Crash

"Crash" is a song by American singer and songwriter Gwen Stefani from her debut solo studio album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004). Written by Stefani and No Doubt bandmate Tony Kanal, the song uses automobile metaphors to describe a relationship, and it received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Not originally planned as a single, the song was released as the album's sixth and final single on January 24, 2006, during Stefani's pregnancy. Background and writing Stefani had been working on her solo project with Linda Perry. The two penned several songs, including lead single "What You Waiting For?", but Stefani found the process difficult, commenting, "It's humiliating and intimidating even if they're sweet and excited, because you're drowning in their creativity." When the two began working on a song about a deceased friend of Stefani's, Perry began writing the lyrics and Stefani, feeling that Perry was encroaching on her territory, broke down and left. Stefani's No Doubt bandmate Tony Kanal invited her to his house so that the two could go out with friends. When she arrived, however, Kanal surprised her by playing some tracks on which he had been working and revealed that he had prepared some for Stefani. Although Stefani had wanted to work with Kanal, she was concerned that his work would not fit with her dance-oriented album; however, she called it her "favorite track that [she had] written so far", and the two worked on the track, modeling it after hip hop trio Salt-n-Pepa. Critical reception "Crash" received mixed reviews from critics. In a review for The New York Times, Kelefa Sanneh noted that the track "successfully conjure[s] up the infectious spirit of early Madonna." David Browne of Entertainment Weekly called the song "a pricey retro fashion blurb" on which Stefani appears as "an old-school, gold-chained rapper". Krissi Murison of NME disagreed, calling it one of "the best bits of the decade of decadence" and referring to it as "Salt-N-Pepa's cartoon rap". Jason Shawhan of About.com stated that the song's "great Narada Michael Walden bleepy synth noises [...] pop out of the mix like the car stereo just decided to sing along", and Jennifer Nine of Yahoo! Music commented that the track had "icy-cool schoolyard sass".