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Gavin Rossdale forces his lack of talent on us in his solo cd, Wanderlust.

I don’t want to make any bones about it. In preparation for writing this review, I brought out my thesaurus to figure out how many different ways I could say that this CD sucked. To say it is bad is simply not enough; dissatisfactory, inadequate and inferior help somewhat. Mediocre is a good word for the CD’s high points, sub-par and unsatisfactory don’t even begin to cover it. Foul and putrid come close, and yet it simply does not convey the way Gavin Rossdale’s lyrics are offensively stupid to the intellect, the way the music does nothing to speak to the auditory pleasures.

I was in high school when Bush’s first album, Sixteen Stone came out. I admit that I liked it; I owned the cd, and praised MTV for putting it on their collection CD Buzz Bin along with the likes of Radiohead and White Zombie. But I grew up, and though those songs hold some nostalgic and familial fondness for me, they don’t have the same ring of greatness that they did to a sixteen year old me.

While listening to this album in preparation for my review, I was surprised how agitated it made me. Not because the lyrics and music convey a sense of anger, but out of just how abysmally bad it is. Horrendous, lousy, pathetic, wretched – and I’m just describing track one, “Can’t Stop the World”.  “The Skin I’m In” gives the sense that he’s trying to say something with his music, but it’s just so awful that I really don’t care.

“This is Happiness” is repulsive to the ears with the clashing chords and grating noise that is the guitar work. “Future World” features verses that attempt to go back to Bush’s string of conscious lyrics, but it fails horribly. “Love Remains the Same” brings the CD up to mediocre, but in this wasteland of a CD, it feels like an oasis in the middle of the Sahara. With the song “Beauty in the Beast” he attempts to be clever, but a man who once gave up professional soccer because he couldn’t do drugs and play shouldn’t even try.

The true tragedy of Rossdale’s album is that it clearly shows Bush was his glory days. Perhaps he put out an album desperately trying to escape the title of Mr. Gwen Stefani, but in all honesty, he should just accept his role as baby daddy to little Kingston (who, I’m sure, makes better music loading his diaper). Stay with your random roles in films like Constantine, Mr. Stefani; and if you need anything else to enrich your life, perhaps Kevin Federline can give you some tips – he’s certainly made a financially lucrative life out of being the lesser of a married couple.

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