BBC Learning English The Music Show Gwen Stefani
MUSIC - MADNESS - BAGGY TROUSERS
Callum: Hello, I’m Callum Robertson and this is the Music Show from BBC Learning English dot com.
In the programme we today we learn about the connection between British Ska acts from the 1970’s and 80’s, such as Madness, who you can hear now, and current chart topping American female soloist, Gwen Stefani.
MUSIC - GWEN STEFANI - WHAT YOU WAITING FOR
Callum: That’s Gwen Stefani and her 2004 single release, What you waiting for, from her first solo album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
Her second solo album, Sweet Escape, was released in 2006 and singles from it have had a lot of success in the British charts. Although now known as a solo artist Gwen Stefani was first successful back in the 1990s with the group No Doubt.
She is married to British musician Gavin Rossdale and as such spends a lot of time here in the UK. On one of her recent visits she was interviewed for the BBC by Jo Wiley who asked her what she liked about England. She mentions one thing which is very different from Los Angeles, where she also spends a lot of time. She says it’s something that those of us who live in London take for granted. To take something for granted. This expression means that you don’t really appreciate how good something is because it’s there all the time, you
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don’t think it’s anything particularly special because you expect it to be there. You take it for granted. So listen out now, what is it that we take for granted in London that they don’t have in L.A. and also what’s one thing she doesn’t like about London?
GWEN STEFANI I think it’s really fun because of the parks, you guys take all this stuff for granted, just so you know, but it’s like we don’t have any of the beautiful parks you do in LA so just to be able to like, walk across the street and just walk in the park everyday and just the whole, everything about London really, except for maybe the greyness
Callum: Gwen Stefani really appreciates the parks and green spaces in London. This is what she says we take for granted. And it’s true, London is a very green city and there are many parks, even in the centre of the city you are never far away from a green space. And the one thing she mentions she doesn’t like, well, that was the greyness, the greyness, a comment about the weather. STING
Callum: This is the Music Show and today we’re talking about Gwen Stefani. At the start of the programme we heard a bit of music from the band Madness. What’s their connection to Gwen Stefani? The BBC’s Jo Wiley asked Gwen which bands she really liked when she was at school. She mentions Madness and which other band and also, why does she say they were so important?
GWEN STEFANI Madness and the specials Have you ever met any of those people? Suggs and Terry Hall? I have actually, I would not be sitting here if it was not for Madness and Specials and those guys because that was all the music that started No Doubt.
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Callum: As well as Madness she mentions the Specials, another Band at the forefront of the British wave of Ska music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Here is a taster of the Specials, with Rudy
MUSIC – SPECIALS - RUDY
Callum: Gwen says that she would not be sitting here today if it hadn’t been for bands such as Madness and the Specials because they were a very big influence on her band No Doubt. And you can certainly hear that influence with this track from the No Doubt album Tragic Kingdom, Spiderwebs
MUSIC – NO DOUBT - SPIDERWEBS
Callum: No Doubt were known as a third wave Ska band. Third wave as it was the third time that Ska had been a popular style of modern music. Ska originated in the Caribbean island of Jamaica in the late 1950’s and 60’s. It became popular in the UK in the late 1970s and 80’s, the second wave of Ska. And in the 1990’s band like No Doubt in the US led the third wave.
That’s all from today’s music show, to end here is the title track from Gwen Stefani’s current album, The Sweet Escape.
MUSIC – GWEN STEFANI – SWEET ESCAPE
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