Gwen Renée Stefani (born October 3, 1969 in Anaheim, California, United States) is a singer-songwriter and fashion designer. Since 1986 she has fronted the rock band No Doubt, whose 1995 release Tragic Kingdom spawned the singles Just a Girl, Spiderwebs, and Don't Speak and propelled them into stardom with sales of 16 million copies worldwide. In 2004, Stefani released her first solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. The album featured several collaborations with producers and other artists, inc...
Gwen Renée Stefani (born October 3, 1969 in Anaheim, California, United States) is a singer-songwriter and fashion designer. Since 1986 she has fronted the rock band No Doubt, whose 1995 release Tragic Kingdom spawned the singles Just a Girl, Spiderwebs, and Don't Speak and propelled them into stardom with sales of 16 million copies worldwide.
In 2004, Stefani released her first solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. The album featured several collaborations with producers and other artists, including No Doubt bandmate Tony Kanal, Linda Perry, André 3000, Nellee Hooper, and The Neptunes. It was primarily inspired by pop and new wave music of the 1980s, and emerged an international success with sales of over seven million copies. The third single Hollaback Girl became the first U.S. digital download to sell one million copies.
The debut album also drew attention to the Harajuku Girls, Stefani's entourage of four Japanese backup dancers named for the fashionable suburb in Tokyo. Originally hired in 2004 for the album, the Girls continued to appear alongside Stefani, and are featured in these music videos: "What You Waiting For?", "Rich Girl", "Hollaback Girl", "Luxurious", "Crash", "Wind It Up", "The Sweet Escape", and "Now That You Got It".
Stefani's second solo album The Sweet Escape was released December 5, 2006. Collaborating again with her on the project were Perry, The Neptunes, along with Akon and Tim Rice-Oxley of Keane, and producers Pharrell and Kanal. Despite mixed reviews of the album as a whole, the title track The Sweet Escape became an international success and earned Stefani a Grammy nomination, and remains the most successful song of her solo career.
Although it had been speculated that the album would contain only material originally written for L.A.M.B. that did not make the final cut, only two songs left over from L.A.M.B. were included in the record: 80's-influenced U Started It; and Wonderful Life, which features Depeche Mode's Martin L. Gore on guitar.
Stefani is equally known as a fashion trendsetter. In 2003, she created a clothing fashion line named L.A.M.B. which shares the initials of her debut solo album. This collection was later expanded with the introduction of a newer line in 2005 called Harajuku Lovers, which draws its inspiration from Japanese culture and fashion.
On May 26, 2006, Stefani gave birth to her first child, a baby boy named Kingston James McGregor Rossdale. The father is British grunge musician Gavin Rossdale, former frontman of the now-defunct bands Bush and Institute, who she married in 2002.
In January 2008, Stefani's father-in-law confirmed that she would be expecting her second child in the summer. On August 21, 2008, second son Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale was born. Gwen Stefani said in 2011 that she was no more planning to release another solo album.
On April 12, 2014, Stefani made a surprise appearance at the Coachella festival, where she joined Pharrell Williams onstage during his set to perform "Hollaback Girl". She and Williams were coaches for season 7 of The Voice. After nine years since the last time, she attended the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, and during an interview on the red carpet she said, "I didn't know I was gonna have a baby, I didn't know I was gonna be on The Voice, I didn't know I was gonna be writing new music, so I'm just like, what's gonna be next?".
On September 8, 2014, Stefani told MTV News during New York Fashion Week that she is working on both a No Doubt album and a solo album. She also revealed that she is working with Williams. Stefani released her comeback single "Baby Don't Lie" on October 20, 2014, co-written with producers Ryan Tedder, Benny Blanco, and Noel Zancanella. Billboard magazine revealed that her third studio album is set to be released in December and Benny Blanco is set to executive produce it. In late October, a sneak peek of a new track from Stefani's third album, named "Spark the Fire", was premiered. The song was produced by Pharrell Williams.
On October 17, 2015, Stefani performed a one-night concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, where she performed a new song, reportedly about her breakup with ex-husband Gavin Rossdale, titled "Used to Love You". It was released as a digital download on October 20, 2015. The video was released later that same day. The song was released to Mainstream radio in the U.S. on October 27, 2015. The track is the first official single off her upcoming third solo album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like, which she has been working on since June. Neither "Baby Don't Lie" or "Spark the Fire" will be included on the album. Stefani said much of the previous material felt forced and inauthentic, while the songs written since she returned to the studio are more natural and better describe where she is in her life. The album's second single, "Make Me Like You", was released on February 12, 2016. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
