The Sweet Escape is the second solo studio album by American singer Gwen Stefani, released on December 1, 2006, by Interscope Records.

[7] The album's working title was Candyland, sharing its name with an unreleased track that has only been looped via her fashion show soundtrack.

"[9] Stefani's appearance on the album cover is inspired by that of Elvira Hancock, a cocaine addict portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1983 film Scarface.

During the shoot, Stefani saw her No Doubt bandmate Tony Kanal and his girlfriend, who had on a "long, peach, polyester [late-1970s style] dress".

It was this dress that got Stefani thinking "about Michelle Pfeiffer and how amazingly styled she was [in Scarface]", which in turn drew inspiration for the cover.

[10] The pair of oversized sunglasses on the album cover is intended to represent her "guarded exterior", and the other images symbolize her various emotions.

"[14] The album opens with "Wind It Up", which features fanfares and samples from The Sound of Music's "The Lonely Goatherd", having "material-minded lyrics touting her fashion line and her shape.

"[16] "Orange County Girl" is an autobiographical rap song,[15] where Stefani shows how she is "grateful for her success while recalling the simpler days of her youth.

"[18] "Fluorescent" features Angelo Moore on saxophone,[22] and was compared to the works of Madonna and Prince,[15] while "Breakin' Up" has influences of hip hop[21] and electronica[13] and it is "a breakup song built on a dying cell phone metaphor.

[17][21] "U Started It" was noted for having "lilting melody, silken harmonies, and pizzicato strings",[15] while the final track, "Wonderful Life", was named a Depeche Mode-style synth ballad about how much she misses her first love and how the person had a profound impact on her.

[24] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote, "From the stilted production to the fashion fetish, all the way down to her decision to rap on far too much of the album, all the dance-pop here seems like a pose.

"[15] Alex Miller of NME was more emphatic, dubbing it "this year's bargain-bin fodder", and stated that "the majority of this record serves only to bury what made Gwen Stefani unique in the first place.

"[26] At Entertainment Weekly, Sia Michel noted that the album "has a surprisingly moody, lightly autobiographical feel" but that "Stefani isn't convincing as a dissatisfied diva".

Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine opined that "[h]istory will likely view The Sweet Escape as a retread of Stefani's well-received solo debut, but it shares that album's general inconsistency and, thus, its peaks and valleys".

"[23] The New York Times' Jon Pareles commented that Stefani "rebooks some of the same producers and repeats some of the old tricks with less flair", adding that "superficiality is more fun when it doesn't get so whiny.

"[14] Caroline Sullivan disagreed in her review for The Guardian, in which she stated that although some of the songs date back to the 2003 writing sessions for L.A.M.B., "generally The Sweet Escape feels minty-fresh.

[32] The album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on June 25, 2007,[33] and had sold 1,733,000 copies in the United States by February 2016.

[35] In the United Kingdom, The Sweet Escape debuted at number 26 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 33,632 copies.

[45] The main feature were usage of various props such as a prison for Stefani's opening act, a six-piece band and a large multimedia screen in the backdrop showing videos and animations.

"[47] In April 2007, Akon, one of the tour's opening acts, drew criticism for engaging in on-stage dirty dancing with a 14-year-old girl at a club in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, as part of a fake contest.