So much has happened in the past few years that very often significant milestones slip by us without any sort of acknowledgment in the media, print or online. We are in the midst of the era in which U.K.-born Dua Lipa has supplanted U.S.-born John Belushi as the most famous and idolized child of Albanian immigrants in the Western world — despite a brief rally for the late comedian thanks to an acclaimed 2020 documentary. The one-two punch of Lipa’s Future Nostalgia album from 2020 and its remixed complement, Club Future Nostalgia, have solidified her as one of the major voices in the pop game. Versatile in genre, global in outlook, and always focused on personal and social liberation in the face of a world that eschews pleasure for greed and the exertion of power, Lipa is one of the dominant forces in pop music the world over. Her Nashville show — on Valentine’s Day at Bridgestone Arena with Caroline Polachek and Lolo Zouaï — promises to be a beacon of cutting-edge sounds and killer choruses.
In 2017, even those who shun the world of pop couldn’t miss the dawning of the Dua Lipa era. “New Rules” was the kind of multiquadrant smash that left rockists, retirees and hermits all to succumb to the Proustian experience of programmed boom-boom beats telling them all about themselves. Like her first album, a self-titled release from 2017, the single was a triumph. But then, remember when her song “Physical” came out? It was right before COVID-19 began unraveling society as we know it, and the song soon began to shake all the world’s atrophying, pandemic-stricken booty into a disco frenzy that even the limitless space of the internet really couldn’t contain. The tempo of 147 BPM is simply not to be fucked with unless you’ve got your vibe perfected. (See also: A Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran,” Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend” and Billy Idol’s “White Wedding.”) Damn if that record still doesn’t hit like a sparkly and effervescent collaboration between energy drinks and poppers.
Of all the sad, stupid tragedies associated with DaBaby shitting all over his pop-crossover appeal with some incredibly ill-timed homophobia, the collateral damage of losing his guest spot on Lipa’s “Levitating” to careful judgment is a big one. Seriously, there’s a hypnotic linguistic charm to the lines, “Left foot, right foot, levitating / Pop stars: Dua Lipa with DaBaby.” They linger in the back of the disco-sensitive brain in a manner difficult to qualify. During an intense move over the summer, when I was hauling boxes of stuff in a truck with only an FM radio, that couplet became a pop mantra. It could only be diminished by full-on retro-’80s homophobic ignorance.
That remix with DaBaby is filed away with other problematic dance-floor fillers. Thankfully, though, Lipa — ever the forward-thinking dance diva — stepped up with a tumbi-charged remix that opened the song’s arms even wider, with help from producer Amaal Mallik and twin-sister guest vocalists Prakriti and Sukriti Kakar. There are speed bumps that could derail the careers of some; Lipa steps around them smartly in impeccable footwear.
Her appearance on Saturday Night Live in December 2020 proved her not just a dynamic entertainer, but also a gifted physical comedienne capable of not letting Bowen Yang absorb all the audience’s attention — which is no easy feat. And coming this year, she’s also part of the ensemble for Matthew Vaughn’s new action-adventure epic Argylle.
It’s Dua Lipa’s world. We’re just making sure nobody leaves scuffs on the dance floor.
While you wait for glitter to appear in the sky and get that glitter applied to your eyes, enjoy a playlist of remixes, alternate versions and unreleased tracks.
