Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia (the Grammy winning imperial era)

Love Again :disco: is the subject of one of the new episodes of Song Exploder which is making the switch from podcast to Netflix.



out Dec 12th, should be good exposure for the song.

she's also performing on SNL the following week, hopefully she sneaks it in alongside Levitating given that we were robbed of it at Studio 2054.

AND it's on the Tesco Christmas playlist - future smash single status confirmed huns! :disco:
 
So Future Nostalgia was ALWAYS going to be one of my albums of the year but something about Studio 2054 just made it hit even harder for me. It's like she has finally found the missing piece of the puzzle - the knack for absolutely selling the songs convincingly in performances.

It will end up as my number one now.
 
This is probably my album of the year. Or Jessie Ware. But the top 10 is fucking packed this year.
 
This is another topic i may well start at some point, but 2020 has been the strongest year for albums for me in ages. I'd probably need to give it some more thought, but for mainstream, commercially successful acts at least I'm confident it must be the best year for a decade.
 
yeah easily. usually i'd struggle to choose ten great albums but this year there at least thirteen I'd want in that list. so many favourites released and so many of them delivered.
 
Eddie said:
So Future Nostalgia was ALWAYS going to be one of my albums of the year but something about Studio 2054 just made it hit even harder for me. It's like she has finally found the missing piece of the puzzle - the knack for absolutely selling the songs convincingly in performances.

It will end up as my number one now.
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So even though this is the case, it's dawned on me that I haven't actually bought the album which just feels WRONG, quite frankly. A Spotify premium subscription does not seem adequate.

I'm loathe to purchase the CD and I only recently bought my first vinyl.

How many of you have bought it and on what format?
 
Though that being said I bought Rina's album on CD months ago and still haven't removed the shrink wrap.
 
246,068 sold, according to a Music Week article today, awarding her Artist Of The Year.
 
God the SLOG to hit platinum in the streaming era.

I think they need to reassess the certification thresholds. Silver 50k, Gold 100k, Platinum 250k.

not specifically to get Dua Lipa certified :D but just because
 
Weirdly, I have it twice, having bought the 2CD version in a Sainsbury's offer. And they never sent me that signed picture from the first one either. Fucking record companies.
 
Anyway, one of my favourites of the year for sure. A good while since we've had a pop album as ace all the way through as this - I'd say Charli and Pop 2 but I don't really see those as pop albums. Which might be my bad.
 
Just gave this a listen for the first time :side-eye: and... well, it's a solid collection of unremarkable, characterless bops that I don't especially ever need to hear again :altaf:

And I could write your slanderous Now United-based retort right now Jark so PLS DON'T. She's just not for me. :moira:
 
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Something tells me dub would have written that regardless.

Its obviously ALBUM OF THE YEAR!
 
Btw calling all... what are her fans called? Lipsticks? Du-Dahs?

anyway it looks like she’s on Season 2 of Song Exploder on Netflix, talking about the making of Love Again
 
OutSynk said:
But NOW we said it. The album is enjoyable for sure but this is a perfect description.
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Future Nostalgia takes me back to the really iconic pop campaigns - Fever or LAMB, where every single was an event, the videos were serves, and there was a sense of those artists having the world in their hands. That's what this album is and what this year has been for Dua - it's not just about the music (although good luck finding another big pop girl album with eight tracks in a row that are certified massive bangers) but about the feeling the whole campaign invokes. It's such a "classic pop era". I'm sorry if you don't have the joy inside you to understand that.

And song of the year Physical, into Levitating, into Pretty Please, into Hallucinate, into Love Again? who the fuck else has that? who isn't TOUCHED BY THAT? Gaga's serving drops where the chorus should be like it's still 2014 post-EDM hell, and Ari is... still mumbling. Dua fucking gets it. she radiates joy and passion for pop (that thing you bitches are supposed to enjoy too). but sure, unremarkable. :rolleyes:
 
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Jark The Herald Angels Sing said:
Future Nostalgia takes me back to the really iconic pop campaigns - Fever or LAMB, where every single was an event, the videos were serves, and there was a sense of those artists having the world in their hands. That's what this album is and what this year has been for Dua - it's not just about the music (although good luck finding another big pop girl album with eight tracks in a row that are certified massive bangers) but about the feeling the whole campaign invokes. It's such a "classic pop era". I'm sorry if you don't have the joy inside you to understand that.

And song of the year Physical, into Levitating, into Pretty Please, into Hallucinate, into Love Again? who the fuck else has that? who isn't TOUCHED BY THAT? Gaga's serving drops where the chorus should be like it's still 2014 post-EDM hell, and Ari is... still mumbling. Dua fucking gets it. she radiates joy and passion for pop (that thing you bitches are supposed to enjoy too). but sure, unremarkable. :rolleyes:
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Ok hun xx HUG FOR ZU.
 
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Sounds like SOMEONE doesn’t want to be on someone else’s podcast!
 
JK miss thing. I’m glad you love it so much and I admire the passion but it really was a rather mild criticism (that I stand by xo)
 
Oh well I watched Song Exploder, not especially insightful.

“and we were like, why don’t we put this bit in and they were like lol yeah and like we put in this other bit”

And, having already said she was being influenced by late 90s stuff like Cosmic Girl, they were claiming they got the sample from the original 30s trumpet record, and oh by the way it was used by White Town :eyes:

well at least I like the song, especially the White Town sample :)


Wish they’d done Robyn for this series :( I know she’s done the podcast
 
Diddy said:
Oh well I watched Song Exploder, not especially insightful.

“and we were like, why don’t we put this bit in and they were like lol yeah and like we put in this other bit”
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It didn't offer anything new and the same could have been said about 5 other songs on the record. Besides, it's 2020 so we're all familiar now with the "change a word take a third" approach that goes into the songwriting but at least they could have shown her a little bit more immersed in the process.

Honestly, I just wanted to listen to her speak for 30 minutes, God I love her.
 
Pipo said:
It didn't offer anything new and the same could have been said about 5 other songs on the record. Besides, it's 2020 so we're all familiar now with the "change a word take a third" approach that goes into the songwriting but at least they could have shown her a little bit more immersed in the process.

Honestly, I just wanted to listen to her speak for 30 minutes, God I love her.
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i liked the REM Losing my Religion one, and the Alicia Keys one. Omg if we are talking dreamy speaking voices then Alicia is mine
 
Music Week

Future nostalgic: The inside story of Dua Lipa's bold, lockdown-beating album launch
by Mark Sutherland
December 18th 2020 at 7:07AM

It was the biggest call anyone in the recorded music business made in 2020. When the initial coronavirus lockdown loomed back in March, most major artists with an album scheduled quickly decided to move it back until things got back to normal.

But one star – Music Week 2020 Artist Of The Year Dua Lipa, no less – was brave enough to go the other way. Future Nostalgia had been due to be released on April 3 but, prompted by an online leak, physical copies already being in the supply chain and a burning desire for the world to hear the music she’d been working so hard on for almost two years, Lipa and her team made the bold decision to bring the release forward by a week.

It didn’t pay off straight away – Future Nostalgia was narrowly beaten to No.1 by 5 Seconds Of Summer’s CALM (Polydor) in its first week. But, as the end of the year comes around – despite things never actually getting back to normal – it’s clear that the move paid off, big time.

Future Nostalgia has sold 246,068 copies to date, according to the Official Charts Company, and is the biggest-selling 2020 artist release of the year to date, behind only 2019 albums Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent (EMI, 440,300 sales this year) and Harry Styles’ Fine Line (Columbia, 273,492).

Along the way, the album has also spun off five monster hit singles, been nominated for six Grammys and Lipa delivered her record-breaking Studio 2054 livestream, attracting over five million viewers worldwide.

The full story of a campaign like no other is told by Lipa and her team in the new issue of Music Week, available now. But we also gathered the superstar singer-songwriter, Warner Records president Phil Christie and head of A&R Joe Kentish, plus Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, Music Week Managers Of The Year and co-founders of Lipa’s management company and publishers Tap Music, to tell the oral history of the most crucial moment in the story: the release itself.

Read on to find out how they pulled off 2020’s biggest high-stakes gamble…

How did you feel going into the album release?
Dua Lipa: “I’d be lying if I said it was totally fine and I was so ready for whatever was going to happen! I was definitely scared, because there’s always that uncertainty. I put it out just as lockdown was happening in the UK and there was so much uncertainty and suffering, it was a very confusing time. We didn’t know how long we’d be in this, some people were saying two weeks, some were saying six months and I literally had no idea. The thing that made me want to put it out at this time is that I made this record as a form of escapism, to get away from any pressures or words from other people. It was the reason why this album was created so, if there was any time to put it out, it should be now.”

Ed Millett, Tap Music: “Just as we entered the year, there was so much internal excitement about getting this music out because, as the songs came in, they were everything and more that we hoped they would be. Our hand was forced to a certain degree, but she just owned it.”

Did you contemplate putting the release back?
Ben Mawson, Tap Music: “Yeah, we did debate that obviously, but I’m glad we didn’t because we don’t know when normal’s coming back. We’ll have another album out before then!” [Laughs]

Phil Christie, Warner Records: “There was a leak that we had to evaluate, but it was also because the music was in the physical supply chain both here and in America. So the idea that we would have physical copies sitting in storerooms across America, it was going to be impossible to fix a future date and hold the record in, and it was leaking anyway so we said, ‘We’ve got to roll’.”

Joe Kentish, Warner Records: “We were having all types of discussions about what should happen and Dua was the one who said, ‘We’re going to put it out and what’s going to happen is going to happen, let’s go’. There was a possibility of it being moved back months. But she came round to it and said, ‘It needs to come now’.”

Release week must have been stressful…
JK: “Yeah, especially as, as Dua says herself, the whole album was written with a view to being performed live. Her tours had been really growing at the end of the first record and so this one, she saw where it was going and wanted a record that she could tour and do one of those massive world arena tours that she’d always dreamed of. When she was writing the songs, she imagined herself singing them at Glastonbury, that’s how she envisioned whether it was going to have the right energy. But all that went out the window with so many other things. The mood of fear, people’s health was seriously at risk, suddenly everything changed, not just in terms of the industry, but the world. It felt the opposite of this record she’d made.”

DL: “It was scary, for sure. But now when I look back on it, I really wouldn’t have changed it for the world. I’m really happy that I went with my gut and said, ‘OK, let’s just do it’. I’d been holding on to these songs for a while and they needed to come out.”

Famously, you missed out on No.1 in the first week…
PC: “I haven’t checked in on 5 Seconds Of Summer’s Grammy nominations but I think week one might have been their peak week. [Laughs] We had to run with it and that week one chart battle was just a case of the situation we are in in the UK with the chart, which is about physical formatting, D2C plays, how many cassettes you can bundle and how directly you can engage with a small core audience that you sell multiple copies to. I didn’t really lose much sleep over that if I’m honest. The run rate of the record, the critical acclaim that we got, we knew was going to give us an opportunity.”

When did you realise things were going your way?
DL: “On release day. Regardless that I didn’t get my No.1 first week, that was fine. But on release day, people’s responses made it feel like it was Christmas morning. Honestly, I was just so happy and excited. Everybody had a different favourite song and everybody was sending such nice messages. People’s responses were amazing. Once things started opening up again, I would bump into people and they’d say, ‘Your music was soundtracking all my workouts at home’ – all of that was amazing and I was really happy about it. That’s all I could ever hope for.”

PC: “It was landing with people well outside of Dua’s core fanbase and the people who engaged with album one, it had a much greater level of appreciation. We had Don’t Start Now which was a bonafide global hit but, when the album dropped and the reviews started to land and the chatter online showed people’s appreciation for the record, they got the concept, it listened brilliantly from start to finish, people picked out multiple records… It just felt like an album that was landing with real clarity and weight and that was the most exciting thing about week one. The chart position wasn’t something we lost a lot of sleep over. And then it went to No.1 the week after…”

How will you will look back on this campaign?
DL: “It could have gone one of two ways and I’m glad it went that way! I’m glad people responded to it.”

BM: “In terms of its lasting value, Future Nostalgia will benefit from the memories that people attach to it. It’s been such a weird year, both musically and for the fact that it came out at such a strange time, which means that, for a lot of people, it will be a very special album for them.”

PC: “Future Nostalgia was conceived pre-Covid, so it was about togetherness, a record for dancing to at parties and clubs. Although that fell away, the record still had that feel to it. It’s impossible to say how it would have been received had life been going on normally, but it certainly had a very particular resonance in the vacuum that lockdown created. We were debating moving it back, but we stuck with the date and it was probably the best decision we collectively made on the campaign, because it gave the album that opportunity to exist in isolation. It got more coverage and consumption as a result and that really got it going.”

DL: “This is the record that really helped me find my confidence and helped me grow into the artist and performer I want to be. It’s taught me so much. So I’ll always look back on this time, and this record in particular, fondly. It was the album that taught me the ropes.”
 
is the live performance many of you attended available somewhere?
 
I really enjoy this album and "Physical" is absolutely incredible and one of my songs of the year but I have to agree with dUb in the PERSONALITY DEPARTMENT, she really is totally VAPID. The most interesting thing she's ever done is that crazy Greater Albanian tweet which she swiftly deleted :evil:
 
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