Blake And Gwen Are Destroying Each Other's Careers
As of this writing, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are officially "a thing." While their personal lives may be thriving right now, their professional ones may be suffering from all the publicity and focus on their relationship.
No Doubt and Gwen Stefani are drifting apart
Is Stefani forgetting her roots? Billboard broke the news in February 2016 that all three of her No Doubt bandmates formed a new "supergroup" called Dreamcar, enlisting AFI frontman Davey Havok to do vocals instead of the woman who broke them into the mainstream. What's more, both Stefani and the rest of No Doubt have different managers now.
The announcement about Dreamcar—which even Stefani admitted to Jimmy Kimmel she "first heard about on the internet"—came just before Stefani dropped her third solo album, This is What the Truth Feels Like in March 2016.
While No Doubt drummer Adrian Young may have sowed some seeds of...doubt by telling Billboard in 2015, "We're in a little bit of limbo right now, so we'll see where that takes us," bassist Tony Kanal cleared things up with Rolling Stone in 2017, sort of. "No Doubt will always be there; we've experienced things together that no one else will ever experience with us. It's a family that will always be there, and the music we've created will always be there. We're just going through a period where everybody's kind of doing their thing."
Stefani's songwriting has suffered
Let's be clear: "Make Me Like You" is adorable bubblegum pop. There's nothing wrong with the standout single from Stefani's 2016 solo effort, until you compare it with her earlier discography. A heartbroken Stefani is the best kind, as demonstrated with both the lyricism and chart positions of "Don't Speak" and "Simple Kind of Life." Even "The Sweet Escape" had undertones of romantic discord.
But What The Truth Feels Like, her first solo album in 10 years, didn't exactly wow critics. Though Pitchfork praised the track "Make Me Like You" as "a disco confection that captures the deliciously complicated feeling of falling hard when you least expected," the publication described the rest of the tracks by saying, "musically, they are unremarkable." Yikes!
Blake Shelton isn't part of a real power couple anymore
wen Stefani is a star in her own right, but part of Shelton's appeal to his country fans was his then-adorable marriage to fellow country superstar Miranda Lambert. The country Twittersphere had a literal meltdown in the wake of their divorce announcement, with one person even going so far as to declare, "Now that Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert are getting divorced I can say with 100% confidence that love does not exist," according to CNN. It also doesn't help things that since Shelton and Lambert's split, Lambert has been racking up awards for her country projects.
Meanwhile, Stefani's star has faded over the last 10 years as both she and Shelton essentially traded their once-lauded music careers for the reality TV celebrity of their judging roles on The Voice. With the Shelton/Lambert fanbase having to choose sides, and the Shelton/Stefani fanbase split over whether or not they've waded into strange territory with this cross-genre romance, it's safe to assume Shelton lost more than a few followers through it all.
Stefani's fanbase is dwindling
How many hardcore Stefani fans do you still know? As talented as the blonde bombshell is, her core numbers are shrinking. Fans used to love her out-of-the-box thinking, her creative and clever lyrics, and her high-concept videos, but since she's strayed from her formula of not having a formula in favor of chasing mainstream musical trends, fans have strayed from her. This was no more apparent than during a 2016 show in Charlotte for her This is What the Truth Feels Like tour.
According to The Kansas City Star, Stefani didn't come close to selling out the PNC Music Pavilion and only truly connected with the "three-quarters-full venue" after she encouraged everyone to fill in the unsold seats up front and performed old hits from her No Doubt days. To make matters worse, later in the show, Stefani reportedly attempted to "mingle with fans and sign autographs," until she quickly got disgusted and said, "Up close you guys are really, really smelly, and really sweaty... I'm out of here. Gross," before returning to the stage.
Um, Mariah Carey just called; she wants her diva moves back.
Stefani's style is changing for the worse
Part of Stefani's appeal is her signature style: blonde hair, red lipstick, rocker glam. Since shacking up with Shelton, she's adopted a much more casual look that she never employed before. She's now often seen in sweatpants, trucker caps, and camo. If that's who she truly is, great, but there is no possible excuse for the time she was snapped wearing a pair of checkerboard Vans with his face printed on them. Someone should seriously go check Anna Wintour's pulse right now.
If Stefani is adapting her character to mesh better with the man she's dating, it's not only unhealthy for their relationship, it can also hurt her image as a fashion designer. As charming as Shelton is, he's not known as a fashion plate, and that can sting when it's time to sell pieces for her L.A.M.B. line.
Some fans are sick of the PDA
Stefani and Shelton are very public with their romance, to the point that cynics think they're simply using one another for a spike in The Voice ratings. Whether or not their love is genuine, plenty of people are getting tired of seeing them together and hearing about their every move. Even hardcore fans have said that, at times, their relationship has overshadowed the whole show.
Of course, social media has also weighed in. Some fans are accusing Stefani of too often blasting her Instagram and Snapchat with the couple's PDA. "Let this circus be over already. Not buying it," one commenter quipped, according to Enstars.
Shelton told Rolling Stone that all of the tabloid coverage "must mean my career is doing pretty well." That's a glass-half-full outlook considering one reviewer described Shelton's far from sold-out March 2017 San Jose show as "one of the more boring evenings of live music in recent memory."