Released:
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Dua Lipa is a pop star born and raised on a stream of bottomless influences.
Label: Warners
Released: 2nd June 2017
Rating: ★★★★
If you had to apply to be a pop star like any other job, that application form would be a really odd one to look at? Delivering bangers and soaring hooks while jumping right into a world of big and bold colours is not an everyday hobby, so the ability to do all of that from the get-go from a debut album is one to be admired. For Dua Lipa, it’s a world that hasn’t just stumbled into line, but one that’s been the goal from the very beginning – and that wide-eyed aim at the biggest stages can be heard searing through her self-titled debut. Underneath the sing-along hooks though, is a record that bristles and bursts with the moments and lights of late-night life – a modern pop record for 1am cocktails coated in neon-lit hallways.
Undeniable at every turn, there’s an instant magic to heavyweights like ‘Hotter Than Hell’, ‘Be The One’ and ‘Blow Your Mind (Mwah)’ that blend tropical beats and mountain-sized glimpses with ease. That effortless sense of style and dreaming dazzles throughout, in the strutting grooves of the Miguel-featuring ‘Lost In Your Light’ and the Major Lazer vibrations of ‘New Rules’ that both erupt like a fuse of confetti and strobe lights hitting at the same time. If there’s a statement to be made, it’s that Dua Lipa is a pop star born and raised on a stream of bottomless influences, one that can drop the bubblegum sharpness of ‘IDGAF’ at one moment before laying out the vulnerable rawness of the swelling ‘Garden’ and stripped-back ‘Thinking ‘Bout You’ the next.
More than anything, ‘Dua Lipa’ confirms what kind of pop star Dua Lipa is set to become. One that can take the complicated fashions of life as a young adult in 2017, deliver a cheeky wink and take them to the skies in one swoop. Open those club doors; Dua Lipa is about to take things global. Jamie Muir
