This is What the Truth Feels Like
| Gwen Stefani
This is What the Truth Feels Like
This Is What the Truth Feels Like is the third studio album by American singer Gwen Stefani. It was released on March 18, 2016, by Interscope Records. Initially, the album was scheduled to be released in December 2014 with Stefani working with a handful of high-profile producers, and Benny Blanco serving as executive producer. However, after the underperformance of her 2014 singles and the writer's block Stefani suffered, she did not feel comfortable curating an album and scrapped the whole record in favor of starting again. The album's release was scheduled after Stefani hinted at it on her Twitter account. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Gwen Stefani's first solo album in a decade finds her keeping up with new pop sounds while writing from a new perspective: the quintessential divorcee, fresh off a messy split.
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Rolling Stone
On her first solo album in a decade, the enduring star rocks some bubbly optimism.
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COS
Rather than the music, the pop singer-songwriter has become the story herself.
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NME
he No Doubt singer deals with her divorce from Gavin Rossdale with glossy pop and nonchalant swagger.
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The Atlantic
Ultimately, the album succeeds and fails not on the amount of truth involved, but the amount of musical inspiration involved, which is mild.
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Drowned in Sound
This Is What the Truth Feels Like is half-baked in places and perhaps a little too safe in others, but it’s really, properly genuine, and if she doesn’t leave it a decade next time, Stefani might still be able to make a great pop record. It’s in there, somewhere.
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The Guardian
But the truth is that this feels like little more than careerist chart fodder.
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Slant
The nakedness with which Stefani assesses the ruins of her relationship is stark.
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Financial Times
The collection strikes the right balance between maturity and the Day-Glo pop with which the singer found solo success.
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A Bit of Pop Music
This is a relatable ‘break up and falling in love again’ album and as long as Gwen does Gwen, she still sounds believable and cool, even after ten years!
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AV Club
While the album has its flaws, it is undeniably compelling when its glimmers of vulnerability push to the forefront.
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The Daily
“This Is What the Truth Feels Like” is made up of polished, electro-pop fueled tracks ready for today’s mainstream music scene.
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Spin
t’s not that one Gwen is “boring” and the other is “too much.” It’s that separating them as strictly as Truth does disintegrates the alchemy of her appeal — in creating a schism between her punkish pep and her new-wave nostalgia, it leaves the former stranded and the latter generic.
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Gigwise
Gwen Stefani has often used music as an emotional release, and on this new album, she’s done an Adele. This Is What The Truth Feels Like she tells her side of her breakup with husband, Gavin Rossdale in the most truthful way imaginable.
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Idolator
she bucks modern radio to deliver what’s essentially a folk song scored with an acoustic guitar and galloping beat.
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The National Arts & Culture
This Is What the Truth Feels Like is catchy but doesn’t rise above average.
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EW
she wears her girlishness on her own terms, and here it feels truer—and sounds stronger—than it has in years.
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The Independent
I think Stefani did an amazing job in writing from her heart and exposing her soul to us. “This Is What the Truth Feels Like” is a definite 5-star album that you must hear!
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All Music
This Is What the Truth Feels Like manages to be as fleet, giddy, and charming as Gwen Stefani ever is.
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Los Angeles Times
It’s full of pride.
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People
This captivating pop album won’t let you down, whether you’re looking for an uplift after a breakup, a hooky addition to your playlist – or, perhaps, a peep into Stefani’s new relationship.
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13th Floor
This the album feels as packaged as a series of car commercials; slick, well-produced but soulless.
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Backseat Mafia
This is a much more mature collection of songs than she’s ever released before. On the first few listens it doesn’t seem to stand up against her past work. But after a few listens it did start to grab me, and songs that I previously hadn’t even noticed seemed to stand out.
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Richer Sounds
All told though this is a very good effort for a singer who’s been away for a while as she could very easily not have come back to her solo career at all.
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Angies Angle
Gwen took her time to carefully craft her new album This Is What The Truth Looks Like, her most personal work to date.
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Hot Press
Stefani sometimes feels like a passenger on her own record, her pointed vocal style often at odds with the lush production. She may have gone through personal hell over the pasts several years – but that’s no reason to usher her fans into pop purgatory, which is kinda what she does here.
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Red Brick
Gwen Stefani has turned her pain into art and as a result, has made the most essential pop album in 2016 so far.
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Alternative Control
This is What the Truth Feels Like belongs in downtown Stamford on a Saturday night — “Me Without You” would be a perfect anthem for newly single ladies in their best club clothes. Overall, the album has a relaxed vibe.
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Entertainment Focus
This Is What The Truth Feels Like is proper, pure grown-up pop music that everyone can enjoy.
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Uinterview
This Is What the Truth Feels Like seems like the kind of work of art that is shared with the world out of necessity. In and of itself, it may not have as profound an influence at least musically, but its value ultimately lies with the story it tells. Stefani’s return is easy to listen and relate to, but what the record has in energy, candidness and narrative, it lacks in musical inventiveness.
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Metro Weekly
There is a definite sense of vulnerability here, but most of the time it comes off as half-hearted, hidden behind the polished front, never quite willing to go deeper than the surface of the themes it explores. While Truth can’t be criticized for a lack of sincerity, it’s held back by its uncertainty of what exactly it wants to be.
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Poparazzi
It’s refreshing to see Stefani use her painful experiences to inspire encouraging thoughts and emotions while still embracing and acknowledging that sadness is part of coping and recovering from a broken heart.
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The Times
This Is What the Truth Feels Like, her third solo album, is just plain bad.
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Cryptic Rock
Stefani never disappoints in her music and This is What the Truth Feels Like allows many listeners to relate.
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Style & Life by Susana
This new album of Gwen’s is the quintessential divorcee album (which has always been an effective and normal strategy for selling albums) therefore very fresh from a messy and unfortunate public, messy split.
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Altwire
All artists have not-so-great songs on albums, but not all artists have the ability to take the awful songs into a deeper level of embarrassing. So please, just stick with tracks 1-6, shuffle in 11, enjoy the album art and call it a day. We all want to keep on loving you Gwen.
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Stuff
it's just not the Gwen Stefani I was hoping for, it's a somewhat dulled version of her, one which lacks the punch and attitude that made us fall in love with her in the 90s.
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The Chronicle
“This Is What the Truth Feels Like” is a solid effort from Stefani after a nine-year solo hiatus. Stefani’s vocal delivery and production on the album outweighs the repetitious lyrical content and constant snaps.
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Spectrum Culture
With each of these, and the album as a whole, it occurs to us that perhaps what Cobain wrote is true: it is fun to lose and pretend. Because that’s what Stefani does here: she pretends that these emotions are hers, that the feelings portrayed in the songs belong to someone just like us.
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Press Play OK
this is her account of truth, her confessional record, and it feels like a catharsis that needed to happen – we just hope that now she’s got it out of her system, we can get back the fiery Gwen Stefani we know and love.
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woofd
Gwen decided to turn something miserable into something beautiful. The result is This Is What the Truth Feels Like, a raw and unapologetically honest album about love.
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A Little Desert Apartment
Her new album? On FIRE. The Gwen Stefani that we all know and love is alive and well in her newest album, "This Is What The Truth Feels Like".
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Rawckus Magazine
the shining pop confection that this album is, often creates a disconnect in the message Stefani is trying to convey. The result is a lovely, if not always emotionally resonant album.
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My Review Love
I like every single track in this album and there is not even one song, that I could skip.
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US Magazine
Gwen Stefani is in a good place. Loaded with lines such as “now you’re all I see” and “thank you, for saving me,” her third solo disc is primarily one giant pledge of devotion to new love Blake Shelton.
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Evigshed
This Is What The Truth Feels Like seems to be simply a form of art therapy for Gwen Stefani with no real risk-taking musically. Good but deja-vu.
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The Soundboard
It’s fair to say though, that the title of this album is a lie, because if this was what the truth felt like – perfectly moulded, filtered, scrubbed and cleaned pop music – the whole of today’s music scene would be a pretty miserable place.
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Evening Standard
The No Doubt singer revives her solo career with less wackiness than before.
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LMT Online
“This Is What the Truth Feels Like” is a cohesive pop album from an artist who still isn’t done sharing her unique style, point of view and her truth.
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The Bulletin
“This is What the Truth Feels Like” lacks originality.
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Album Confessions
The record comes off as an honest form of self-therapy, maybe that's thanks to the work of Trantner and Michaels, but ultimately it seems Stefani's heart made its way into the production.
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Bustle
Number one or not, one thing is certain: the oeuvre of Gwen Stefani is a timeless treasure.
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Up Front NY
It was very interesting listening to so many of the songs. Not only did I relate to many of the songs, but many of the songs seemed to match what I have heard about Gwen and her love life from being broken hearted to finding happiness with a new man.
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Media Hype
A triumphant pop return for Gwen Stefani, a must have album for Gwen fans and general fans of pop.
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Beacon Journal
Gwen Stefani’s new solo album is fun and catchy: the hooks are cute and likable, the beats will make your head bop and her voice is calm and cool.
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Life with Kathy
l. I think it’s an amazing album to listen to when you just want to sit down and relax and listen to some music.
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Thomas Bleach
This is a really strong pop album that welcomes the return of Gwen Stefani back into your arms and directly into your ears for a pleasurable listening session. Her growth is extensive with the lyrics so honest, heartbreaking and just classic Gwen.
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Eccentric Electic Woman
I love this album. The lyrics are refreshingly truthful and emotional. I love the music and Gwen's great voice. I am so glad Gwen spilled her heart in song for all to hear.
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Shooting Stars Mag
While the songs on this album aren’t especially unique, they still have a great sound and most important of all, they feel real and personal and that’s something I love in an artist’s music.
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The Advocate
The 12 tracks are an OK batch of pop tunes that don’t reveal much about Stefani, the singer or person.
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Jet Fuel Review Blog
This Is What the Truth Feels Like is a return to form for the 46-year-old singer. Stefani has never been more personal and carefree, as displayed in the funky album highlight “Make Me Like You.” And with an album like Truth, I’d say Gwen makes it pretty easy to like her.
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The Korea Herald
Gwen Stefani’s solo album is catchy, but basic.
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Music Related Junk
These simplistic lyrics might not matter much if the music made up for it throughout, but after the first couple tracks the beats start to progressively get less exciting too, so that in the end Gwen’s vocals really are the only thing driving the album.
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Panther Print
Stefani has reintroduced the concept of pop being something other than garbage and that it can in fact have a meaning to it. With the grief finally off her chest and dealt with, it’s clear Stefani feels better than she ever has before, and I am digging the new and improved artist.
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Slightly Overcaffeinated
This is What the Truth Feels Like is a fun album with truthful lyrics that longtime Gwen Stefani fans will appreciate. The dance/pop feel makes it a perfect album to put on when you are cleaning up after your kiddos or washing your husband’s stinky gym clothes.
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Newsday
Turning her public pain into a stunningly personal and musical comeback.
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SFGate
The album is peak Stefani, at once embarrassingly confessional, endearingly wide-eyed and, apart from a few overreaching cuts (we’re looking at you, “Red Flag” and “Naughty”), irresistible through and through.
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Momma Rambles
You can tell she was really channeling her heartbreak from her split with Gavin Rossdale, and channeling her energy into her music.
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Freetail Therapy
It’s not my type of music, the lyrics are shallow and hold little to no meaning; for the most part. I couldn’t really tell a difference from one song to the next, they almost all sounded exactly alike, except for “Red Flag” which was just SO HORRENDOUS that I felt physically ill from listening to it.
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Raising Three Savvy Ladies
This album reminds me of my favorites from No Doubt but with a new updated twist to it from 2016 and beyond.
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Strange Daze Indeed
Gwen has said that this album is her most intimate and personal. It’s real. Honest. And ultimately, joyful.
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Traveller Soul
This was like a breath of fresh air on the first day of spring and it made me laugh on a few occasions. She can transmit so much energy and that’s the power of music!
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Sam Enjoys & Shares
However, as someone happily in love, all these breakup songs were starting to sound depressing. The good news is there are a few uplifting, fun love songs.
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