FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Dua Lipa – Dua Lipa
__________
BECAUSE it turns five on 2nd June…
I thought I would feature Dua Lipa’s eponymous in this Revisiting… An album that introduced us to one of the world’s greatest and most accomplished Pop artists, the past few years have seen her grow from a promising and hugely exciting artist to someone who is commanding respect like few of her peers! With recent gigs cementing her as a modern Pop artist who can rival the all-time great idols, it will be exciting watching Lipa thrill on her third album. 2020’s Future Nostalgia is one of the great Pop albums of the past decade. I will come to a couple of reviews for Dua Lipa. I think that Lipa’s debut album is underrated. It received a lot of positive reviews, but there were others more cautious and reserved. Maybe there will be reappraisal ahead of the fifth anniversary of Dua Lipa next month. Before coming to a couple of positive reviews, I will source an interview with Lipa from 2017. Born in London, Dua Lipa is the eldest child of Kosovo-Albanian parents Anesa and Dukagjin Lipa from Pristina, FR Yugoslavia (present-day Kosovo). The rising Pop artist spoke with NME shortly before the release of her debut album:
“When people used to ask what I wanted to be I’d always say a singer, but I never thought it was a real job. I thought it was as far-fetched as cartoon characters on TV,” she says. Born in London to Albanian parents who left Kosovo in the ’90s, Lipa can remember making up dance routines in the playground to Jamelia’s ‘Superstar’ and Ciara’s ‘1, 2 Step’. Her dream seemed even more unlikely after her family returned to Kosovo when she was 11, calling time on Saturday classes at Sylvia Young Theatre School, where Amy Winehouse and Rita Ora – herself an immigrant from Kosovo – also started out. “Music there was so different,” Lipa says. “It just didn’t compare to the pop stars I’d see on TV, like Britney Spears and Destiny’s Child.”
Because Kosovo felt so constraining, a 15-year-old Lipa persuaded her parents she should return to London alone, so she could study full-time at Sylvia Young. “There was an older girl from Kosovo moving to London at the same time and my parents knew her parents, so they said I could live with her. Like a kind of guardian.” The two girls ended up sharing a flat in Kilburn, but the guardian thing never happened – Lipa had to go at it alone. “She was super-busy with her boyfriend and stressed with her studies. So I’d have lots of friends over all the time and I’d always be on FaceTime with my parents.”
At 15, music was Lipa’s biggest focus, and she was already learning life skills most of us don’t think about until university. “The cooking and the cleaning… that was tough,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. “I mean, the realisation that no one was going to clean up after me was tough! But stuff like that really made me grow up before my time. It helped me mature, I guess, and made me who I am today. I’m really grateful for it, but I do remember it being a struggle. My mum came to visit once, opened my wardrobe and said, ‘What are all these clothes?’ I was like, ‘Those are all the dirty clothes that I’ve never washed!’”
The hustle paid off and at 18 she signed a record deal. But that wasn’t the end goal. Since then, she’s stayed in firm control of how she’s portrayed, who she works with and how she manages her ascent to stardom. She’s scored big hits with Sean Paul (‘No Lie’) and EDM star Martin Garrix (‘Scared To Be Lonely’), but she’s rejected other features because they didn’t feel right. “I knew there was a possibility they could push me to a larger audience, but I think when features aren’t done correctly they don’t represent who you are as an artist and you get a bit lost.”
Lipa co-wrote most of her album, but breakthrough banger ‘Be The One’ was given to her by songwriters Lucy Taylor and Nicholas James Gale. “As much as I loved the song, at first I wasn’t sure I wanted to record it because I hadn’t written it,” she recalls. “It was a pride thing, but it was also like, ‘I can’t take a song I haven’t written because then no one will believe I write any of my own stuff.’ But I just had to get over it. And now that song has helped me to get the stuff that I did write out there.”
The hard work doesn’t stop with a hit-packed, chart-ready debut album. She’s now preparing for a massive Glastonbury performance of her own and a whole summer of festivals. Everything revolves around building brand Lipa. “It’s like when you hear a voice on the radio and think, ‘Well, that’s Ed Sheeran.’ I want people to hear my voice, or my name, and think, ‘That’s the girl who sings ‘Hotter Than Hell’. That’s the girl who sings ‘Be The One’”.
I will come to some positive feedback for an album that, looking back, is an outstanding debut. Even though Dua Lipa would reach wider and higher for 2020’s Future Nostalgia, she was twenty-one when her debut arrived. CLASH had their say when they sat down with her album:
“Dua Lipa — who doesn’t require a stage name because her birth one is so striking — has made it very clear in press releases and interviews that this album is, well, her. It’s not a performance but a set of songs that reflect her life and the fact we all “go through the same fucking shit”. The question is: do we believe her?
When artists write about themselves, they’re expected to really bare their souls. It’s probably time this idea was disregarded, thrown to the wayside. Good music doesn’t have to have the tortured soul of an artist lurking beneath it. On Dua Lipa’s self-titled debut the London-born, Kosovo-raised artist gets personal. But she does so without resorting to bombast — at least for the most part. Dua Lipa isn’t baring her tortured innermost self, she’s singing songs about her life, her ups and her downs. This balance is undoubtedly refreshing.
Lipa, who made her name via Youtube at the age of 16, is only 21 but her music belies the confidence of someone older. She mentions J. Cole, Nelly Furtado and Christina Aguilera as influences, no surprise there given her sound. More surprising, however, are her references to the Stereophonics and Robbie Williams.
On first listen, what’s most striking about the twelve-song album is how Lipa manages to keep things texturally interesting. Of course, throughout the album there are increases and decreases in intensity. But Dua Lipa never relies on these to keep the listener hooked — that’s where the detailed percussion and satisfyingly complex melodies come in.
Slowburner ‘Genesis’ kicks off the album but ‘Hotter Than Hell’ is the first track to up the ante. Although it’s well produced, ‘Hotter Than Hell’ lacks a little of the genuine energy of Lipa’s other singles. ‘Be The One’, which follows, sparkles with that missing zeal. It’s a track to rival the best efforts of Lipa’s big-name pop contemporaries: a slinking baseline and vibrant, layered melodies.
The amusingly named ‘IDGAF’ takes crisp, almost militaristic drums and combines them with some of Lipa’s most cutting lyrics. When she sings: “You say you're sorry / But it's too late now / So save it, get gone, shut up / 'Cause if you think I care about you now / Well, boy, I don't give a fuck”, it’s easy to believe she means it. The touch of MNEK on production is notable — ‘IDGAF’ is likely the best track off the album.
Dua Lipa does encounter some minor pitfalls. On ‘Garden’, she succumbs to overproduced drums and lacklustre lyrics. When she sings: “Are we leaving this garden of Eden? / Now I know what I know / But it’s hard to find the meaning,” the dramatism falls somewhat flat. ‘New Rules’ brings things back on track, with pattering drums leading into a scorching chorus as elements of bashment, tropical house and glitchy horn-laced pop vie for attention. Tracks like ‘New Rules’ demonstrate exactly why critics picked Lipa out as one to watch last year.
The final result is a debut album brimming with confidence, confidence not only in Lipa’s own voice and her eye for a chorus, but in the emotive quality of her lyrics. When Dua Lipa reaches for the personal, she sounds like she's doing so because that’s where her best music emerges from, not because she think that’s what authentic artists do”.
If you not heard Dua Lipa in a while or want to go back ahead of its fifth anniversary, now would be a good time. It still sounds pretty fresh. Not losing any of its momentum and personality, it bears repeated plays after five years. AllMusic had their say about the incredible Dua Lipa:
“With the confidence and determination of a seasoned vet, English-Albanian singer/songwriter Dua Lipa crafted a delightful collection of catchy pop gems where the songs only serve to highlight her vocal prowess. Lithe enough to avoid production overkill and containing just enough substance to nourish, Dua Lipa arrived after years of studio time and six big singles (three of which became U.K. Top 40 hits). The album is front-loaded with those highlights, creating a rush of dancefloor intensity with "Hotter Than Hell," "Be the One," "Blow Your Mind (Mwah)," and the duet with Miguel, "Lost in Your Light." The second half of the LP shines an extra spotlight on Lipa's voice, which, to some extent, can echo the control and power of Adele and Sia. "Garden" is a sweeping, soulful number that does just that, combining the dramatics of a slow-burning Sia ballad with Adele's delivery. "No Goodbyes" is another emotional journey, one of the handful of absolutely yearning and pained confessions from Lipa's broken heart. The acoustic R&B "Thinking 'Bout You" smolders, a lovelorn lament that finds Lipa exhausting her chemical outlets in an attempt to forget a past romance.
In a similar vein, "New Rules" is all house-inflected shine, a cautionary list that cleverly warns "if you're under him, you're not over him." In addition to Miguel, a pair of other guests contribute additional highlights. The MNEK-produced kiss-off "IDGAF" is a cheeky, Ed Sheeran-esque singalong that provides a perfect anthem for anyone who has ever been burned by love. "Homesick" -- written by Chris Martin -- could be a direct sequel to Coldplay's 2016 single "Everglow." The delicate ballad reveals Lipa's vulnerability and softness, the defenses of studio production stripped away, leaving only Lipa, Martin, and a twinkling piano. Such exposure isn't found elsewhere on the rest of the album, which is mostly concerned with self-empowerment and Lipa's refreshingly defiant attitude. It's moments like this one that strike such a satisfying balance on Dua Lipa, an excellent first effort from a budding pop star”.
This series is about looking back at albums from the past five years that are worth another spin. I have extended the parameter by a few weeks, as Dua Lipa is coming up for its fifth anniversary. Few, despite their faith, would have guest how she would have progressed and grown as an artist from 2017 to now! Still in her twenties, she will continue to evolve as an artist. With Pop pearls like New Rules, IDGAF and Hotter Than Hell, Dua Lipa is…
A mighty debut album.