[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 2020.
Country:
Overall rank: 1,553
Average rating: 75/100 (from 355 votes).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Tracks:
1. Future Nostalgia
2. Don't Start Now
3. Cool
4. Physical
5. Levitating
6. Pretty Please
7. Hallucinate
8. Love Again
9. Break My Heart
10. Good In Bed
11. Boys Will Be Boys

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[DommeDamian]

91st on my 2020 list.

"40/100

People mostly (if not always) pay attention to the much-publicized, consumer-heavy, radio-friendly music product. Well, here you go. 2020's commercially biggest pop album is.... not the worst actually. Well-produced, well-put together and has some focused pop tracks on it. I'm more surprised that it's Dua Lipa of all people who did it. Thinkin of how I still hate her debut album till this day, and she as a musician is still so derivative of wit or personality, Future Nostalgia is an improvement (somewhat but there's still a blatant difference). From the first whisper of "futurrre" on the opening title track, she walks inside with new songwriting sunglasses a la retro-80s revival trend, and a better rhythmic focus. Until I hear that song for the 4th time and it sounds thin.

Not many of the songs here are winners too. The corny-as-heck Physical sounds like an imitation of a bad Lady Gaga song, and the pacing seems off; Good In Bed is a cringey attempt at blending hip hop elements with clear-as-day unoriginal lyrics about sex (and keep in mind, the rest of the record isn't even original to begin with), and laughably bad rhymes ("It's bad / We drive each other mad / It might be kinda sad / But I think that's what makes us good in bed" no gosh no please no). The surprisingly EDM-styled Hallucinate continues the clichéd comparison of love and drug-related stuff, although the groove is mediocre but not bad.

And motherfathing Boys Will Be Boys. Everything I dislike about this pseudo-intellectual feminist pop music is included in this little disasterpiece. Don't even get me started why, but just like males can be insulting and annoying to females, this song is absolutely spit-in-the-face insulting and annoying to actual great feminist driven tunes. And considering that it's the end of an overall danceable party-album makes it worse: imagine having a nice party dance night out in the club and at that point, all the boys gets kicked out because... they're boys. Yep, that song ruins alot of its remaining album.

On the other side, the fine songs are some of the closest (mainstream) pop music I've come to like in 2020 or in years (besides obvious exceptions like Styles) though it isn't saying too much. The semi crisp Levitating has been refreshing to hear amongst all the pop muzak trash on the charts, though the chorus feels underwritten the more radioplay it got. The minimalistic Pretty Please is super groovy (reminds me of Another One Bites The Dust but in a cool way), yet the last third of the song is a little lazy compared to how stellar the first two is [it's also lame live, more on that in the next paragraph]. I used to borderline love the anthem Love Again, as it does a neat job sampling My Woman - although it's been sampled numerous times before, this somehow gives it new life - though I find the completely unnecessary blasphemy unforgivable, Dua (which is what ruined it for me).

But the candidate to the very highlight (and the only Dua Lipa song where I feel and think the stardom, praise, play, attention etc is kinda deserved and earned), the 4-minute blast of rhythm/melody/pacing/structure in Break My Heart, all embodies what made pop music good to begin with. I will say that the first verse, of just her compressed voice and wobbly bass in the background sounds very manufactured and has grown off me (plus it's a little fake deep), it's still a solid commercialized track. In this song, she doesn't really seem to sell the listener anything other than give a nice groove with a melodic swing.

Update July 2022: I just went to see her at the (Roskilde) Festival and all of my fellow friends said it was such a great concert. Key words: my friends, cause I thought not only was it super mediocre, but a massive disappointment (she is like the biggest pop star in the world right now and she was the most hyped performer of the entire festival). I don't wanna go into detail but every little element felt like a pale and poor imitation of a Beyoncé liveset. It made me realize even further that I don't at all like her music as much as just a baby handful of songs (... and as a person she seems cool I guess). But hey, some of those, I had such a great time hearing, and feel (i.e. dancing to), the best (of course) being Break My Heart and New Rules (which I now like more than ever). But the other ones, especially the songs I think are just true blue awful, were painful to be at (like Be The One, Good In Bed and of course Boys Will Be Boys). Maybe this was a wake-up call for me to quit smoking the pop music-tobacco. Nevertheless, definitely one of the worst concerts I have ever been to, and the beginning of my diminishing enjoyment for her (it went from 65 to 40)."
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