Dua Lipa has slowly been pushing out music for her new album, Future Nostalgia, which is projected to be released on April 3rd, 2020. Despite the fact that I was a big fan of some of Lipa’s old music, namely New Rules and Scared to Be Lonely, her newest releases failed to meet my expectations.

The first song released off of the album, Don’t Start Now, is currently the most popular, peaking at #14 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and reaching over 350 million plays on Spotify. The song opens with some synth in addition to a small set of introductory vocals (“If you don’t want to see me”). I personally found the melody of the introduction interesting as it didn’t appear to follow any sort of structure; I would’ve preferred a background which actually had some sort of progression. The opening has a somewhat aged tone – in fact, in the small pause between the introduction and the first verse, you can even hear some static-like sounds. 

Although the song does not rely on any chord progressions, the bassline is omnipresent, even in the chorus, and the electronic influences give the song a disco-esque feel. However, the bass drums can feel overpowering at many points, sometimes eclipsing Lipa’s singing. 

Lipa’s vocals are much more prominent in this song than in some of her previous releases. But just like the drums, the vocals themselves can feel somewhat overwhelming as well, as Lipa uses a much more forceful tone and volume than she does in some of her previous songs. 

However, one thing I did like about the song is that the lyrics made sense with the message that she was trying to convey with the song. In an interview with Genius for ‘Behind the Lyrics’, Lipa said that she considered Don’t Stop Now to “close one chapter of [her] life and start another” and that it could also show her evolution as an artist. 

While the song does show her strengths as an artist, like her exceptional vocals, Don’t Stop Now goes too far out of the comfort zone that defines pop music for my personal tastes.