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Label: Warner
Released: 3rd May 2024
Rarely do British pop girls go global. While the Jess Glynnes and Anne Maries of the mid-2010s have found sustainable success on the UK arena circuit and the Capital FM A-List, seeing Dua Lipa fly beyond the borders of the island with 2020’s ‘Future Nostalgia’ was quite the anomaly.
Her self-titled 2017 debut album could’ve left her in that decade, if it wasn’t for the last-ditch attempt to get a hit out of it with the release of ‘New Rules’ that summer, turning Dua’s career right around. Doubling down in 2018, her Calvin Harris collaboration ‘One Kiss’ solidified her place as a summer playlist mainstay, but still, the neo-disco bangers that ‘Future Nostalgia’ brought forth two years later felt completely unexpected.
Maybe it’s because of that second album left-turn and its subsequent world domination when it was finally toured in 2022 that left people expecting more from Dua’s follow up, or maybe ‘Future Nostalgia‘’s hyper saturation made ‘Radical Optimism’’s blissed-out euphoria feel – to some – like a step back, but either way, the bottom line is that Dua is a master of doing the unexpected.
This time around, working with a tight team of Danny L Harle, Kevin Parker, Caroline Ailin and Tobias Jesso Jr almost exclusively, Dua creates an album that’s brighter and breezier than its predecessor. There’s the flourishes of modern psychedelia promised without being overpoweringly obvious; lead tracks ‘Houdini’ and ‘Training Season’ hum with Tame Impala synth signatures and bass grooves, elevated by Dua’s airy head voice and smoky tones in equal measure.
That brief carries over into ‘These Walls’ and ‘Whatcha Doing’, before introducing some of those trip-hop beats on ‘French Exit’. Present, too, are the 90s dance influences, even if they pull more Moloko than Massive Attack, on the defiant opener ‘End Of An Era’, shutting up those who argue her discography all sounds the same.
Undeniable summer electro-pop bangers ‘Illusion’ and the belting ‘Falling Forever’ shine in the record’s second half (she’d be daft not to add the latter to her upcoming Glastonbury headline set). More importantly, ‘Radical Optimism’ achieves something ‘Future Nostalgia’ didn’t, and sticks the landing; no wishy-washy ballads to round off here, rather plumping for the soaring, ‘Ray Of Light’ recalling ‘Happy For You’.
It once felt like Dua Lipa’s music might’ve been relegated to soundtracking Love Island and A Level results day pre-drinks; ‘Future Nostalgia’ sent her well off that course, but to suggest ‘Radical Optimism’ lands her back there would be silly. Dua’s place in pop is still a crucial one, as big pop albums become increasingly bloated with tabloid fodder, it’s refreshing to hear one from a superstar that isn’t suffocating under the weight of its own lore.
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