The Sweet Escape

The Sweet Escape
Studio album by Gwen Stefani
Released	December 1, 2006 (2006-12-01)
Recorded	2005–06
Studio	Various Capitol Studios; Chalice Recording Studios; Grandmaster Recorders, Ltd.; Henson Recording Studios; Record Plant Recording Studios (Hollywood, California) Doppler Studios (Atlanta, Georgia) Electric Lady Studios, Right Track Recording, Sony Music Studios (New York City, New York) Home Recordings (London, England) Interscope Studios (Santa Monica, California) Kingsbury Studios (Los Feliz, California) The Nook Recording Studio (Studio City, California) South Beach Studios (Miami Beach, Florida)
Genre	Dance-pop electropop rap
Length	46:54
Label	Interscope
Producer	Guy Charbonneau Greg Collins Sean Garrett Nellee Hooper Tony Kanal The Neptunes Mark "Spike" Stent Kaseem "Swizz Beatz" Dean Aliaune "Akon" Thiam Giorgio Tuinfort
Gwen Stefani chronology
Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (The Remixes) (2005) The Sweet Escape (2006) This Is What the Truth Feels Like (2016)
Singles from The Sweet Escape
"Wind It Up" Released: October 31, 2006 "The Sweet Escape" Released: December 19, 2006 "4 in the Morning" Released: May 8, 2007 "Now That You Got It" Released: August 26, 2007 "Early Winter" Released: January 18, 2008

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	58/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	B−
The Guardian
The New York Times	Unfavorable
NME	4/10
The Observer
Pitchfork	6.5/10
PopMatters
Rolling Stone
Slant Magazine

The Sweet Escape is the second studio album by American singer and songwriter Gwen Stefani, released on December 1, 2006 by Interscope Records. Having originally intended to return to No Doubt after her debut solo album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004), Stefani decided to record a second album as a way to release some of the material left over from the Love. Angel. Music. Baby. writing sessions. The album musically resembles its predecessor while exploring more modern pop sounds. It was released to generally mixed reviews from contemporary music critics, receiving criticism for its strong similarities to Love. Angel. Music. Baby.

It was preceded by the lead single "Wind It Up", which charted moderately across the world, and produced the follow-up single "The Sweet Escape", which proved more successful worldwide. The Sweet Escape reached the top five in the United States, Canada, and Australia and peaked inside the top 20 in the United Kingdom. The album's supporting tour, The Sweet Escape Tour, kicked off in April 2007, covering North America, Colombia, Australia, Asia, and Europe.

Following the release of her debut album Love. Angel. Music. Baby., Stefani announced that she had intended to return to No Doubt and record a sixth studio album with the band. After the commercial success of L.A.M.B., she decided to release several leftover tracks from the album as an EP or as extra tracks on a DVD. However, Pharrell Williams, with whom she had collaborated to write "Hollaback Girl", convinced Stefani to create "a L.A.M.B. part two", and the two recorded several songs during sessions in Miami in July 2005.

The two produced "Wind It Up", "Orange County Girl", "U Started It", "Yummy", "Breaking Up", and "Candyland" during these sessions, and the songs were used for a fashion show premiering the 2006 collection of Stefani's fashion line L.A.M.B. She included performances of "Wind It Up" and "Orange County Girl" when she embarked on the Harajuku Lovers Tour in October 2005. Stefani put the project on hold in December 2005 when she discovered that she was pregnant, before returning to the studio in August 2006. The album's working title was Candyland, sharing its name with an unreleased track that has only been looped via her fashion show soundtrack. The title was changed to The Sweet Escape, the title of the second track, to emphasize the album's themes of wanting to escape to a better life.

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Wikipedia