Music is one of today’s most popular forms of media. One look at our homepage and you’ll see that there is a slew of new artists featured under our Videos Section. Indeed, the internet has made it infinitely easier to create and distribute music. This has made it easier for artists to take more creative risks and create music that they want to make, as almost every type of music will surely have an audience nowadays. This, among other things, has caused a peculiar trend to resurface.
Disco has made a triumphant comeback to the airwaves. Everyone from Lady Gaga to Justin Timberlake has incorporated some form of disco in their work. While we can probably dedicate an entire article on those projects, another artist has made waves. She has truly capitalized on the resurgence of disco.
There’s no questioning that Dua Lipa‘s Future Nostalgia is a great album. It has garnered both critical and commercial success to the point that the BBC details that many critics have given it wildly positive reviews. They consider the album to be one of the best releases of 2020. Given the album’s status, it would be a crime not to have an in-depth discussion about it. This is why we’ve put together a quick review of Dua Lipa’s latest album Future Nostalgia!
Future Nostalgia
Right off the bat, fans will notice a shift in sound. From the first track Future Nostalgia, it’s pretty clear that Dua Lipa has chosen to go an entirely different direction from her self-titled debut album from just three years ago. While her debut album had garnered Dua Lipa unparalleled success by delving into electro-pop and dancehall, this album is heavily influenced by the 1970s era disco. The album’s lead single Don’t Start Now may be the best representation of this. Its funky bassline rings through the song and transports the listeners to a foregone era — reviving disco fever in the year 2020.
Overall
While the disco element of the album is often praised, one underrated aspect of the album is Dua Lipa’s stellar vocals. There are many factors that can make or break vocals when making music. One of which is the ever-evolving microphone. The variety of microphones on review site Shout4Music is a testament to the wide array of options today’s artists have when it comes to making music. Dua Lipa opts to use the famous Shure SM58. It boasts ‘unparalleled sound clarity’, according to Shout4Music. Which is why the best aspects of her voice are accentuated on this album. The vocal work on the album only emphasizes its greatest strengths as it pulls the listener in, making them nostalgic for a time that they may have never even experienced.
This isn’t something that can be shallowly reproduced by mimicking and repackaging disco elements into modern pop songs. Rolling Stone’s piece on the disco revival details that artists like Dua Lipa are successful because their intention isn’t to copy. It’s to create music by drawing inspiration from the past resulting in something unique in itself.
