Dua Lipa Combines Dancefloor Beats and Effortless Cool on ‘Future Nostalgia’  

Adi Mehta

Since Dua Lipa broke through with 2016’s “Hotter Than Hell,” she has catapulted to the top, becoming a ubiquitous name in pop. Her 2017 self-titled album, spawning such hits as “New Rules,” led to two BRIT awards, including “Best Breakthrough Act.” For her follow up, “Future Nostalgia,” Lipa has taken enormous strides, progressing from relatively generic pop fodder to a distinctive voice and aesthetic. The new songs mine the rich history of dancefloor bangers, excavating lost sounds, and recasting them in high definition, with a decidedly “dancercise” feel, to use Lipa’s own words. Originally scheduled for an April release, the album was leaked a week early, whereupon Lipa decided to go ahead and officially let it out, reasoning that “the thing we need right now is joy.” To that end, the album certainly delivers. 

From the opening moments of the title track, “Future Nostalgia” seems the perfect description. A robot voice and buzzy synth spurs the track on, and at once, the combination of retro dance stylings and contemporary production clicks. The introductory song, like all the others, is festive, neon and colorful. Lipa’s lyrics function as a statement of intent, with lines like “I know you ain’t used to a female alpha” and “Can’t be a rolling stone if you live in a glass house” foreshadowing themes to be further explored. Lipa alternates betweens singing and flirty talking, setting a playful tone that lasts through most of the album. Her slightly awkward, somewhat nasal singing voice, relative to some other comparable pop singers, would be the weak point, if there’s any, as discerning listeners can detect a subtle, limiting reserve in her voice. In due time, however, Lipa turns it to her favor. 

“Don’t Start Now” is a readymade, dance banger with sharp claps and an irresistible bassline that switches between electro pop and pure funk. Lipa indulges in disco sonic machinery — synth strings, house band percussive accents, and all the vocals. Add to the mix vocal stutters, and you have a masterfully curated selection of all things dance. Lines like “Don’t show up / Don’t come out” could hardly be more appropriate in the midst of COVID-19. How did she ever know? At any rate, Lipa has built considerable momentum at this point, and continues to shuttle gracefully between sounds from different decades, tweaked for the present moment. “Cool” is unabashedly ‘80s, with a core synth melody, and abundant reverb. Lipa sounds most convincing in her falsetto, breathy utterances, and surprisingly natural-sounding dips into the lower register. Otherwise, her strained voice can be a bit jarring. For this particular strain of pop, however, the vocal amateurism is an attribute, setting the music apart from the realm of stuffy rigidity that anything done too conventionally well lapses into, instead making it certified cool.

“Physical,” described succinctly by Lipa herself as “flashdance-ey,” nods to Olivia Newton John’s 1981 single of the same name. Although Lipa’s song isn’t a cover, it does exude the same spirit of Newton John’s hit, as do most of the album’s songs, to some extent. Lipa begins, “Common love isn’t for us” — a classic opening line, if there ever were one, before adding, “Don’t you agree?” in the most perfectly suggestive inflection. This escalates to such explicitness as “Who needs to go to sleep / When I got you next to me,” spoken in a hush, and follows a high-energy, sugar rush course. “Levitating” follows, with a melody built from a goofy vocal sample. It’s a bouncy, chirpy number, full of sonic confetti, and Lipa sounds especially in her element, consummately delivering her cascading melodies over the festive backdrop, as a chorus of partiers chimes in on such phrases as “Blast off!”

A refreshing dynamic change comes in “Pretty Please,” which clears the clutter down to a house pulse of crisp kicks and snaps, and a budding bassline, with Lipa sounding more effortlessly cool than ever. By the end, the track has elegantly developed into the usual fare, full of fills and thrills, fitting the overall theme neatly. Wheezing synths enter upon “Hallucinate,” a standout because of its phenomenal production. The trippy sonic treatment would have been equally appropriate for “Levitate.” As the chorus approaches, Lipa sounds as if ascending, even sublimating, until zipped up in a flash just before the drop — it’s almost too perfect. As usual, Lipa is ready with snappy one-liners that make for easy, memorable pop songs, in this case “I hallucinate / When you call my name.”

Another standout is “Love Again” which samples the memorable, violin-heavy segment from White Town’s 1997 hit “Your Woman,” itself sampled from a 1932 jazz tune. Who would have seen this coming? The use of the sample fits the “future nostalgia” theme well. Kitsch string bits blend with the sampled instrumental refrain, and when Lipa sings the chorus line of “You’ve got me in love again,” the music echoes the idea of falling subject, repeatedly, to passions that persist throughout time. The combination of the sentimental violins and the dancefloor punch is priceless. Lipa continues to borrow bits from pop music history, interpolating the bassline from INXS’s “Need You Tonight” on “Break My Heart.” There’s a space disco feel and a grand, sweeping, reverb-soaked chorus, with Lupa in full diva mode, swelling and bursting, whereupon her lone, double tracked vocals fall center, then finally erupt into full band festivity. It’s another instant banger and another instance in which Lipa’s vocal imperfections benefit her, as the strain in her voice conveys the vulnerability suggested by the title. 

An album that began coyly racy gets more unabashedly so on “Good In Bed.” It’s a bit of a sonic detour, as Lipa sounds, in the beginning, strikingly like Amy Winehouse, especially over the doo wop-style pulsing chords in the backdrop. This comes entirely out of the blue, and she pulls it off impeccably. In the chorus, when she sings, “I know it’s really bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,” it’s hard to tell whether her voice is slightly pitched down progressively, or naturally made to sound that way. At any rate, the slightly off-key delivery, for a few fleeting moments, has an exhilaratingly destabilizing effect. At one point, Lipa sings, “We don’t know how to talk / But damn we know how to fuck,” before letting out a laugh that sounds too candid too be affected, as if in acknowledgment of her over-the-top lyrics.

The album comes to a close with “Boys Will Be Boys,” which veers away from the dancey sounds of every other track. Lipa sings, “It’s second nature to walk home / Before the sun goes down.” Quite obviously, the stage is set for a female empowerment anthem, and what better voice for it than that of a self-professed “female alpha?” Unfortunately, Lipa fumbles the opportunity by sinking her teeth too viciously into the opposite sex. She reflects, “When will we stop saying things / ‘Cause they’re all listening / No, the kids ain’t alright” — admittedly a fair point. However, she then proceeds to a chorus of “Boys will be boys / But girls will be women.” Having acknowledged that the kids are listening, she has gone on to vilify a whole gender. It’s a pretty sexist couplet, on its face, and if you have trouble understanding why, just imagine how people would react to the opposite lines — “Girls will be girls / But boys will be men.” Apparently, in 2020, any demographic without a history of superlative privilege gets a free pass to denigrate others. 

If Dua Lipa goes a bit far on her last track, it’s only a minor drawback. As an assertive, six foot-tall pop idol whose music often sounds like a bona fide caricature of femininity, Lipa seems almost obliged to tackle gender role issues, as the topic seems integral to her cultivated persona and identity. Moreover, her stabs are nearly always effective. Altogether, “Future Nostalgia” is an exceptional pop album with a distinct vision and personality. There isn’t a single song in the tracklist that couldn’t be an effective single. The adaption of ‘70s and ‘80s sounds, and nods to key figures in dance music history, fit to state-of-the-art production and contemporary concerns, make for a delightfully fresh blend. The album is upbeat, exuberant, and fun, delivered in a time when most needed.

“Future Nostalgia” is available March 27 on Apple Music.