On the Stereo: Gwen Stefani, Jamey Johnson, Dwight Yoakam, R&B Beatles Covers

Gwen Stefani retreats to romance, the outlaw Jamey Johnson mounts a comeback, Dwight Yoakam keeps on the sunny side, Ace's third volume of Black America Sings Lennon, McCartney and Harrison.

Gwen Stefani—Bouquet [2024]

Gwen Stefani last released an album while Obama was still in office and it's been longer still since she appeared in the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100. Hits fell by the wayside for Stefani around the time she joined The Voice, the televised singing competition where she met and fell in love with country star Blake Shelton. The pair were both fresh out of marriages to other singers, a situation Stefani chronicled on her This Is What The Truth Feels Like, one of those divorce albums infused with a sense of liberation. Bouquet is its companion album, a record celebrating romance that plays like an unabashed retreat. Abandoning the notion of youthful abandon—perhaps a wise move after the awkward "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" tanked so hard, it brought down her plans for a new album in 2020—Stefani embraces adult contemporary without a hint of irony; these are soft, smooth songs about the power of a committed relationship. The one possible exception to the rule is "Somebody Else's," a driving bit of pop where expends her last energy on old embers. After clearing the decks, Stefani settles into the business of singing about her charmed life, threading in just enough pop tunes to keep Bouquet from being mired in sentimental murk. It's still plenty corny, though. It's not just that Bouquet is a collection pledging an undying devotion to Blake Shelton, it's that Stefani's melodies are dragged down by her penchant for diaristic lyrics or at writing storylines that echo her tabloid headlines. Good thing for her that the simple kind of life she chronicles on Bouquet is likely to generate as much gossip as this album garners: not much at all. 

Jamey Johnson—Midnight Gasoline [2024]

Partway through Midnight Gasoline, his first album of new material in a long 14 years, Jamey Johnson ponders about what will happen "Someday When I'm Old." It's one of a handful of songs on the record that doesn't bear a writing credit from Johnson and,