On the day that many are looking to a future full of untapped potential (or sleeping off hangovers from the night before), Gwen Stefani took a trip into the past with her new music video for “Let Me Reintroduce Myself.” In the visual, released on Jan. 1, 2021, Gwen, 50, revisits some of her most iconic looks, including outfits from her No Doubt days, the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards and more.
Gwen first gave fans a hint that something “fun” was “coming your way” on Dec. 28. She shared a closeup of her waist, a “BANANAS” belt-buckle in full view. It was a direct reference to her “Hollaback Girl” song (“Let me hear you say, this sh-t is bananas / B-A-N-A-N-A-S”) that she also calls back on “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” (“Homegrown ingredients, that’s what made you mess with me / In the first place, ’cause you know I’m like organic / And it tastes great, I already gave you bananas”).
something fun coming your way… 01.01.2021 🕐🌟 gx
— Gwen Stefani (@gwenstefani) December 30, 2020
“I honestly … never really was planning to do new music,” she said when speaking with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, shortly after she released the song. “I mean, I fantasized about it, but I was also like… I don’t know. I always think about artists that I loved growing up, and I think I just want to listen to the songs that I like that they did. And that’s nostalgic for me. I don’t really go seek new music from them. So, something about that made me feel like, why should I do it? I love writing songs. So then I was like, someone had sent me a song that I didn’t know they wrote it for me. I thought that they… I never get songs sent to me, just so you know.”
“I got sent a song and I actually liked it. And I was like, ‘I love this song,’” continued Gwen. “I was like, ‘Shoot. I’ll just go record it, and just see how it sounds.’ And they were like, ‘No, they wrote it for you.’ …So, then I was like, ‘I want to write with them.’ So, I wrote a song with them right before quarantine, the song called ‘Cry Happy.’ …So then we all went into lockdown [during which] I got to go in and record a song. And that was just a flame to the fire. I just was like, ‘I don’t even care if nobody hears this, I got to write some songs.’ So it was almost like I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t think until I started writing.”
As for a possible new albumin 2021?” Even though the record definitely… I don’t know. I mean, I say, ‘The record,’ meaning I have probably 20 songs,” she told Zane. “And I never expected to be writing, but it was in there. And it’s been really, really incredible. I mean, there’s just nothing else that I do in my life, and I have done so many things, that makes me feel ignited the way a new song makes me feel.”
