Future Nostalgia is the second studio album by English singer Dua Lipa. It was released on 27 March 2020 by Warner Records. Lipa enlisted writers and producers including Jeff Bhasker, Ian Kirkpatrick, Stuart Price, the Monsters & Strangerz, and Koz to create a "nostalgic" pop and disco record containing influences from dance-pop and electronic music. The album was inspired by the music that Lipa enjoyed during her childhood.
The album was supported by six singles, along with the title track as a promotional single. "Don't Start Now" was released as the album's lead single, attaining both critical and commercial success and peaking at number two on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included the UK top-ten singles "Physical" and "Break My Heart", as well as a remix of "Levitating" featuring DaBaby. It reached the top five in the UK and the top in the US year-end Hot 100 chart of 2021. The album was originally scheduled to be released on 3 April 2020, but was moved forward after being leaked in its entirety two weeks earlier. To promote the album, Lipa embarked on the Future Nostalgia Tour, which commenced in February 2022.
Upon its release, Future Nostalgia received universal acclaim from music critics, many of whom praised the production, its cohesion and Lipa's stylistic evolution. Commercially, the album topped the charts in fifteen countries and reached the top ten in thirty-one countries. In the United Kingdom, it peaked atop the UK Albums Chart for four non-consecutive weeks, becoming her first album to do so as well as garnering her first-ever nomination for the Mercury Prize, and earning the Brit Award for British Album of the Year. At the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, Future Nostalgia was nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Pop Vocal Album, whilst "Don't Start Now" was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.
Future Nostalgia was succeeded by its remix album, Club Future Nostalgia, which was released on 28 August 2020 to positive reviews from critics. A French edition of Future Nostalgia was released on 27 November 2020, which yielded the French number-one single "Fever". A reissue of the album, subtitled The Moonlight Edition, was released through Warner on 11 February 2021, along with its lead single, "We're Good".
Background After the release of Dua Lipa: Complete Edition in October 2018, the expanded deluxe edition of Lipa's debut album, and the single "Swan Song" in January 2019, released in promotion of Alita: Battle Angel (2019), Lipa confirmed that she was working on a new album. In October 2019, Lipa began teasing the album as a new "era," before clearing her social media later that month to announce the lead single, "Don't Start Now". Lipa stated that she cleared her social media in order to prove to herself that social media wasn't real, that one could post and choose to use platforms any way they wanted. She further elaborated that she wanted to start fresh with her new album, but she would always have her memories. Whilst promoting "Don't Start Now", Lipa confirmed that she would be announcing the album in late November or early December 2019, along with the release of the title track.
On 1 December 2019, Lipa revealed the album title through a tattoo on her left bicep with the title, Future Nostalgia, while also announcing its accompanying arena tour of the same name and that the album would be released in 2020. The following month, three songs ("Physical", "Break My Heart", and "If It Ain't Me", an unreleased collaboration with Normani) leaked online in a security breach. Shortly after on 29 January 2020, Lipa announced that the album would be released on 3 April of that year. The following day, the track list was revealed and the album was made available for pre-order. In late March, the entire album leaked and the release was brought forward by a week to 27 March 2020. Lipa additionally expressed her concern about releasing the album during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Concept Cover artwork The cover artwork of Future Nostalgia was shot by French photographer, Hugo Comte, who also handled the creative direction and the photographs associated with the album's campaign, with Guillaume Sbalchiero handling the design. It was shot on 13 November 2019, and Lipa revealed it on 29 January 2020, along with the album's release date announcement. During shooting the promotional photography, Comte had one song on repeat for each shot to get Lipa in the mood for him to get the right shot.
The cover artwork of Future Nostalgia features Lipa in a Googie-esque retro vehicle, one that could be seen during the 1950s-themed restaurant scene in Pulp Fiction (1994). A dark sky with a blue moon, which was a stylistic choice, appears behind her. Lipa wears a 1950s-style button-down pink shirt, which is tied in a knot around her waist. Her accessories include gold hooped earrings, with a normal one in one ear and a misshaped one in the other, and numerous rings. She also wears long white gloves, which she holds the steering wheel with. Lipa has her blonde and brunette hair up in a bun.
Title Lipa originally intended to call the album Glass House. After working on the album for nearly a year, Lipa came up with a new album title, Future Nostalgia, while on the way to a radio show in Las Vegas around the time of the 2018 American Music Awards. After figuring it out, Lipa messaged her A&R, in which they responded that it's like a baby name, they couldn't tell anyone. She wanted to create a record with the nostalgic memories of her childhood and the music her parents listened to and put a modern spin on it with futuristic elements, which is why she ultimately went with the title. It is meant to describe "a future of infinite possibilities while tapping into the sound and mood of some older music."
Recording Lipa began work on Future Nostalgia in August 2018 and finished in November 2019. However, during the first year of production, she was still promoting her first album on the Self-Titled Tour and was still figuring out the direction she wanted to go in. Lipa had begun thinking of ideas for the album before Dua Lipa was released in June 2017. After figuring out the album's title, she worked backwards, figuring out the sound and lyrical content she desired. She challenged herself to break out of her comfort zone to make music that could sit alongside her favourite classic pop songs, being inspired by Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Moloko, Blondie, and Outkast. After touring, Lipa aspired to have a more live element on the record, mixed with modern electronic production, but to still have the pop sensibility of her first record. Lipa thought that her sound had "naturally matured."
The majority of the album was recorded in a nine-month period after figuring out its title, where she had sessions every day, including ones at Geejam Studios in Jamaica. Lipa recorded upwards of nearly 60 songs for the album, including unreleased collaborations with producers Max Martin, Nile Rodgers, Mark Ronson, and Pharrell Williams, as well as a collaboration with Normani titled "If It Ain't Me", and "Bad to You", a song with Ariana Grande. "Bad to You" was later released by Grande, Normani, and Nicki Minaj for the Charlie's Angels: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, after Lipa and Grande were unable to finish their respective parts due to scheduling conflicts. A planned collaboration with Katy Perry titled "Ball & Chain" was also canceled due to scheduling issues. Another song that was intended for the album but did not make the cut, "Retrograde", was later recorded by Aleyna Tilki and released as her debut English-language single. Lipa's single "Un Día (One Day)" with J Balvin, Bad Bunny, and Tainy was revealed to be recorded during sessions for Future Nostalgia.
Music and lyrics Future Nostalgia is a dance-pop, electropop, nu-disco, pop-funk, synth-pop, power pop, and disco-pop record, with several 1980s and retrofuturism tropes, and elements of Eurodance, hi-NRG, house, techno, and R&B. Described by Lipa as a "nostalgic" pop record that "feels like a dancercise class," she took inspiration from the music of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s to create a sound that felt familiar and brand-new at the same time. The album's structure includes sticky-sweet choruses, and catchy pop hooks, while it has campy productions, consisting of funk bass guitars, electronic beats, rubbery basslines, robotic vocoder backing vocals, chunky synths, lush strings, percolating drums, house-influenced piano chords, and disco strings. The album has themes of the transformative nature of romance, sex, inequality, empowerment, self-possession, the exploration of vulnerability, falling in love, breaking up, equality, hope, flirtation and affection.
Critics note similarities between the tracks on Future Nostalgia and the works of Blondie, Chic, Daft Punk, Lady Gaga, Gloria Gaynor, Debbie Harry, Jamiroquai, Madonna (Confessions on a Dance Floor, 2005), Kylie Minogue (Fever, 2001), Moloko, Olivia Newton-John, No Doubt, Outkast, Prince, and Nile Rodgers. Neil Z. Yeung of AllMusic described the sound of Future Nostalgia as "'70s disco, '80s dance-pop, and '90s club jams." In her review for The Independent, Helen Brown stated that Lipa "channels the zingy, electro-ambitions of the 1980s with remarkable freshness." Pitchforks Anna Gaca viewed it as "a collection of sophisticated, hard-bodied pop-funk that gives way to slick, [Minogue]-inspired disco." Mesfin Fekadu from ABC News regarded the album as "a collection of upbeat, dance-flavoured, power pop gems."
Songs Future Nostalgia opens with its title track, a playful and fun synth-pop and electro-funk song, with house, hip hop, and disco elements. It has an electronic production, that includes electroclash synths, disco beats, funk and grunge bass-popping, and a jazz piano progression. In the song, Lipa name-drops its producer, Jeff Bhasker, and American architect, John Lautner, while vocally making use of falsetto and spoken word deliveries. Lyrically, it deals with themes of feminism and self-reflection. The following track and lead single, "Don't Start Now", has empowerment themes and sees Lipa addressing an ex-lover about moving on from a relationship, using direct bullet point instructions. She uses her lower-register vocals, over a production consisting of cowbells, accented disco strings, and a rhythm guitar loop. Musically, it is a nu-disco song with elements of dance-pop and Eurodance. Synth-pop cut, "Cool", has inspirations from 1980s music and Prince. The song is about the initial rush of falling in love, painting a picture of a summer romance, with confidence and vulnerability themes, and reckless, youthful energy. Driven by a funk bass, glitter gel noises and a drum line embody the production, whilst Lipa contributes vocals with hopeful tones.