Gwen Stefani has been busy, from appearing on Sound From releasing singles at a Las Vegas concert to performing with husband Blake Shelton and even reuniting with No Doubt. However, the one thing that has been missing for the past eight years has been a new album, but that changed on November 15 when Stefani finally dropped her fifth solo album, Bouquet.
With the album due to arrive in less than two months, Stefani shared: BouquetThe second single and opener is “Somebody Else's”, a catchy slice of '70s AM Gold contrasted with scathing lyrics about past mistakes: “Every day with you is rock bottom / You left me save me God / Look at me as I blossom / You're someone else's problem.”
As Stephanie says Rolling Stone During the interview before registration Sound“‘Somebody Else’ was never meant to be on this album.” The subject matter — an insult directed at her ex, similar to the breakup songs on her last (non-Christmas) album, 2016 This is what the truth feels like. – It didn't fit in with the rest. BouquetA collection of songs about blossoming love.
However, after working on Bouquet Initially, Stefani was drawn to the “idea of this song” offered by co-writer Madison Love, a veteran songwriter with credits on tracks by Lady Gaga, Camila Cabello, and Selena Gomez.
“I got a text from Madison that started a song called ‘Somebody Else’s,’ after a bunch of sessions we did, and in those sessions there was a lot of confession and talking about life and where we are now, where we’ve been,” Stephanie says. “She came up with the idea for this song, and I was like, ‘Oh oh, I don’t even know if I want to give it any energy.’ What I realized was that after writing the rest of the songs, I felt like you need to see a little bit of darkness to see the light and see where you originally came from.”
In addition to working as BouquetM's second single “Somebody Else's” also serves as the album's opening track, and is a perfect transition from her last album, “The fact “This album was in the middle of my hell,” Stefani says of her post-divorce album in 2016, referring to her new life with Blake Shelton.
“Eight years may seem like a long time to a lot of people, but for me, it was eight years of healing, eight years of transformation, and it went by so quickly,” she said. “It’s interesting that this song went viral all over the world.” [to become to the new single]Because the rest of the record has nothing to do with this topic.
The new single isn't the only thing that's deceptive about BouquetDespite the cowboy hat on the cover, and the fact that the album was recorded in Nashville by a top producer (Scott Hendricks) with an all-star band, Stefani insists she didn't go country. “It's not a country album,” she says.
instead of, Bouquet The album features a collection of 1970s radio pop rock gems, broadcast through a Nashville lens, but still authentic to Gwynne. “All that stuff I listened to in the station wagon on the way to church, yacht rock, even though it wasn’t called yacht rock back then. The music I listen to now, I wanted this album to reflect that,” Stephanie says of the album.
The desire to make a cohesive album – and focused on just 10 songs – was also the inspiration for the album title. “I wanted it to be a big statement, which is why I feel Bouquet “It's a really perfect title, it's like every song was chosen with such care and meaning,” Stephanie said.
The theme of flowers — a recurring theme in Stefani's music for a long time, dating back to the lyrics “Born to bloom, bloom to die” on her debut single “What You Waiting For?” — extends to the music, with song titles like “Marigolds,” “Empty Vase,” “Late to Bloom,” and “Purple Irises,” the first track Stefani wrote for the album and a duet with Shelton inspired by their shared love of gardening.
“He obviously has some hobbies that are very far removed from mine — I'm like the makeup girl — very opposite in a lot of ways, but we find a lot of joy in gardening together,” she says.
“Purple Irises” also freed Stefani from a creative rut, as she found herself trying to “compete a little bit with my past and go back in time” — referring to singles like “Slow Clap” and “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” — which, along with “busy, crazy life and the pandemic,” were responsible for the long wait between albums.
“I felt like I was repeating myself a lot,” Stefani said of the false starts. “It never worked, it didn't even inspire me, so at one point I wrote a song called 'Purple Irises,' and I felt like, 'I'm on the right track now.' I felt like I was in the zone, that's it.”
Years ago, while hiking in Oklahoma, Stephanie saw a cluster of purple irises growing on a nearby wasteland. “We picked them up and planted them, and after all these years, you can see that they’ve taken over our garden,” she says. “They’ve survived so much without any care. It’s interesting to see how something so beautiful can survive crazy weather and be pulled up and planted. It was very symbolic of what we were going through in our lives, and that’s how I wrote this song.”
This year has been a year of reflection for Stefani: her first solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Her new No Doubt albums celebrate their 20th anniversary this year, and for the first time in nine years, Stefani reunited on stage with her No Doubt bandmates for two successful Coachella concerts.
“It was magical,” Stephanie says of the reunion. “It was beyond belief. It felt like a huge wave of love hit me. It felt like I was riding a bike with the guys. We hadn’t spent much time together in the last nine years, and it felt like the good old days, when we got back together. There was so much love, and it showed how much impact we had.”
The impact has inspired a younger generation of fans like Olivia Rodrigo, who was a guest with No Doubt at Coachella. “It was really compelling and inspiring,” Stefani says. “It was incredible.”
But this year hasn't been perfect for Stefani: Her and Shelton's gardens had a “very bad year” where “everything fell through.” The singer is no stranger to irony: “I'm making an album,” she jokes, “but my real garden has been really bad this year.”
