Future Nostalgia
On March 27th, 2020, Dua Lipa released her sophomore album entitled Future Nostalgia. The 11 track work was released early after it was leaked earlier in the week, and due to the Coronavirus that was keeping many indoors.
Dua Lipa burst onto the scene in 2017 with her self titled album. Tracks on it included New Rules which had a music video that has garnered more than 2 billion views. Along with that were radio hits like IDGAF and Blow Your Mind.
Since this release, Lipa has won a 2019 Grammy Award for Best New Artist for her collaboration with Calvin Harris on One Kiss.
Lipa released her first single off the album Don’t Start Now in November of 2019 and it was automatically a hit. Her strong lyrics with a funky reminiscent disco era vibe led for it to reach #2 on the billboard charts, her highest position a song only she is featured on has reached.
The artist’s goal for the album is described right of the bat with the title track Future Nostalgia. In it, Lipa describes how she wants to have songs that “change the game,” and others around her want her to have a “timeless song.” This is exactly why the title gets it’s name.
She lives true to this with her entire album. Songs like Cool use beats that send a person back into the late 20th century music era, yet its modern lyrics still keep it contemporary and a new experimental sound. Love Again uses strings in it’s introductions to preview what could be a typical ballad, yet flips them on it’s head and uses it as a strong foundation for what is one of Lipa’s slower yet still pop songs.
Lipa, unlike her self titled album, has found her voice. Instead of experimenting with different genres and sound Lipa has solidified her as a pop vocalist. Not only that, but she was the sole vocalist on this album. Not a single feature of another artist is used on Future Nostalgia, something that shows Lipa wanted to use this album to prove herself and only herself.
Lipa’s failure however with this album comes with how it was released. Lipa released four amazing singles before the official album release. That left us with just seven new songs when the full tracklist actually came out.
This was rather disappointing. Overall the album is spectacular but the individual songs that don’t live up to the rest of the album were all a part of those seven. Granted, these were not numerous, with only two songs that disappointed. Good in Bed was a sidetrack from the tone Lipa used throughout most of the album into something that did not fit, and Boys will be Boys while having a strong message and vocals did not fit with the story of the album. However, two songs out of seven seem a lot greater than two songs out of 11. Therefore, Lipa should have released less singles to allow more surprises when the album was released.
Future Nostalgia is an album that will be a turning point for Dua Lipa as she enters a new phase in her career with a focus on pop. If you want a pop album that makes you relive the golden period of the genre of the late 2000’s, then I suggest you take a listen.
