Gwen Stefani resorts to diluted country pop on Bouquet

In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, she lit up music videos and red carpets, electrocuting or killing her former bandmates with a steely gaze in “It’s My Life”, writing scorching self-indictments on “What You Waiting For?” or offering spelling lessons on the stomping “Hollaback Girl.” The fairytale romance of “Cool”, the laidback sex of “Luxurious”, the bizarro Sound of Music interpolation on “Wind It Up” – that shit was bananas, even if it came with some now-unsavory bouts of cultural appropriation with her Harajuku obsession.

Once the music scene’s It Girl, she’s shied away in recent years, releasing only the simple but effective break-up record This Is What The Truth Feels Like in 2016, a Christmas album, and a terrible track with Saweetie that gets made fun of for sounding like it belongs in a Kohl’s commercial. She’s been busy on The Voice, where she met and started dating Blake Shelton, a bro-country good guy, who has apparently warped her style for good.

Stefani arrives at Bouquet, her fourth solo album, wearing a cowboy hat and lukewarm new persona. She and Shelton first collaborated in 2019, but he sings with her again on “Purple Irises”, the record’s first single that professes their love. Surely he could have come up with more convincing arguments than “I got you / And you got me … / It’s not 2014 / But you still look good in those jeans”, but they remain wed. Turns out, Bouquet is hopelessly devoted to Shelton; nearly every track has a light platitude about togetherness and romance.

Bouquet’s botanic metaphors get old quickly. “I know that we’ll be okay / We’re making our own bouquet,” she sings on the title track – okay, that’s a lovely way of reframing a non-traditional, late-in-life romance, but it doesn’t end there. Stefani’s an “empty vase” he fills with flowers, they’re both laying on a “bed of marigolds” after thinking their gardens died, her petals are falling, the garden’s dying, then they get through the rain so the garden is growing, they’re picking purple irises. She squeezes every bit she can out of this analogy, and their constant mixing makes Bouquet’s lyrics seem artificially generated and surface-level.

Even when flowers aren’t in the picture, she’s not at her best. The timeline shifts constantly on “Late To Bloom”, where she sings, “I wish I met you when I was younger... / Skip the part when you weren’t in my life… / They say good things come to those who wait… / They say it’s better late than never.” So are you waiting, or fast-forwarding? Glad it happened now, or still lamenting it came sooner? Going back to the garden, she’s an “empty vase” Shelton fills with flowers, but says, “I’ll grow with you / And you’ll grow with me,” despite neither being plants. This is far too deep an analysis, but it’s partially on her for pigeonholing herself in this doomed multi-song analogy.

Bouquet does have some nice images that offer actual substance instead of ill-fated metaphor – she mentions an unintentional emotional wall she enacted on “Swallow My Tears”, which has a bit of bite. “I stay one step ahead of the pain / I got my guard up when there’s no war,” she admits, “I promise I want you here.” “Somebody Else’s” takes a break from Shelton to take a stab at her ex, laughing as he’s somebody else’s problem and diagnosing him as a narcissist and manipulator. She mentions her low self-confidence on “Pretty” and “Empty Vase”, which sounds hard to believe when you’re Gwen Stefani, but it is nice to hear another side from her.

Bouquet is fine as a first country album – there’s a relaxed sheen over the whole thing, and she sounds great as ever – it’s just disappointing for what we know Stefani to be capable of. Who would have thought the coolest girl in the world would have released a tepid concept album about flowers? Her personal life is certainly blooming, but there’s an artistic regression in the tame sounds and lyrics of Bouquet. The garden’s wilting.