Five Years in the 'Future'

In the five years since its release, Dua Lipa’s second album, Future Nostalgia, has only made its sly brilliance more apparent.

By all accounts, March 2020 might have been the single worst time in modern history to release a pop record. With stay-at-home mandates sweeping the Western world as a result of the novel coronavirus (or, as we better know it, our old friend COVID-19) taking over, many were stuck inside, though I don’t need to tell you this; nor do I need to write paragraphs about the lack of and longing for human connection during this period of time – the feeling of being with people, not their digitised image on a laptop screen.

Without concerts, clubs and record stores, the rollouts of many an album during this time were derailed, delayed or outright cancelled. The Weeknd’s After Hours, full of dark disco gems, was released three days before the UK’s nationwide lockdown began. Meanwhile, Lady Gaga’s dense house opus Chromatica got pushed back several weeks (and was itself the victim of bad timing, being eventually released four days after the murder of George Floyd). Everyone from Billie Eilish to BTS was cancelling tours and festival appearances.

Perhaps no pop star had it worse, though, than poor Dua Lipa. Not only was she nobly trying to release a club-ready album at a point when nightclubs would be closed for months on end, but this album – after a hefty promotional campaign in the months preceding – had fallen victim to a leak. Appearing on a teary Instagram Live barely a week into lockdown, Lipa was clearly shaken and openly admitted to doubting whether releasing such a dance-heavy album was the right thing to do at this time. Prompted by the leak, the album – entitled Future Nostalgia – was released a week early, on 27 March.

The response was rapturous. Not only was Future Nostalgia a staggering epic of impeccably constructed pop music, it was also a notable growth from Lipa’s last record (the general consensus of which deemed it a competent but ultimately forgettable collection of songs). Critics raved about Lipa’s expert straddling of the line between referencing and originality, paying homage to its influences while remaining a work of striking ingenuity. Crucially, it announced Lipa – formerly a B-list singer known principally for generic radio hits and Martin Garrix collabs – as a pop star in her own right, replete with personality and a USP of making pop smashes.

Critics be damned, though: Future Nostalgia was most fervently revered among its listeners. It turned out that, at a time when no-one could get to the clubs – nor knew when or if they would ever reopen – an album celebrating the spirit of dance music was exactly what the world needed, if only to remind us of its healing power. The album’s undemanding subject matter (namely love, sex and clubbing) also provided a welcome distraction from the horrendous goings-on in the world. Lipa’s record became an inadvertent North Star for the lost, confused and depressed masses during the pandemic; people died and economies sank, but at least there was a space to forget about it for thirty-seven minutes.

At the time of writing, Future Nostalgia turns five years old today, and (thank God!) the clubs are back open, but the record’s capacity for escapism has not dwindled. Thanks to a host of events – not to mention a certain Cheeto in charge – the tragedy brought about by COVID-19 has been replaced with ten more, like the mythical Hydra made manifest. Thus, a relisten of Lipa’s sophomore record in today’s context provides that same relief it did in 2020, acting as a reminder of life’s pleasures: chiefly, the magic of falling in love and the indelible feeling of sweating under neon lights with strangers.

Removed from its context, though, Future Nostalgia as a recording alone is astounding: a meticulously constructed homage to time periods past, future and imagined, decked out with sticky-sweet melodies, rich production and impassioned vocal performances. The opener and title track is exemplary of this; the instrumental beams in from Tomorrowland and contains flashes of both a Donna Summer track and a Daft Punk creation, while Lipa’s braggadocious talk-singing displays a confidence previously unheard of from the singer. (The line where she namedrops John Lautner and Jeff Bhasker in the same breath? Phenomenal.) Lyrically, it serves as a mission statement for the proceeding album: a quest to traverse the nostalgic & futuristic realms to create something direct and urgent – something only Lipa could make.

The first line of the album claims that ‘you want something timeless’, while Lipa is more concerned with a desire to ‘change the game’; naturally, the subsequent songs do a little of both.

If Future Nostalgia’s opening track introduces you to Lipa’s mission, the next one kicks it into life. ‘Don’t Start Now’ operates in that most classic of formats – the breakup song – and makes every effort to cement itself as a new canonical entry in that genre. Atop a funk-inflected bassline, a disco beat and – of all things – cowbells, Lipa kisses off an ex with all the confidence of the Eurovision acts she is so clearly inspired by on this song. Yet, her ineffable charm and sheer amount of swag allow her to sell it astronomically well, and by the final call-and-response chorus she’s just about convinced you that she’s over this man – and is having immense amounts of fun while doing so.

Much of Future Nostalgia follows this same philosophy: take what’s worked, add your own flair and sound like you’re having a blast. ‘Physical’ is the most ’80s inspired song of the bunch, at once referencing Olivia Newton-John and Flashdance as Lipa races through a breathless honeymoon phase, by way of a high-energy synth instrumental that’s as fit for a workout DVD as it is for the sheets. The transfixing ‘Hallucinate’ is downright addictive, luring you in with Lipa’s seductive vocals and an enticing bassline laid out on a pumping beat – before exploding into kaleidoscopic colour in the chorus. Funk basslines and stuttering beats creep to the forefront on ‘Break My Heart’, a fuck-it anthem with an absolute earworm of a hook. Even ‘Levitating’, the record’s most radio-friendly cut, is so euphoric and spirited that the remix with DaBaby (who later came out as a homophobe) feels unnecessary, with Lipa being able to carry the mood all by herself. (The way she laughs ‘dance my arse off’ in her British accent is the most authentically Lipa moment on the whole project.)

Incredibly for a pop album, Future Nostalgia’s deep cuts are as excellent as its singles – sometimes more so. The slinky ‘Pretty Please’ is the sexiest thing Lipa’s done in her career to date, leaning into a chilled funk-R&B vibe caressed by a heavenly funk guitar line. (Those cowbells also make a welcome return.) The lyrics, though, tell a different story: a tale of desperation and longing for her lover’s return that’s never made sex seem so essential to human life. ‘Cool’, meanwhile, dazzles with summery synths and a vocal performance from Lipa that’s maybe her best on the whole album – at once daring and desperate, vulnerable and loved-up. Even ‘Good in Bed’, one of two album tracks regarded as weaker than the rest (the less said about ‘Boys Will Be Boys’, the better) is better than people give it credit for, a cheeky and self-deprecating ode to situationships whose basic chorus belies an otherwise solid – and endlessly relatable – track.

Even the bonus tracks are stellar: the steamy, Riverdale-ready ‘Fever’; the stomping ‘Not My Problem’; the rock-inflected Miley Cyrus collab ‘Prisoner’. In particular, it’s baffling how ‘If It Ain’t Me’, an alluring marriage of ABBA melodies with modern disco sensibilities, didn’t make the standard tracklist; likewise for the trap-steeped swag of ‘We’re Good’. The overarching impression one gets when digesting Future Nostalgia is one of decade-spanning reverence for quality pop music, the brainchild of a musical team who’ve done their research and has a clear vision. That team is stacked and diverse – counting Jeff Bhasker, SG Lewis, Stuart Price and Julia Michaels among its members – yet Lipa remains the one visible constant across them, her influence and control evident across the album and its accompanying visuals.

Aside from its immediate success – topping charts, breaking streaming records and earning armfuls of Brit and Grammy awards – the impact of Future Nostalgia on the wider music landscape has only made itself more apparent in the five years following its release. The album, along with (to a lesser extent) The Weeknd’s After Hours, is often credited with ushering in a revival of both ‘80s nostalgia and dance pop that characterised much of the pop music landscape in the first half of this decade. Several records in the years proceeding have celebrated the spirit of the club in both form and function, with everyone from Jessie Ware and the aforementioned Lady Gaga to Drake crafting LP-length homages to dance. Even Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE, though reportedly conceived prior to Future Nostalgia’s release, bears shades of the mission of Lipa’s record: reference without fully impersonating, carve a new path forward, and do it all with a fat grin on your face.

Future Nostalgia is a modern classic and Dua Lipa’s magnum opus, but more than either of those it’s a fucking good time. Few pop albums – nay, albums in general – have since managed to bottle the sheer unbridled optimism and charisma that Lipa let loose on this record, and its ability to lift the listener’s spirits has scarcely been matched. For as long as the album’s been out, the world has been beset with fresh misfortunes; in that sense, Lipa couldn’t have released it at a better time.