We're just weeks away from the release of Dua Lipa's 11-track album Radical Optimism album and a new one Ella magazine cover, the 28-year-old pop superstar pulls back the curtain on the long creative process of putting the songs together.
Dua worked Radical Optimism with a team of co-songwriters and producers, including longtime songwriting collaborator Caroline Ailin, as well as Tobias Jesso Jr. (Adele, Harry Styles), Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, Danny L Harle (Dux Content). Parker said he referred to the assembled crew of hitmakers as 'The Band', explaining, 'Not an old-school band, but a spiritual band. Every morning going into the studio, I felt like I was in the Beatles!”
The result, says the magazine, is a combination of live and electronic instruments that create a “worldly groove” on a “cosmopolitan dance-pop record with a 1970s flair and a vibrant, resonant affirmation of life.”
“Dua had this focus on finding that sound, which was so elusive,” Parker said. “But it was nice to be in the engine room of the creative process, instead of worrying about being the face of it. It was the experience I was waiting for.” He described the genesis of the first single, the bouncy 'Houdini', as starting with a bass line he'd hammered out weeks before their session, which he realized could work once the singer added a “moody” post-disco melody.
“He started singing and it just made sense,” Parker said. “That early 80s feeling, in a weird, dark, sweaty club. Gloriously suffocating. Hypnotic.”
Ailin, who has worked with Dua prior to her 2017 breakthrough hit “New Rules,” described their process as starting with “a bit of a rant about what's going on,” which then somehow turns into a pop song . “That's her superpower,” Ailin said “It's hard not to feel like you're the strongest person next to her. I think it lends a little bit of that to all of us sometimes.”
The singer also said Ella that her single 'Training Season' was written in November 2022 as a reflection of both her long-term relationships with men, including models Bella and Gigi Hadid's brother Anwar Hadid and French director Romain Gavras, as well as dating. “As long as everyone knows where they are, then you're good,” she said of her dating life, which recently linked her to British actor Calum Turner.
The magazine said Dua is coy about her current dating status, preferring to offer coded advice through her songs. “I said, 'OK, I'll write whatever I want,'” he explained of the “Training Season” sessions. “The power of manifesting and writing things into existence with the power of words. When you know your worth, you know what you want and what you don't want.”
Describing a recent conversation with one of her dancers who was going through a breakup, Dua said that when she was single she didn't want to be in a relationship. “I didn't wish for it. You learn so much about yourself, you know, whether you're going to date or spend that time alone,” she said. “In silence, you understand who you really are. In the grand scheme of things, I did research.”
Dua Lipa will serve as both host and musical guest for the May 4 episode Saturday night live.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/dua-lipa-talks-radical-optimism-album-recording-dating-1235659625/
