An exercise in pointless artifice. [23 Nov 2004]
  21. The subject matter on the indistinguishably titled Love, Angel, Music, Baby is painfully mainstream throughout.
  22. It is pure fluff. And pretty awful fluff at that.
User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 127 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 83 out of 109
  2. Negative: 14 out of 109
  1. Album starts with it's best song "What You Waiting For?". It's followed by 3 very good pop songs "Rich Girl", "Hollaback Girl" and "Cool". Then,"Bubble Pop Electric" makes your ears bleed. Next song "Luxurious" is decent, and then comes lot of silly teen pop songs with the exception of "Crash", which is surprisingly good. Full Review »
  2. Great album! Only Gwen could pull this kind of thing off. This not only has pop in it's finest form but also has pints of rock, ska like her work with No Doubt such as "Danger Zone" and "What You Waiting For" and it also has an 80's feel to it with the song "The Real Thing" GREAT ALBUM! Full Review »
  3. 10
    This album was so revolutionary that it was ahead of its time. Gwen created some very funky 80s influenced pop that I feel was an artistic transition for her. Crash and Serious are the 2 highlight album tracks that show Gwen's growth as an artist and see her experimenting a new energetic sound. Overall this album exceeded my expectation and showed Gwen meeting the expectations of many New Doubt and new fans. Full Review »