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Like the topic of its lead single, Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism comes and it goes, a fast pop exercise that instantly does a Houdini-like escape act from endurance. The document is a irritating pay attention: an album that it’s arduous to seek out something actually improper with, that’s packed to capability with inarguable bangers, however that feels so, so inessential.
A part of that is timing. Dua dropped her album instantly after the largest pop star within the nation dropped hers; and whereas that’s one thing she and her group realistically might need seen coming, no one may have predicted that the 2 greatest rap stars within the nation would flip their on a regular basis feud into a seven-game collection of magnetic hate mere days afterward. It doesn’t assist that these bookending occasions are each musical and gossip supernovas, endlessly talkable about, whereas (as some have identified) Dua Lipa has few musical surprises and no gossip angle in anyway. A part of it may very well be inflated expectations. Looking back, the COVID lockdowns made Future Nostalgia really feel extra like an Occasion Album than it perhaps was. A dance document that may usually be only a dance document, and was conceived as simply that, immediately grew to become an announcement on resilience and recreating the closed-off communal joys of the membership, simply actual radical optimism. Would the identical have occurred in 2024?
And Dua did herself no favors selling Radical Optimism with one of the baffling PR blitzes of the 12 months. After telling publications like Rolling Stone that she was “performed being a thriller,” she instantly began constructing one other thriller by teasing that her new document was impressed by Britpop and UK rave teams, then leaving critics – the doubtless supposed viewers for these things, except there’s a burgeoning zoomer Primal Scream stanbase I’m unaware of – to puzzle out what the hell she meant. To be truthful, this hole between said inspirations and recorded actuality is extraordinarily customary in album promo. However not less than when Dua Lipa promoted Future Nostalgia, the artists she talked about made sense: Jamiroquai, Prince, Madonna. You possibly can draw a line from “Levitating” to Madonna simply, but it surely takes some actual Pepe Silvia work to determine what on Radical Optimism may presumably sound like Large Assault. At the same time as a Large Assault stan of 15+ years, predisposed to listen to them anyplace… how? Half these songs would sound nice with the “Unfinished Sympathy” beat (most songs would). Possibly “These Partitions,” being as it’s a couple of poisonous relationship, may very well be “Inertia Creeps”… if “Inertia Creeps” was not cerebral or claustrophobic however ethereal and cheerful, like a jingle for a iced-tea business.
The broad style inspirations aren’t a lot simpler to find. “Neo-psychedelia” appears to principally imply the presence of Tame Impala. “Rock” appears to principally imply often raspy vocals. “Falling Eternally” has such vocals and in addition makes use of the “Operating Up That Hill” beat, and Kate Bush simply obtained inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, which… counts as rock, perhaps, secondhand? Bush appears to be an precise, deliberate inspiration right here – the soprano backing vocals all through the document evoke her, and the teaser for “Houdini,” by which Dua tongues a steel key, is a direct reference to the quilt of The Dreaming and its tune of the identical title. So why not point out her as an alternative of Blur? Does the beloved pop icon with newfound Stranger Issues-buoyed reputation not take pleasure in the identical cultural cachet as (checks notes) Oasis?
The entire thing comes throughout as an try and impose large necessary stakes onto a recording that was by no means meant to help them. Dua Lipa is a singles artist, and that’s high quality! She is nice at singles, and Radical Optimism excels at being what pop albums have been for years: a supply mechanism for big songs. Dua Lipa’s musical evolution has been closely overstated; her sound and schtick haven’t modified a lot since her debut album, nor did they should. Most of Radical Optimism is written with Caroline Ailin, the UK songwriter behind “New Guidelines,” and producers Danny L Harle, Tobias Jesso Jr., and Kevin Parker are glad to subsume their respective sounds into dance crossover. The sequencing is a bit off – Lipa’s admittedly formidable vocals crowd each free second on the document, together with these of intros and outros – however that doesn’t matter when listening to those songs in isolation. There are little joys all over the place, just like the “Escapade” chimes in “Whatcha Doing,” the She’kspere-producing-Future’s Baby guitars on “French Exit,” the teasing spoken-word bits on “French Exit” or “Finish Of An Period,” Parker jamming on the sequencer wherever he can, and my private favourite, the Mom 3-type flute breakdown in “Maria.” (If Dua Lipa will get to learn issues into these tracks that weren’t supposed, so do I.)
The lyrical throughline to Radical Optimism can be a Dua Lipa mainstay: songs that discuss relationships not by way of emotional catharsis however finest practices. When an ex occupies an excessive amount of of her accomplice’s headspace, Lipa’s response is to not rage on the lady’s existence, nor envy or subliminally lust for her as on “Jolene” and its many imitators, however thank her for being a wholesome affect. “These Partitions” is sort of a Carrie voiceover from Intercourse And The Metropolis, the one doable medium the place it’d make sense to take relationship recommendation from structure. Even the songs the place Lipa addresses her personal self-protective tendencies, like “Houdini” and “French Exit,” aren’t rueful confessionals or the type of unrepentant participant anthems the likes of Weeknd have written dozens of, however extra like a remedy sesh in regards to the avoidant attachment type.
Lots of people are into this sort of relationship dissection! Lots of people are into disco, too, and regardless of Dua Lipa’s protests, she is superb at it. (Lipa’s offense at her disco tracks being known as disco are one more puzzling factor about this document’s promotion; “Phantasm” particularly is one of the best disco lower by a foremost pop lady since Chromatica’s “Enigma.”) One other time period for “radical optimism” is “good thing about the doubt,” and this document is far improved when on condition that. And I’m certain most of those singles, 10 years later, will take pleasure in loads of future nostalgia.
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