First up to the plate is Gwen Stefani - Love Angel Music Baby

Well, it's a perfectly decent pop album, full of pretty nondescript, unchallenging tracks.

Which is a shame because I liked her No Doubt era. There's moments that stand out, like "Danger Zone", which is playing right now, and surprisingly "Rich Girl" which didn't phase me when it was in the charts, but actually caught my interest on the album.

Other than that, it's slightly soulful pop-by-numbers standard fare. I got the impression there's some holding back going on. We're seeing the softer side of pop-rock princess Stefani here. The power pop she belted out as part of No Doubt is a million miles away from what she delivers on here, with the notable exception of "What you waiting for".

That opening track promises more of what we've heard before but that gets scuppered three tracks later with the mid-90's-esque ballad "Cool". From then on we get tracks which pretty much blend into each other in blandness, with just a nod to something soulful which is probably the only reason I kept listening.

And the acoustic bonus track version of "The real thing" is far superior to the synthed up regular track.

I think it might be a keeper, that one - but only just.