Alpendub

Now that the yodelling virus is winding its way up into pop mainstream culture, we now present you … Gwen Stefani, who’s nabbed a litte a bit of yodelling from The Sound Of Music and stuck it onto a cheesy plastic beat. Is this good? Well, it’s a bit aloof and coated with sugary high-tech surface reflectors.

Have a look:

Apparently the Neptunes did the production, well Pharell Williams at least. You can definitely hear their “sound” in there, but I’m not so convinced that they’ve done anything too special with this tune. To my ears, the beat wobbles in a very ungroovy way (the Germans would say “holprig“) and the whole thing sounds a bit stiff and lifeless. It’s almost as if they took a scrap idea they had lying around and just stuck it onto this song.

We all know that Gwen Stefani — like Madonna before her — really knows how to put on the pop star schtick, and she does it really really well. Can she sing? Not really in the “school of four octaves” way but that’s not too important because she has character and chutzpah. Can she rap? Hmmm, that’s not so good. Does she have anything to say other than to present new fashion? Not too sure about that … but the whole thing is fun and it’s only meant to be fun, so let’s not complain.