The hot summer of pop is preparing to crown new queens with infinite radio airplay, infinite streams, infinite gold and platinum records. From the rubble of the earthquake Taylor Swift – who takes home the record of one billion streams in the first week of release of the new album The Tortured Poets Department – Alone Dua Lipa could be resurrected.
Released after a very long promotional campaign dotted with sightings, rumors and misleading clues about its content, Radical Optimism arrives on streaming platforms with very high expectations. In her 36 minutes it’s not what the pop star says that needs to be won over but how she says it and above all what (sound) clothes she wears. Appointments gone bad, wishes for a peaceful life to the ex (who in the meantime is with a model), the end of an era (actually of a relationship) and other light stories surround what a renewed team would have to offer offer in terms of harmonic-melodic combinations (Caroline Ailin, Tobias Jesso Jr.) and production – Danny L Harle (Pc Music) e Kevin Parker (Tame Impala).
The first to spoil what the album should have contained was Mark Ronson, co-producer of the hit Dance The Night contained in the soundtrack of Barbie (where the 28-year-old singer also starred). The mirrorball that at a certain point crashes to the ground in the video clip represented for him the perfect metaphor of what would change in the new job: that phase of his career – unequivocally disco – was declared over and another was opened.
Lipa herself then thought about raising the fans’ expectations, listing a series of influences ranging from Massive Attack to the Primal Scream, from Brit pop to rave culture. But starting from the single launch, Houdiniit was clear that the system – a danceable pop craftsmanship, fascinated by the past – would not be distorted and that, indeed, a single great premise should be made regarding the spirit of the production and its influences.
In Houdini the heart of Harle but what characterizes it is a Kevin Parker touch declined on the axis of the now paradigmatic Random Access Memoriesa disco (electro funky) that travels back in time imagining a fallout of retro-future 70s and 80s. The French touch, and therefore not only Daft Punk producers in love with disco, is then evident in Illusion, a song that pays tribute and gratitude towards Kylie Minogue (the video clip was filmed in the same swimming pool in Barcelona as an explicit homage). But if it is true that the viral/global hit remains an imperative as it was for Future Nostalgiadisco music in these parts often translates into a dance pop that is not exactly psychedelic as Parker’s fans would have liked but not up to the high ambitions either.
Smoothing the corners too much, removing every burr, optimizing every volume and arrangement, are operations that can have a cost in terms of empathy, immediacy and affection on the part of a highly heterogeneous audience. And when the killer chorus is missing, not everything turns out according to the ambitions of the protagonists. In a short setlist like this it’s a problem, as is the chorus of Falling Forever at Eurovision quota. Emblematic then that the only (missed) ballad of the work, Anything for love, you start with piano and vocals and quickly veer into a dance-like uptempo without leaving anything behind. Or that the little guitar + electronics of French Exit and especially, Marydoesn’t have even half the appeal of the cowgirl Madonna of the early 00s but has more in common with productions like Rush of the Måneskin (exceptionally we find Andrew Watt co-producing here).
There is no shortage of noteworthy numbers and they are all in the first part of the setlist. The psychedelic (yes) opener End Of An Erathe indie pop dance by These Walls and the funky – and vaguely Quincy Jones – of Watcha doing are among these and demonstrate how much Dua Lipa has grown as a performer and, ultimately, as a star (see the praise Patti Smith recently gave her for the Times). Her voice was raised in front of the mix and her timbre, very recognisable, holds the scene very well just as her dance moves now do in the relevant video clips, reversing a trend that in the past had risked ruining her career .
Dua Lipa’s third album is a vivid Euro dance dream crafted by a team of skilled craftsmen. An album of hits with the French touch, of disco and dance. With its psychedelic and retro touch. It’s a record made without superstar producers but still designed to dominate the charts, just like Kylie Minogue’s. It’s not the usual mainstream in favor of streaming platforms. Production aside, it testifies to the all-round figure of an elusive pop star, very much so british in keeping private life and public life separate. And these are certainly not the defects of an album which, it is true, does not have all the aces in the deck but represents a necessary stage in a career that is only just beginning.
