Dua Lipa didn’t expect to release Future Nostalgia the way she did; the journey was far bumpier than anticipated. First there were the leaks. One day after Lipa announced the album’s drop date, hackers snatched three unreleased songs from her grasp. As if this wasn’t distressing enough for the 25-year-old, her entire album later leaked, a week before its scheduled release. Simultaneously, the world was entering a state of panic, confusion, and chaos like none in living memory: lockdown had just begun.
An artist’s follow-up to their debut album is always a daunting affair, but faced with endless leaks, a pandemic, and a somewhat preoccupied audience, Lipa’s experience is a whole different story. Still, the Londoner chose to push on, releasing Future Nostalgia ahead of plan, thus setting it up to be a strange era’s defining sound.
Our first taste of the record came from the smattering of singles that dominated the pre-lockdown airwaves. Physical, Don’t Start Now, and Break My Heart were radio staples of commutes, clothes shops, and cafés, but with the world still running at full speed, few had time to stop and listen. Only when everything ground to a halt in late March did people notice the music’s oddly prophetic lyrics.
Break My Heart sighs ‘I should have stayed at home / Cause I was doing better alone’. Concurrently, UK residents were being bombarded with ‘Stay-at-Home’ orders, and many went into self-isolation. Don’t Start Now’s catchy refrain ‘Don’t show up / Don’t come out’ was another eerie echo of the government’s guidelines. But these singles represented more than just spooky coincidences; they were a turning point. Dua Lipa replaced formulaic radio fodder with good pop music. Excitingly, these tracks are just the tip of the neon iceberg.
Slick, suave, and streamlined, Future Nostalgia delivers on all fronts. Its beats work their way to your feet while Lipa’s voice, warm and crackling like a vinyl record, melts seamlessly into swooping melodies and pulsing synths. Hallucinate is a dance playlist essential, Good in Bed is a cheeky charmer, Levitating is a much-needed escapist time warp. On first inspection, the record’s sonic influences may seem obvious: 80’s, right? Not quite. Listen closely to appreciate the huge range of inspirations behind its sound. Love Again opens with weeping, Lana Del Rey-esque violins, which morph into groovy 70’s disco strings, later backed by 1930’s trumpet samples, and all tied together with a sultry 90’s bassline. Lipa proves nostalgia doesn’t have to be confined to one decade, and that the sands of time can be mixed and matched in ways we never even imagined.
The album’s title encapsulates it perfectly: its heart is in the past, but its eyes look unrelentingly forward. The result is something unmistakably modern and dazzlingly Dua Lipa. People hereafter will long for more music like this: music with substance, personality, and contagious enthusiasm. For that reason, this record will be an endless source of future nostalgia.
