Gwen Stefani’s ‘The Sweet Escape’ Joins The Spotify Billions Club

It’s a sweet achievement for “The Sweet Escape.” Gwen Stefani’s 2006 Akon collab has joined the Spotify Billions Club, having surpassed a billion plays on the world’s largest streaming platform. It’s Stefani’s first solo track to join the Billions Club, though she previously entered as a member of No Doubt with “Don’t Speak.”

“The Sweet Escape” was the title track from Stefani’s 2006 solo album, the follow-up to her smash 2004 debut Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Upon its release as a single in late 2006, the song soared to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. A year later, it finished as the third biggest song of 2007 according to Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 ranking. In a career full of hits, it’s one of the biggest—a status certified by its arrival in the Billions Club.

Stefani co-wrote “The Sweet Escape” with its two producers, Akon and Giorgio Tuinfort. When Interscope’s Jimmy Iovine recruited Akon to work on the record, Akon surveyed Stefani’s output across No Doubt and observed that nothing in her solo catalog so far tapped into the spirit of her work with No Doubt. That led to the creation of “The Sweet Escape,” the producers’ attempt to find common ground between the band’s aesthetic and solo Stefani.

“This record puts me on the yellow-brick road to the No Doubt record I might do. I can smell it,” Stefani told MTV at the time. “‘Sweet Escape’ and some other melodies remind me of the No Doubt feeling.” Though it would in fact be another six years before another No Doubt album arrived with 2012’s Push and Shove, “The Sweet Escape” was far more than a holdover for Stefani fans. The doo-wop-influenced track was nominated for a Grammy and acclaimed by outlets like AllMusic Guide, which called it “irresistible.” Judging by all those streams, it’s a description that holds up two decades later.

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