A title like Future Nostalgia seems to have two meanings, the first obviously being a nostalgia (antithetical to its definition) for the future, but then, at the same time, being somehow sentient of one’s inevitable nostalgia for the past once they reach the future. Obviously, few will feel that way about 2020, to be forever remembered as the Year of Corona. Yet with Dua Lipa’s second album, she admits, “I’ve also been looking back at music from the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. I want to take some of my favorite elements and bring it into 2020, hence the name.” Lipa achieves the goal effortlessly with the help of a coterie of producers including The Monsters and the Strangerz, Jeff Bhasker, Kirkpatrick, SG Lewis and Stuart Price (best known for working on Madonna’s disco-infused Confessions on a Dance Floor).
With the cover of the record itself featuring Lipa driving a car in space with the moon in her rearview (it conjures an immediate association with the video for Lana Del Rey’s 2017 single, “Love”), the astral imagery on the record is pervasive throughout. After all, people had high hopes for 2020 being the next step into “the future,” when, in fact, we’ve all reverted to a cave dwelling-inspired existence (save for the part where there’s electricity). So it is that with the eponymous first track, Lipa asserts herself as the dominating force in the “future sound” of pop music (alas, pop feels almost anachronistically out of place in the present climate). As such, she cockily compares herself to architect John Lautner, famed for breathing new life into modern architecture with his then “futuristic” Googie style as influenced by the Atomic Age and its obsession with space (it should be noted that, as Lautner did, trying to embody the future immediately results in a greater chance for irrelevancy in the, well, future). Of late, that space obsession has continued as we all seek to defect to a less fucked up planet.
The amalgam of eras encapsulated into the beat of “Future Nostalgia” is courtesy of Jeff Bhasker and Skylar Mones–yet it is only Bhasker who gets name-checked with gratitude (maybe because he worked on “Come Alive,” “Looking For Mercy” and “Back That Up to the Beat” for Madame X) with the line, “I know you like this beat ’cause Jeff’s been doin’ the damn thing.” Indeed, the producer took to the studio with a variety of instruments and sounds to come up with the ideal backing track for Lipa’s overarching motif of feminist empowerment (though, even now, the most empowering thing of all for a female pop star would be to employ a female producer).
The 2019 banger, “Don’t Start Now” (recently resuscitated for its lyric, “Don’t show up/Don’t go out”), follows, and speaks to Lipa’s defunct relationship with Paul Klein of LANY, whom she dated for about five months in the simpler times of 2017 to 2018. Establishing it as her quintessential breakup song, Lipa commented, “It’s a perfect breakup song, about when you finally find your feet and then somebody decides to come crawling back just when you’ve moved on.” And we all know that’s going to be happening a lot when bored fuckboy exes everywhere start texting out of boredom during lockdown. The Kirkpatrick-produced beats showcase Lipa’s desire to bring a 70s-era feel into the present, with strong hints of another classic breakup anthem, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor.
This segues into the thematically contrasting “Cool” (not to be confused with Gwen Stefani’s version), produced by TMS and Stuart Price. Oozing with 80s energy and the reserved power ballad quality that songs like Paula Abdul’s “Rush” still held onto in the early 90s, a simultaneously jubilant yet lovelorn quality pervades (à la Madonna on “Burning Up”) as Lipa admits, “Got me losin’ all my cool/’Cause I’m burnin’ up on you/In control of what I do/And I love the way you move/We got the heat and the thrill.” Incidentally, the track was partially co-written with Tove Lo, who, quelle coincidence, has a song called “Cool Girl.”
To continue with the 80s tone, “Physical” sounds like Lipa’s own version of the torch hit, “Holding Out For A Hero” by Bonnie Tyler (not, contrary to one might think based on the title, Olivia Newton-John’s song of the same name). With a jarring middle eight, “Physical” is a call to love’s arms, rife with nostalgic sentiment, including, “I don’t wanna live another life/’Cause this one’s pretty nice.” Again, Lipa wrote this in the era that will now be known as pre-coronavirus. In between retro imagery like “diamond rich,” she also peppers in more present day feelings, such as, “Love the simulation we’re dreaming in.” This, of course, only adds to the irony of a title like “Physical,” and the rallying cry, “Come on, come on/Let’s get physical!” Because obviously we’re living in an age that shuns tactility. But hey, god knows Lipa tried to bring the past into the future, not having the foresight that a movie like 28 Days Later did. But she did have the good sense to collaborate with songwriter and producer Jason Evigan on it, again drawing the line straight back to Madonna, who worked with him on 2015’s reemerging “Ghosttown.”
The dreamy, smooth “Levitating” seems to describe Lipa’s album cover with the opening, “If you wanna run away with me, I know a galaxy/And I can take you for a ride/I had a premonition that we fell into a rhythm/Where the music don’t stop for life/Glitter in the sky, glitter in my eyes/Shining just the way I like.” The impressions of the celestial comprise Lipa’s feeling of levitating with sheer happiness as she subtly communicates with both Britney Spears and Elon Musk by declaring, “Let’s get lost on Mars” and “My love is like a rocket, watch it blast off.” Sexual innuendos aside, Lipa also mimics the lyrics to “Lucky Star” with the sugary sweet assurance, “You’re my starlight.” A Marmite sentiment that continues on “Pretty Please,” one of the lesser tracks on Future Nostalgia as the Julia Michaels songwriting influence detracts from Lipa’s own strength in identity that’s more prominent in other places on the album. This pertains especially to the clingy attitude, “Hate it when you leave me unattended/’Cause I miss ya, and I need your love.” Eh, do you though? Particularly when it’s pretty apparent that the only thing to say pretty please to in the present is a high-speed internet connection.
The club-friendly (sigh) “Hallucinate” harkens back to the Les Rhythmes Digitales style of trippy synths–and why shouldn’t it with Stuart Price helping again on production and lyrics? In lieu of “When you call my name/It’s like a little prayer,” Lipa instead compares it to, “I hallucinate when you call my name.” Bittersweetly, Lipa had labeled this track as her “festival song,” commenting, “Whenever I make songs, I imagine what they’d be like if I performed them at Glastonbury. I knew there was no way I could do a festival without this song.” Well, darlin’, you might want to start picturing a different conduit ‘cause festivals are cancelled. A thought that leads well into the dramatic, symphonic opening of “Love Again.” Sampling from White Town’s 1997 single, “Your Woman,” the track is something of a prequel to the one that succeeds it, “Break My Heart,” both of which seem to be speaking directly to her current boo, Anwar Hadid (for there is no shortage of Hadids to sacrifice to the modeling gods), in terms of expressing gratitude and fear over finding what feels like, for the moment, “true love.”
Straying away from the saccharine tone that any “future” pop song must embody if it’s to incorporate all the themes of 70s-00s pop music history, Lipa opts to conclude with a cut that circles back to the independent declarations made on “Future Nostalgia.” And, with the sarcastically named, “Boys Will Be Boys,” she asserts her place as one of the leading voices in umpteenth wave feminism. Discussing the persistent double standard in society regarding how women are conditioned to take boys’ behavior for “what it is” and not read too much into it, Lipa flips the script on the saying with the chorus, “Boys will be, boys will be boys/But girls will be women.”
This, naturally, speaks to the notion that girls are far more likely to take responsibility for their actions, and have the maturity that comes with being knocked down by life very early on thanks to the patriarchal setup of “modern” existence. Which is why her most accurate assessment of the entire record is: “The kids ain’t alright.” And they’re not going to be, least of all if their behavior is learned from TV (as Lipa phrases it in the song). Also known as: the only thing they’re going to be bombarded with for the next year as we remain in self-quarantine mode. That Lipa still even feels compelled to sing a song like this is indicative of just how, despite her intent, far from the “future” we still are. And how unlikely we seem to be getting to it at this current rate. But hey, at least we can try our best to dance our way into it with a record that not only repurposes every pop song, but also reminds us of the many benefits of staying at home.
