Reviews of new pop, country/roots, jazz and classical releases.

Pop:

GWEN STEFANI "Love, Angel, Music, Baby" (Interscope, 3 { stars)

So what if Madonna can't start up a dance party anymore? Another platinum-blond auteur is taking up the slack. The excellently odd "Love, Angel, Music, Baby" is everything a first-time solo turn should be.

While maintaining her essential sassy-girl identity, it allows moonlighting No Doubt front woman Gwen Stefani to stretch beyond her rock band's limitations. She crosses over to club land with production by Dr. Dre (on "Rich Girl," a collaboration with Eve) as well as the Neptunes, Dallas Austin, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and others.

The percolating beats of "The Real Thing," brewed by Nellee Hooper, bring to mind the Material Mum's "Holiday," and throughout Stefani demonstrates a knack for appropriating pop-culture phenomena and putting them to her own good use.

Case in point: "Harajuku Girls," her ode to the quartet of Japanese fashionistas who appear in the video to the album's motivational first single, "What You Waiting For?"

For continuity's sake, No Doubt bassist (and former Stefani boyfriend) Tony Kanal holds his own with production on two songs, but "Love, Angel" is most deeply rewarding when at its most admirably eccentric. Not surprisingly, two of those instances come courtesy of OutKast's Andre 3000, who assumes his Johnny Vulture persona on the teen romance "Bubble Hot Electric," and serves up a plea for racial harmony on the hyperspeed "Long Way to Go."