It’s no use explaining what’s happening in the world around us—you already know. Everything we’ve known has been upended and changed forever. We’re still years from discovering what that new normal actually is. It’s heavy, it’s infuriating, and it’s scary: it’s grief. Everything we hold dear—vacations, concerts, healthy daily life—is canceled. There isn’t an end in sight, but there is an abundance of graphs, uncertainty, and fear.
We need an escape. Enter Dua Lipa’s—I’ll go ahead and say year-defining sophomore album, Future Nostalgia. Three years ago, “New Rules” was ever-present on the radio, a top ten worldwide, indisputable Song of the Summer candidate. The US was behind the rest of the world on discovering “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” and “Be the One,” whose style laid the groundwork for her second album’s sound. However, two 2018 collaborations with Calvin Harris (the tropical house-influenced “One Kiss”) and Silk City (the straight dance-pop of “Electricity”) kept her pop star rising.