While trying to capture a "nostalgic" feel, the song falters in its execution.
-
4
After the sheer catchiness of ‘Don’t Start Now’, Dua Lipa was showing that she is just at the beginning of her pop domination. With one successful album under her belt, the release of two singles within a short period starts the excitement of an upcoming album on the way. However, where ‘Future Nostalgia’ may be in the same strain of sounding like the 80’s pop that ‘Don’t Start Now’ felt a part of, it fails to live up to expectation and proves for an underwhelming listen.
The single starts with an 80’s pop-sound, stripped back and quite simplistic but widely recognisable. It has an aptly appropriate nostalgic John Carpenter feel and a Halloween vibe that is only enforced by the single artwork cover. However, these foundations are not strong enough to lift the song up past mediocracy. The encompassing beat and sound are rather bland and the song lacks a defined tune, relying solely on Lipa’s voice to create variation. Where she tries to live up to the task, everything around her presence just doesn’t seem to create enough buzz as it all sounds a bit lacklustre.
However, lyrically the song boasts some accomplishment, managing to be fun and empowered with feminity. Although, for a song that is about nostalgia, it isn’t filled with as many smart references as you would expect (only two obvious ones). It fails to celebrate any pop-culture and seems like a wasted opportunity, especially as one of the references it does make is John Lautner – which I guarantee the majority of listeners will have to google, only to realise they still don’t know him (like me).
The song is just so disappointing. I like the vibe that Dua Lipa is trying to capture but she falls drastically short for once. Despite this, I’m still optimistic about any more upcoming music from her and the shift in style is something that is quite exciting if she manages to execute it all. It’s important to know that this one bad song doesn’t reflect badly on Dua Lipa, it just feels like a slight misstep in the campaign for excitement.
Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’ is out now via Warner Music UK.
