FEATURE:
Radical Optimism and Some Dissenting Voices
PHOTO CREDIT: Tyrone Lebon
Why Dua Lipa Remains Underrated and Is One of Our Most Important Artists
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I am a big supporter of Dua Lipa…
PHOTO CREDIT: Dan Beleiu for ELLE
and feel she is one of our most important artists. Someone who, in terms of the Pop league, seems to be rated below someone like Taylor Swift. In fact, a lot of U.S. Pop artists seem to get more acclaim and backing from the media. Maybe a bigger fanbase. I am thinking about everyone from Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish through to Drake and Ariana Grande. I find Dua Lipa’s work more varied and energising than, say, Taylor Swift’s. More individual and deeper than many of her contemporaries. We also have the excellent Charli XCX but, compared to the fellow British Pop artist, Lipa seems to be a more wide-ranging artist in terms of her talents and sound. A figure and personality I am more drawn to. Someone whose visual aspect and interviews are always standout. She comes across as a passionate and ambitious artist who has a long future. I feel, after a few small film roles, that she has a genuine career in film. Someone like Lady Gaga: she who can turn her hand to any role. I also think that Lipa, with a successful podcast and book service:
“Service95 is a global editorial platform founded by Dua Lipa. Launched in February 2022, it encompasses a website, weekly newsletter, the podcast Dua Lipa: At Your Service and the Service95 Book Club.
The website and weekly newsletter feature a considered curation of lists, stories, perspectives and conversations with a global lens. There are brilliant articles from some of the world’s most compelling voices – on everything from style and arts to social justice and politics.
In Dua Lipa: At Your Service, our founder goes deep in conversation with some of the world’s most inspiring minds – from actors to activists. Its three seasons are brimming with fascinating stories and life lessons that inspire us all not simply to be more curious about the world around us but, ultimately, to be of service.
In the Service95 Book Club, books represent diverse global voices, telling powerful stories spanning fiction, memoir and manifesto. Members are invited to read along with the Book of the Month aided by discussion guides, author Q&As and further reading lists to bring readers closer to the authors, their inspirations and the worlds they create”.
I do think that Dua Lipa is an artist not as respected and celebrated as she should be. When it comes to modern Pop/music icons, there are several in the U.S. We have some great artists here. I think that Dua Lipa might be our standout artist. Someone who should be put on the same pedestal as the biggest artists out there. As a performer and songwriter, I feel she is superb. In a modern scene where the likes of Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo are among a wave of brilliant women inspiring the next generation – you could throw in SZA and any number of contemporaries -, Dua Lipa is subjected to as much doubt and scrutiny as she is acclaim. I know I have recently written about the majestic Lipa. I have argued how she is one of our most underrated idols. That is apparent when you look at some of the reviews for Radical Optimism. Even though music critics have to react to the album on the first listen or so and cannot have too much time to ruminate, it seems like there have been some unfair write-ups. Dua Lipa is headlining Glastonbury in the summer. She has revealed that a 1980s Pop legend will join her on stage. She is going to put together an incredible set! Even though music opinion is subjective, I do think there have not been enough reviews recognising the strengths of Radical Optimism. Perhaps Dua Lipa being compared with contemporaries too much rather than people reviewing the album on its strengths. It makes me think, once more, how Lipa remains undervalued. I guess the fact that she claimed the album was influenced by psychedelic sounds/act and Britpop might have lead people in the wrong direction – as there are more Dance sounds and 1980s/1990s Pop nods that hint more to Europe and America than British mid-‘90s Pop. Even so, the more I listen to Radical Optimism, the more I think that it will ensure as one of this year’s strongest.
It is a tough climate and industry. I think that too many artists give too much away on social media. Feel they need to be revealing or open up their private lives. In a bid for connection, transparency and popularity, they can end up revealing too much. Dua Lipa’s Instagram has that mix of personal and professional. She posts photos and videos of professional engagements, together with snaps and insights into her life. I feel a lot have called her feed a little personality-free or like a model’s life. The music seen as lacking ideas. In both cases people are wrong. I am going to end by celebrating Dua Lipa and hinting at what her future might hold. I want to bring in some different reviews for (the brilliant) Radical Optimism. The Line of Best Fit, in one of the more dismissive reviews, were clearly not listening to the same album – though everyone is entitled to their own opinion:
“Lipa has described Radical Optimism as indebted to both 1990s rave culture and psychedelia. The intriguing addition of Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and producer/remixer Danny L. Harle as producers and co-writers suggests that Lipa was at least serious about her intentions, but these influences don’t really come to fruition. Opener “End of an Era” introduces the album’s mood as more rooted in balearic house: all sun-warmed synths, laid-back beats and optimistic lyrics about a holiday romance. It’s all very effortless, until a stilted spoken word section kills the mood (“another girl falls in love, another girl leaves the club” – ahh, the duality of woman). The catchy “French Exit” sustains the vibe with a gorgeous, distinctly Mediterranean guitar/drum duet, but Lipa again breaks the mood with her dorky spoken French. Spoken word bits are often awkward, but it feels significant here that what magnetism Lipa possesses doesn’t carry over when she’s required to be more informal, more ostensibly human.
The propulsive “Houdini” is deathly addictive, a fantastic first single choice which continues Future Nostalgia’s aerobics-core disco revival. “Whatcha Doing” is also in the vein, but unfortunately sounds like a re-run of Lipa’s Barbie soundtrack single “Dance the Night”. Another single, “Illusion”, is a showcase of Lipa in possibly her most fitting role; that of dance single vocalist. Here she is tasked with embodying known emotional signifiers and tropes rather than creating her own. “Falling Forever” is a bold attempt at a more avant-garde kind of dance track, but just sounds bizarre, and curiously like it’s being played at 1.25x speed. The “Running Up That Hill” drum fill is a neat steal in theory, but its gravitas doesn’t serve the song. There’s a few more unexpected bits of instrumentation on the album – like the flute in the mid-tempo “Maria” – but they all sound like late add-ons to spice up the palette of synths, beats and Spanish guitar.
When Lipa breaks out of the dance-pop mold, her confidence and conviction drops substantially. “These Walls” is a more introspective take on the breezy, rooftop terrace mood of much of the album, but aside from a woozy guitar line it’s bland and corny, its production and lyrics giving Natasha Bedingfield-lite (“If these walls could talk / They’d tell us to break up” – really?). The closing track “Happy For You” radiates zen feelings about an ex’s new relationship, and even calls back to an earlier Lipa hit (“Together you look hot as hell”) but it’s weightless, dull and lacking, as though the peace Lipa is describing could just passively happen to a person, rather than be the result of hard work or struggle. As the album fades out, the lasting impression is absence – of a twist in the tale, a subtle kernel of doubt, the weight of experience”.
The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis provided his thoughts on Radical Optimism. It is hard to shake off that feeling that many critics are writing about the album in relation to what was promised in terms of its influences and sources, rather than setting that aside and viewing it on its own merits. Going into things a little clouded and fixated on trying to find Britpop and Psychedelic touches:
“But it’s so far removed from what Dua Lipa has claimed it is that you find yourself frantically searching for evidence of what she might have meant. Does the “psychedelic” part refer to the presence of songwriter/producer Kevin Parker, who certainly started his career making lysergic alt-rock with Tame Impala, but turns up here in his pop hitmaker guise familiar from his work with Lady Gaga and the Weeknd? Is the regular presence of an acoustic guitar – and a pretty sliver of electric slide that decorates These Walls – supposed to signify Britpop?
PHOTO CREDIT: Tyrone Lebon
You could drive yourself mad doing it, so perhaps it’s better to focus on what is here, rather than what isn’t. It’s sunlit and appealingly frothy – you could divine a lot from the fact that Radical Optimism was sent out to journalists under the pseudonym Candy Floss. That it lacks an immediately grabby pop anthem along the lines of Physical or New Rules doesn’t mean it lacks hooks: they’re just the kind that burrow under your skin without you noticing, as on singles Houdini and Illusion. Similarly, the production tends to subtlety: most of the sonic excitement happens in the lower end, in the busy acid lines that underpin Maria, the thunderous live drums of Falling Forever and the combination of slap bass and sprawling deep electronics behind Watcha Doing. Maria deals in Jolene-like love rivalry, Happy for You ends the album on a note of Someone Like You-ish passive aggression – the kind of song in which the protagonist professes at length to be delighted at how hot their ex’s new partner is, which means the album’s much-vaunted optimistic tone takes on a hint of a fixed grin – but for most part, the lyrics are of the type that rhyme “sweetest pleasure” with “gonna be together” and “this could be forever”, ie they seem to exist primarily in order to give the singer some words to sing rather than actually expressing anything.
In a way, that seems very on-brand. Dua Lipa’s refusal to engage with the more soul-bearing aspects of 21st-century celebrity has made her the kind of pop star one suspects Andy Warhol might have had a lot of time for: a slightly remote, visually arresting space into which fans can project whatever they want. Profile writers looking for an angle have recently suggested she’s everything from big-sisterly “agony aunt for lovelorn club kids” to a “dauntless warrior queen” to a sharp-eyed operator carefully plotting every part of her success. Being a blank slate has served her well thus far, although it’s seldom a strong long-term strategy, and Radical Optimism lacks a unique personality as a result – particularly compared with the vivid writing of her peers. It’s a well-made album with mass appeal and, of course, there’s no law that pop music has to be deep. But the adjective in its title certainly doesn’t belong”.
Before getting to that interview from The Guardian, The Independent were closer to the mark in their five-star review. I feel that there is a lot to recommend about Dua Lipa’s third studio album. Even though her best work still lies ahead, it does show that she is someone always moving and trying to do something different to her peers:
“You have to admire Dua Lipa’s steely sense of purpose. Back in 2017, when she was working on her self-titled debut album, she told her A&R Joe Kentish that she planned to work with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker on her third album. Kentish laughed and told the emerging star to hold her horses. But seven years later, here she is with her third album, Radical Optimism, and here’s Parker, playing and producing on seven of the 11 tracks.
This artistic conviction has been one of the Albanian-British artist’s driving traits from day one. We heard it in the uncompromising regime of her 2017 single “New Rules”, in the brisk edicts of “Don’t Start Now” (2019) and again on “Houdini”, the advance single for this record, on which she throws down the gauntlet to a potential lover with the line: “Prove you’ve got the right to please me.” Urgent, upbeat, demanding and funky, Lipa is a finger-snap personified throughout Radical Optimism.
She takes control from the off. A flurry of Seventies synth-flutes open “End of an Era”; that trademarked rubber-band-bass sends her striding onto a dancefloor to take the initiative. “Hey/ What’s your name?/ Come with me,” she demands. Parker’s dropped in some live percussion – the shimmer of a hi-hat, some bells and a chime – into the mix, contributing a more organic vibe to Lipa’s muscular brand of disco pop
But she doesn’t need a live band to create jeopardy; she’s always enjoyed the one-two punch of bass and vocals (fuelled by sparkly synths) to speed pulses. On “Houdini”, the melody builds as she urges a potential lover to “catch me before I go”, ramping up interplanetary levels of pressure by stressing that “time is passing like a solar eclipse”. Tick tock, snap to it!
The make-or-break stakes remain high on “Training Season”, where a rattling snare prods the unready into action. “Whatcha Doin’” finds another irresistibly elastic bass line catapulting Lipa into a romantic “collision”, while the club beat of “Illusion” finds her laughing at a player who’s “Tryna’ make me yours for life, takin’ me for a ride.” Her energy and swaggering self-confidence are contagious.
Fittingly for such an international artist, Lipa accessorises certain tracks with a little Eurodisco, skirt-twirling, sambuca-shot fun. There’s a Latin strum and flamenco handclaps on both “Maria” and “French Exit” (the latter a term for leaving without saying goodbye).
PHOTO CREDIT: Dan Beleiu for ELLE
There’s a dreamy little American slide guitar gilding the lower key on “These Walls”, whose melody is so sweetly peppy that non-Anglophones are unlikely to realise is a breakup song) and some gloriously abandoned ululation on “Falling Forever”, which makes you want to throw her hat into the ring for Eurovision 2025. The beat thunders on at a gallop as Lipa – often more of a pouty/breathy singer – really gives the vocal some welly.
Unlike many of her pop peers, Lipa doesn’t offer any diaristic glimpses into her private life, joking in a recent interview that she is too British to “spill guts”. She certainly sounds like a woman who has little time for that sort of smush. Like an Eighties aerobics instructor, she wants bodies on the dancefloor: feel the burn, sweat it out. Dress in something that allows you to bend and snap along with her, you’ll end up glowing with Lipa’s Radical Optimism”.
I want to bring in sections of that interview with The Guardian before I wrap things up. It highlights various sides of Dua Lipa. Why she should be as highlighted and celebrated as much as many of her female peers. I think that women like Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish and Beyoncé are so inspiring and empowering. Not only incredible artists, they are also activists and businesswomen. Multiple sides. A huge balancing act. You get the feeling that, through music and wider afield, Lipa wants to change the world and make a difference:
“Her best songs do sound as if they’ve been made for a hot, sunny day at Glastonbury (arguably more so than her prized night-time headline slot). If you’re looking for lyrical profundity, Dua Lipa’s music is not your go-to. Most of her songs, written by a team with her at the helm, are about being betrayed by rubbish boyfriends, not standing any nonsense from rubbish boyfriends, having great sex with rubbish boyfriends and dumping rubbish boyfriends. But if you’re after electro-pop dancefloor bangers, she’s up with the best (One Kiss with Calvin Harris, Be The One, Physical, New Rules).
Lipa was born in London to Kosovan-Albanian parents who fled Kosovo in 1992, just after Yugoslavia had been dissolved and at a time of growing discrimination against ethnic Albanians. Her mother, Anesa, the child of a Kosovan father and Bosnian mother, trained as a lawyer. Her father, Dukagjin, is the son of Seit Lipa, an esteemed historian and a former head of the Kosovo Institute of History. In the 1980s, Dukagjin was a member of the Kosovan rock band Oda, before training as a dentist. In England, their qualifications were useless. So they waited tables while retraining – Dukagjin in marketing and Anesa in tourism.
I tell her I’m struggling with the theme of radical optimism, particularly in such a polarised, war-torn world. Lipa has been vocal in her criticism of the Israeli government and her support of the Palestinian people. “You know, it’s not just Israel and Gaza,” she says, “it’s also Russia and Ukraine. And there is so much happening in Sudan. There’s so much going on in our world that’s horrible. I think everybody’s feeling that sense of hopelessness.”
Exactly. So where do we find optimism? “For me, music has always served as a form of escapism. It’s about community, togetherness. It’s one language that we can all universally connect with.”
Agreed, art can be a great way to escape and bond. But I still don’t get the optimism. “I just like to see things in a positive way. Every time when you look back and in hindsight go, ‘Oh, that thing that upset me is so irrelevant now.’” And the radical element? “It’s the idea of being radically accepting of who you are, of your flaws. It comes over time, learning about yourself, going through different experiences, maturing. Understanding that being forgiving towards someone is just as important for them as it is for you. It’s about being able to move on. That is radical acceptance in its clearest form.” One song, Happy for You, sums up her philosophy of radical optimism – she spots an ex with his new model girlfriend and finds it in her heart to be pleased he’s found love.
Music writers have pointed out that in an era dominated by female singers with a distinct USP (Beyoncé empowers, Taylor confesses, Adele provides a shoulder to cry on), Lipa does not have one. She would probably agree and say that’s her strength. There are many Duas; she contains lucrative multitudes. So there is the singer who gets you dancing; the bikini-clad Instagram babe who always seems to be holidaying with a hot boyfriend (actor Anwar Hadid, film-maker Romain Gavras and now Masters of the Air star Callum Turner); the #sponsoredcontent creator who writes on X: “So fun being back with my @porsche family for 24hrs in Singapore!!!” Then there is the campaigner who wants to educate about social injustice, and the arts curator who runs a book club and interviews literary giants (she has taken the club to women’s prisons). And finally, there is the aspiring media tycoon who founded the website Service95 in 2022, which she describes as a “global style, arts and society venture – the ultimate cultural concierge – at the service of the reader”.
Perhaps it’s the podcasts that reveal most about her character and ambitions. Interviews with Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart, campaigner Monica Lewinsky and pop star Charli XCX were beautifully handled. But what’s most interesting is how little she divulges about herself. Often her subjects will tell Lipa a story about fame or the music industry, for example, and say that she must have experienced a similar thing. We wait for the revelation, but Lipa skilfully bypasses it and segues on to her next point. It’s a conjuring trick of sorts. She appears to invite us into her life – showing us what she reads, where she holidays, which issues she cares about – while revealing nothing truly intimate.
PHOTO CREDIT: Tyrone Lebon
Is she aware of how little of herself she gives away in her podcasts? “Oh, 1,000%,” she says. “I guess I just wear different hats, and when I’m in my podcast world, and especially when I’m interviewing different artists, I’m there for them and for their story.”
You have an incredible knack of not answering their questions, I say. She smiles, curious. “Go on,” she says. Take Charli XCX, I say. When she asks which songs of yours you hate playing, you don’t answer. “Well, that’s really interesting because I don’t have a song that I hate playing,” she says.
OK then, one you’ve written that you hate?
“Yeah, I have that, but I can’t tell you that.”
Exactly, I say, but you’re happy for Charli XCX to tell you. “That’s entirely her prerogative. I don’t want to say because I write with other people. It could be a song that someone’s really proud of. I’m not going to go and shit on that.”
So next time Charli XCX guests on her podcast and offers up her least favourite song, is she going to tell her to keep it to herself so she doesn’t cause offence? No, she says. “I love how open she is, it’s great. Maybe I’m a bit more of an overthinker.”
She tells me about Radical22 Publishing, her publishing and production arm. “Through my book club, I get sent lots of new books, and if I find a story that I love, then maybe I can help produce it or bring it into a different world.” She mentions a documentary series on London’s musical heritage, directed by Oscar winner Asif Kapadia that Radical22 is producing. “It’s about Camden, which is my home. I’m so excited about that. I want to grow with all these other aspects of my job.”
It’s now that I feel I’m seeing the real Dua Lipa. And it’s now that the podcasts she has made with Apple CEO Tim Cook and former New York Times editor-in-chief Dean Baquet begin to make sense. Sure, the music is important to her, but Lipa seems to be playing a longer game.
When she met Cook and Baquet, she saw the interviews as learning opportunities: how do you grow the world’s biggest tech company? How do you lead the world’s most influential media organisation? How do you plan for, shape and, of course, control your global success? Her interview with Baquet was strategic. The NYT had run an advert in May 2021 targeting Lipa and supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid. The ad, paid for by the World Values Network headed by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, featured photos of the three women, with a headline saying “Bella, Gigi and Dua, Hamas calls for a second Holocaust. Condemn them now”. It claimed the women had accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and “vilified the Jewish State”. Lipa said at the time: “I utterly reject the false and appalling accusations”, and called it a “blatant misrepresentation” of who she is.
When she interviewed Baquet a year later, she interrogated him about the advert and told him how it had affected her. Baquet struggled to provide a convincing answer as to why the paper had run the ad, simply saying there was a church and state separation between editorial and advertising. But, I discover today, there was an even more politic reason for the podcast. It was Lipa’s way of resolving her problem with the NYT. What clued-up superstar wants to be at war with such a powerful organisation? “For me, it was important because I wasn’t working with the Times because of it.” You had boycotted it? “I wasn’t doing any media work with them because I felt I was put in danger. So it was important to talk to him about it. It was something that I needed to get off my chest.” She is no longer boycotting the NYT.
We’re giving a platform to voices we think need it, news people might not go looking for. We offer something different to the Guardian or the New York Times
What is fascinating in her interviews with Cook and Baquet is how much common ground she finds with them as cultural curators, media grandees and global influencers. As well as its book club and podcast, Service95 provides news features, restaurant reviews and travel pieces.
As she has almost 90 million Instagram followers, would I be right in thinking that she’d like to create a media empire? “Yeah, potentially. I think the media sphere is changing drastically.” And, yes, she understands perfectly why her fans may prefer to come to her for news. “We have a lot of subscribers. We’re giving a platform to voices that we think really need it, and it’s news that maybe people might not necessarily go looking for. I think we offer something different to what the Guardian or the New York Times are doing.”
Are you going to take my job? I whimper. “Definitely not,” she says. “I need you. Because I want to commission interesting stories, but I need the writer. I need the journalist. Journalists are super vital. The people who tell the stories are super important.”
She recently started to learn Spanish, French and Italian, and plans to be fluent in all three languages by the time she’s 35. Where do you see yourself then – a multilingual, singing media tycoon?
“Yeah, all of it,” she says. “Why not? Yeah. Hell, yeah.”
On my way out, I ask again about her shirt. “Isn’t it like the AC Milan top?”
“No, I designed it myself with my team,” she says firmly. “Do let me know if you want to write something for us.”
Thank you, I say, much appreciated.
“1,000%,” she says”.
I feel like the reviews for Radical Optimism have not been as sunny and considered as they should be (though sources like The New Yorker have been kind). No worries! I think the album will sell loads. Its streaming figures are impressive. The singles from the album have done really well. Even if they did not stay in the high numbers for as long as hoped, she still has scored three top tens from the album so far. She is going to bring that album to life at Glastonbury in June. We are also going to see Dua Lipa go on to bigger and better things. She will enjoy huge concert tours around the world. Documentaries and more film work. I can see Dua Lipa going on to do a lot of charity and humanitarian work. She is someone who is not only an incredibly powerful and incredible artist. She has so many facets. Much deeper and more impressive than many give her credit for! As compelling and important as her peers. Still in her twenties, we are going to see this incredible artist go from strength to strength. I feel she will produce an astonishing headline performance at Glastonbury. In years to come, we are going to hear and see so many different sides from Dua Lipa – though future albums and in other projects/guises. I think that the brilliant and hugely listenable Radical Optimism more than…
LIVES up to its title.