Dua Lipa comes out this Friday, May 3 Radical Optimismhis first album since the worldwide success Of Future Nostalgia during the pandemic. A tribute record to 1990s Britpop.
No more nostalgia, room for optimism. Four years after the worldwide success of Future Nostalgiawhich marked the start of the pandemic, Dua Lipa is back with her third album, called Radical Optimism. A record described by the singer as “a tribute to British rave culture” mixing “pop and psychelic sounds”.
Carried by the singles Houdini And Training Seasonthe British artist’s third album contains 11 tracks “inspired by the energy of Dua’s hometown, London, and by the rawness, honesty, confidence and freedom of 90s Britpop”, specifies a press release from the singer.
For this album, Dua Lipa surrounded herself with Danny L. Harle, Tobias Jesso Jr. and Caroline Ailin who have already worked with the singer on Houdini And Training Season. Asked by NME last November, Dua Lipa confided that this third disc would be “still pop but sonically different”.
“I am a different person,” she added recently in the columns of the American magazine Time. “Obviously this album will be different. I think differently. I have different needs, wants and perspectives on life.”
“Radical Optimism”
The British-Albanian artist, whose mezzo-soprano voice made the world dance last summer with Dance Tonightthe hit film barbieworked with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala on this album which promotes “radical optimism” to help one “move through chaos with grace and feel capable of weathering any storm”.
A concept imagined by Allegra, an anthropology laboratory which brings together several researchers around the world. Marked by this concept, to the point of appropriating it in her personal life, Dua Lipa sought to transcribe it into music and dove into the history of “psychedelia, trip hop and Britpop” to find the sound of disk.
Radical Optimism is based more precisely on “the joy and happiness” of having clear ideas in the face of life’s great challenges which allow us to reinvent ourselves, commented the singer seen at the start of the year in Argyleaction blockbuster by Matthew Vaughn.
Mixed critical reception
Eagerly awaited by his fans, Radical Optimism however, received a mixed reception from critics. For Le Parisien, the disc offers with End Of An Erathe first track, “a summer hit”: “It’s so danceable, sweet and sunny, that it sounds like Kylie Minogue” although the rest is “musically” “in familiar territory”.
“What jumps out at the ears, and seduces, is that Dua Lipa manages to take a step aside with each album,” salutes the daily. Same story in Les Inrocks which salutes “a collection of solar hits, perfect for singing at the top of your lungs and dancing on the beach” and the “ideal soundtrack to face the scorching summer that is coming”.
Opinions which contrast with those of the reference site Pitchfork for which Radical Optimism is an “incoherent” album with “many interesting ideas” that “work surprisingly little”. “The absence of the star composers of Future Nostalgia is felt in the absence of memorable melodies”, estimates the site.
While his singles have been a hit for several months, the public does not seem to agree. Her French fans will also be the first to be able to find her on stage. The singer will be at the Arènes de Nîmes on June 12 and 13 before flying to the British Glastonbury festival a few weeks later.
