It’s been far, far too long since No Doubt diva, Harajuku girl enthusiast and ageless beauty Gwen Stefani last blessed our ears with solo sound.
In fact, that moment in time ended back in early 2008 with the release of her unbelievably underrated, final Sweet Escape ballad “Early Winter.” Let us listen again. ( Still amazing.)
But now, we have Pharrell and his awkwardly large hat to thank for resuscitating our hopes and dreams for s’more Solo Stefani.
Last night, the unstoppable “Happy” hit-maker took to the stage at Coachella to entertain vast swathes of unbathed flower crown-wearing hipsters (and NYC hipsters sitting at home watching the stream on their laptops). While working through an unbelievably impressive list of hits, the super-producer carted out dozens of his industry besties, including Nelly, Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg.
And then, The Most Glorious Thing happened: “There’s only but one incredible, historical, most important, incredibly talented, fucking awesome rad girl in the world,” he casually teased before the blonde bombshell came triumphantly marching onto the stage to the familiar stomp of “Hollaback Girl.” GWEN!
She might have only just had her third baby one month ago, but the Love. Angel. Music. Baby. legend looked and sounded as fit and fabulous as the day the song first dropped, sending us flying right back to 2005 with a spot-on rendition of the cocky cheerleading anthem. (MySpace, y’all!) The shit was quite literally b-a-n-a-n-a-s — oh, she’s just the best. Let us pray this is only the first of many appearances by Miss Stefani in the music industry in 2014.
Here’s hoping we wake up to a surprise Gwen Stefani visual album on iTunes tomorrow.