Bouquet

About

During the long and idle months of the pandemic, Gwen Stefani spent more time than usual at her now-husband Blake Shelton’s ranch. “During COVID, we were there so much that we actually got to see the season,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “We started seeing the wildflower, seeing what was in Oklahoma that we never saw before.” Transplanting hundreds of irises they found on the ranch that year was a project she would normally be too busy for, but now they were doing it as a family. The pop-rock queen had felt the itch to write new music for year, but had struggled to find a sound that reflected where she was now. Then came “Purple Irise,” a sweet pop-country duet with Shelton that lets go of insecurities and goes all in on love. The seed was planted for <i>Bouquet</i>, Stefani’s fifth solo album. While making the warm and unabashedly enamored <i>Bouquet</i>, Stefani found herself echoing the music she grew up on in the ’70. “I always picture myself in the back of the station wagon and my parents driving to church, and all the great soft rock that was on,” she say. “Anything from Hall & Oates to Chicago to Fleetwood Mac.” Garden symbolism abounds: Tears of past heartbreaks water the soil, yielding fields of late-blooming flower. Despite the cowboy hat she dons on the cover, it’s not quite a country album, but some nods to ranch life sneak in. “I drive you crazy, you drive the truck,” she sings on the title track, and on “Marigold,” she recalls dressing like a cowgirl to catch Shelton’s eye upon first meeting. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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