First Time Fridays - Love. Angel. Music. Baby.

Many of my first experiences with music came from my eldest brother. Every day, when I returned home from school, I would be greeted by the sounds and visuals of MTV. It was this channel, where I remember seeing this mesmerising, Alice in Wonderland themed music video. I quickly became addicted to the song, to the point, where I would sit and wait for it to play again.

I think it was the summer of 2005, when I was seven years old, that my mother let me pick out a CD for myself. My older brother pointed out that this particular CD included the song that I loved, What You Waiting For? by Gwen Stefani. The album? Love. Angel. Music. Baby.

Love. Angel. Music. Baby. was Stefani’s debut solo album. She had already experienced success with her band No Doubt, but this album was different than anything she’d ever put out before. She worked with musical geniuses, Pharrell Williams and Andre 3000, to put together what would become one of my most loved albums of all time.

The album takes heavy influence from a variety of 80s genres, including electropop, new wave, dance-rock, soul, hip hop, R&B and disco. The album was a musical fashion show. Each song is its own production and narrates a different story, from wealth to relationships. It includes one of the most popular female empowerment tracks of all time Hollaback Girl, which was written in response to Courtney Love’s comment, in Seventeen magazine, calling Stefani a ‘cheerleader’.

Once I had the album, I would listen to it religiously. Literally, every single day, I would listen to the album from my CD player. I can’t pinpoint exactly why I was so obsessed. I think it was because the songs were so different to anything that I’d heard before. It was like they were a series of short stories. I’d listen to the songs and was able to picture a narrative in my head. It was like my own personal cinematic experience.

Looking back, to the age I was, I really had no business listening to that album. Maybe my mum should have screened the songs beforehand. Luckily, I didn’t understand anything at the time, but when listen now, JEEZ, they were BAWDY. My favourite, Bubble Pop Electric, tells the story of two people having sex at a drive-in theatre. It includes the oblique lyric, “My sweet tooth, I want your candy, The Queen of Eng would say it randy” and the more, frank line, “Tonight, I'm gonna give you all my love in the back seat, gonna speed it down and slow it up in the back seat.”

Raunchy overtones or not, I’m still thankful to Stefani was bringing out such a defining album for me. Gwen Stefani was my generation’s Madonna. She inspired me to listen to more female artists, past and present. To this day, I think she’s a really underrated musician. Without her, we wouldn’t have the pop industry as we know it today. She influenced so many artists, including Lady Gaga, Fergie and Nelly Furtado.

I’m not able to retain any information for an exam, but I can easily recite a song about having sex in a drive-in theatre that I learned when I was in primary school. That album left such an impact on me as a child, I’m sure it did for many others too.

- Victoria

Listen to the album here on Spotify.