Thursday 12/10: Gwen Stefani—"Let Me Reintroduce Myself"
Today, we share our thoughts on the reintroduction of Gwen Stefani.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc
Today, we share our thoughts on the reintroduction of Gwen Stefani.
Gwen Stefani—"Let Me Reintroduce Myself"
Eric Bennett:
Forgive me for bringing up SNL, but it’s necessary for my point. Back when Kristen Wiig was a regular cast member, one of her characters lived within the world’s worst vintage game show, Secret Word. The character, Mindy Grayson, was a past-her-prime stage actress. When she wasn’t giving away the answers, she’d go on painful tangents about her past roles, imploring the audience to remember them. Gwen Stefani’s latest struggle of a comeback single reeks of the same kind of desperation.
Few things scream “remember the good times? Let’s go back!” more than referencing a hit from over a decade ago, as she does here with a banana mention. Rather than put forth work approaching the quality of “Hollaback Girl,” we get reheated, reggae-adjacent beats and a title that feels like being clubbed over the head with the biggest hammer on earth. I almost have to give her credit, naming your comeback single “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” takes some amount of bravery. Stefani doubly claims amongst the poor writing that this is “not a comeback,” and that she’s been here all along.
This begs the question: where? On The Voice, sure. On tabloids, sure. But I can't think of any 2000’s pop star who had less staying power than Gwen Stefani. The sliver of my being that’s not a skeptic wants to think that she knows this song isn’t good, and that she’s just a good performer doing her best with subpar material. Then I remember this is the same person who, in 2019, had the chance to own up to her problematic behavior, and declined. Makes it hard to project wisdom. This song is bad, but you should still give it a listen because it’s the kind of bad that just confuses you, and maybe makes you laugh. Or just go listen to “Cool,” with it’s amazingly 2005 video. Whichever.
Eli Enis:
This is essentially Gwen Stefani’s version of Hillary Clinton’s “I’m back” speech in 2014. Like Eric said, the song is not good. It’s a really corny dub-pop song and for someone who’s ostensibly trying to claim her relevance, making a dub-pop song in 2020 that pretty much sounds like an album track from her early 2000’s material is. . .nah. The shoutout to bananas gives the game away. It’s the same, “hey remember that thing?”, reference to her heyday that fellow washed 2000’s act 3OH!3 did on their latest single (a blatant callback to “Don’t Trust Me” in the first phrase).
I have an unsettling feeling that there’s a direct pipeline being constructed between pop music and “only 2000s kids will remember”-style millennial clickbait. Where the song itself and their comeback is supposed to elicit the same reaction as someone posting a photo of Stefani from 2005 with the caption “We didn’t deserve her.” Except here, Stefani RT’s the photo and says, “Thanks ya’ll!”, which makes me inclined to say say, “Oh, you poor thing!” Honestly, it must be really challenging to be an icon for two decades, fall off really hard, and have seemingly no creative ability to adapt to contemporary trends. I genuinely do empathize with that.
But at the same time, we all deserve better than: “twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty vision / that’s a hundred but I’m not that great at long division”. Stefani trying to make a joke about how bad at math she is but flubbing that and revealing that she doesn’t actually know the difference between multiplication and division is the 2020 equivalent of Lil Yachty rapping “she blow that dick like a cello” because he didn’t know what a cello was. “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” is almost quaint in its total inability to stand on its own two feet. It sure ain’t no “Hollaback Girl”.
the song is a stinker. Instead of acknowledging the gap in output in the title she should have just released *checks notes* a good song that makes people forget she's apparently been out of the spotlight. but the voice billboards I see all over LA are probably doing a better job at that
Have anyone of you read or listen the interviews of the song release? Especially with those who has really followed her career and music evolution. I mean you can hate the song, music is subjective but at least do a little bit of research before commenting on her career and her music.