Great Eras: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Future Nostalgia (Part 2)
A Retrospective
Damn, I Need Another Hit
When we last left off, Future Nostalgia was facing unexpected headwinds as it stared down the barrel of a global pandemic. It was dealing with not only lockdown but also a high-profile leak that caused it to underperform on the charts. The news wasn’t all bad for Future Nostalgia: it was #1 in the UK for four of the next six weeks, and “Break My Heart” was still rising on US radio. But it looked like the window of opportunity for the album to make its mark was closing. The album’s rollout had lost speed since its moment in March. It was popular, but it wasn’t what everyone was talking about.
Part of this was quarantine, as the marketing team just couldn’t carry out their vision. “Hallucinate”, the next radio single, got a forgettable animated video (because of the live filming moratorium) that didn’t inspire like the videos for “Physical” or “Break My Heart”. The album had a few at-home performances, but nothing could replace being under the lights. Plus, the energy didn’t quite match the moment. The albums with the most buzz in 2020 were moodier, solitary LPs like the Weeknd’s After Hours, Taylor Swift’s folklore, and Pop Smoke’s Shoot For the Stars, Aim for the Moon. Most people didn’t really feel like dancing amidst bleak headlines about suffering and death.
By the summer, Future Nostalgia had fallen well outside of the top 25 albums on the Billboard 200, hitting a new low of #42 in mid-August. “Break My Heart’ also didn’t do as well as the label had hoped, peaking outside the top 10 in August. The conversation had moved on to other things, like the aforementioned folklore. So in September, the team tried to create some new buzz by releasing Club Future Nostalgia.
Club Future Nostalgia was a remix album intended as an homage to the dance floor, particularly ‘90’s house music. It gave many of Lipa’s favorite DJs an opportunity to shine during a time where they weren’t getting many gigs for obvious reasons. The project was led by The Blessed Madonna, a pioneering female DJ and tastemaker known for her innovative blending of styles. There was also an ambitious feature list: the “Physical” remix featured Mark Ronson and Gwen Stefani, while the “Levitating” remix featured Missy Elliott alongside the actual Madonna.1
What struck me about Club Future Nostalgia is just how inaccessible it is. Most pop remixes err on the mainstream side; going full experimental is usually avoided to hold onto the main audience. But unlike how the original Future Nostalgia updates the disco sound for new audiences, Club Future Nostalgia is clearly made for fans of another era. As an example, check out this wild remix of “Pretty Please”. It starts out by playing these beeps reminiscent of dial-up Internet. Then it moves into loud bubble sounds that nearly drown out the chorus. If you’re new to the genre, then you might think (understandably!) that these sound effects ruin the track. But if you’re really into ‘90’s house, then you might recognize the sound effects as innovative callbacks to a track called “Percolator”. Club Future Nostalgia is full of callbacks like these — choices that might make a ‘90’s house DJ say “Aha!” while leaving ordinary listeners bewildered.
Because of this, the album faced a Last Jedi-like response: positive reviews from critics and overwhelmingly negative reviews from fans. The album received a Metascore of 81, but got a scathing 4.7 from users. The divide even shows up in YouTube comments. Pop stan tld7359 says, “Dua Lipa versatile queen released both the best and worst albums of 2020” right above crate-digger thedrunkenmonkey13, who remarks, “…it's a nice house remix and I like that masters at work were involved with this. It's messy but I like the direction”.
To this day, I can’t recall hearing any of the Club Future Nostalgia tracks on the dance floor, and most of the successful remixes (like “Don’t Start Now (Live in LA Remix)”) were not even from the project. The album didn’t have a noticeable impact on buzz or sales, and in fact Future Nostalgia reached its low point a bit after Club Future Nostalgia was released. That being said, it’s possible that the album was never meant to be a commercial success. It was never promoted heavily, and it may have simply been a love letter to the struggling dance community during a tough time. I can respect that!
Regardless, Future Nostalgia was outside the top 50 by October. It was clear that the era needed a course change to stay relevant. So in October 2020, the team announced fan favorite “Levitating” as the next single. But the team needed to keep the buzz alive while “Levitating” climbed. It had been six months, and the end of the pandemic was nowhere in sight. Without the hype of an in-person rollout, what options were still on the table? The team decided to turn to the Internet for answers.
Studio 2054
During quarantine, traditional big radio artists tended to underperform, while more online acts tended to overperform. Lady Gaga and Katy Perry put out albums2 that might have been hits in another era but missed their time in the spotlight due to the pause in familiar pop spectacle. On the other hand, online favorites like SAWAYAMA and 1000 gecs only gained steam as quarantine went on.
Charli XCX was particularly successful at using quarantine to reinvent her career. She dropped everything she was working on to pursue a quarantine collaboration with her fans: a sort of time capsule fittingly titled how i’m feeling now. The album developed on Instagram Live in under a month, and its unique origins drew many curious listeners into Charli’s orbit. In April, Charli capped off her quarantine era with a performance at Square Garden, a concert on a Minecraft server of all places. Fast forward to 2023, and Charli has returned to the pop charts with more fans than ever.
But while artists like Charli thrived in the virtual environment, Lipa’s more traditional team struggled to find their footing. They surely had plans for an elaborate lineup of in-person events, many of which they could no longer do. For a while, it seemed like quarantine might be a short episode and plans could soon continue as usual. But by November, it was clear that they had to step bravely into this new world. Her team pulled out all the stops to engineer a new kind of pop spectacle: Studio 2054.
Studio 2054 was an online concert promising “surreal tv shows, roller discos, ecstatic raves, trashy rocker hang outs, voguing ballrooms and diva style dressing rooms”. No one really knew what to expect, but the name was no coincidence: Lipa wanted it to be a tribute to the (in)famous Studio 543.
Studio 2054 was motivated by the same sentiment as Club Future Nostalgia: a longing for the dance floor. Club Future Nostalgia had its 90s club sound while Studio 2054 had its 70s aesthetic. But unlike Club Future Nostalgia, Studio 2054 went all in on PR. The event was made possible by an elaborate COVID bubble. 240 singers, dancers, and even aerialists rehearsed for a month around the iconic Printworks warehouse, which was supported by a nearby “Hotel 2054”. The show also promised surprise guests: from old-timers like Elton John4 to boundary-pushing acts like FKA twigs.
Studio 2054 was undoubtedly a product of the weird and wonderful scene of lockdown nightlife that came before it. Grassroots organizations like the queer Zoom nightclub Club Quarantine were critical in setting the tone of quarantine’s virtual event culture, a culture which instilled that Studio 54-esque feeling that anything could happen. But while it didn’t have that same serendipitous magic, Studio 2054 still emerged as a distinct experience by turning something familiar into something new.
Because after months of quarantine, even a normal pop performance was quite novel: people had forgotten how much spectacle a proper pop production could bring. It was refreshing to see pixelated Zoom screens traded in for intricate sets and dazzling colors. Without the limitations of a stage, the showrunners could plunge viewers into the maze-like world of Printworks, teasing acrobats spinning on hoops and fully-furnished living rooms around every corner. And Dua’s commanding presence was the lifeblood that channeled it all: she even imbued the ads with a certain kind of power.
After Studio 2054, Club Future Nostalgia made a lot more sense to me. All those quirky remixes gave musicians lots to play with during the show. If Club Future Nostalgia was a pet project, then Studio 2054 was the perfect doghouse: a stage for Lipa and co. to express their love for dance music while throwing the biggest party in the world.
Studio 2054 was not perfect, and it was no replacement for the live tour that Lipa was surely itching to put on. But the pure joy shining through was undeniable, especially in the live afterparty hosted by none other than the Blessed Madonna. That dopamine-fueled escapism was Future Nostalgia’s central appeal, and it was just the springboard the album needed to reach new heights.
Pop Stars, Dua Lipa with DaBaby
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: “Levitating”. “Levitating” was the song that fans wanted as a single from the beginning, and it’s easy to see why: there’s just nothing like it on the radio. Seemingly disjoint elements — Lipa’s playful vocals, that VP-330 synth on the off-beats, and Bosko Kante’s perfectly-timed talkbox moments — complement each other perfectly to give the song its uniquely futuristic vibe.
And following in the footsteps of “Don’t Start Now”, “Levitating” takes song structure to the next level. When I was in the middle of my first listen, I thought that the chorus was good but not great (I got you / moonlight / You’re my / starlight). But halfway through, something crazy happens. First, there’s this amazing post-chorus (You can fly away with me tonight / Baby let me take you for a ride). But then the chorus and the post-chorus flip: the post-chorus is now before the original chorus, effectively transforming it into the new chorus. When this happened, it was as though my wish had been granted: I had received a “Chorus 2.0”. And it was transcendent.
But the release of Future Nostalgia wasn’t enough to get “Levitating” on the charts, nor was the aforementioned Club Future Nostalgia remix with Missy Elliot and Madonna. The song needed a boost, and the team decided that boost would be rapper DaBaby.
At the end of 2020, DaBaby was one of the hottest pop stars on the planet. He had notched 22 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 the previous year, the most of any artist. And just before his appearance on “Levitating”, DaBaby took both of the top two slots on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Rockstar” and his remix of “WHATS POPPIN”. For a brief time, his name was nearly synonymous with chart success. That being said, he was an unusual collaboration choice. DaBaby didn’t have any prior association with Lipa’s fanbase, and his sound didn’t necessarily scream “compatible”.
However, DaBaby was able to use this apparent lack of compatibility to his advantage. His verse starts out kind of off-beat, putting the listener on edge after the clean beats of “Levitating”. But then his verse falls right back onto the beat in dramatic fashion, coinciding with the return of that big kick drum. This “tense and release” tactic is a hallmark of great pop music, and DaBaby was able to use it here to great effect. In general, his bouncy delivery added unique texture to the song, giving it new reach.
The ploy worked, as DaBaby’s verse sent “Levitating” to new heights. Fans were initially delighted, but the collaboration was overshadowed by a bizarre rant about HIV laden with homophobic tropes. This led many fans to ask whether “Levitating” might have succeeded without DaBaby’s involvement. After all, radio was crowded when Future Nostalgia came out, and “Levitating” did do pretty well on its own after the incident. I don’t think that question is important; a more interesting question is why Lipa chose DaBaby in the first place. If she was just trying to please her core audience, wouldn’t someone like the Weeknd have been a better fit?
Ultimately, Dua Lipa was angling for old-fashioned mass appeal, a strategy she’s used her entire career. Whether it’s Pop Smoke, Bad Bunny, or BLACKPINK, Dua Lipa has always sought collaborators who will introduce her to different segments of society.
Falling in Love Again
This angle gets at the heart of why Future Nostalgia was able to gain a second wind so long after release, unusual for an album that debuted as a modest commercial success. All big albums have two parts of their fanbase: a core that drives momentum and a general audience that amplifies it. Albums with relatively stronger core appeals peak high and drop fast. Think BTS: their albums tend to peak at debut and fall swiftly the following week. In contrast, albums with relatively stronger general appeals tend to hang around for a while without making a huge splash. Think of radio staples that lack a super visible fanbase, like Native by OneRepublic.
In order to make a comeback like Future Nostalgia, an album has to have both a large enough core fanbase to chart and the ability to gain an even larger number of new fans. This necessarily puts it in the general camp: if an album is already quite popular, it can’t get much more popular without strong general appeal.
But albums with a strong general appeal just aren’t as common anymore. In the past, artists needed label backing and a radio push to achieve mainstream success. This meant that it was in their interest to cater to the masses. But now, niche artists like PinkPantheress can just emerge into the limelight from the depths of TikTok. New songs are also less dominant than they used to be: since people can stream what they want, when they want, they can cut mainstream DJs out of the picture. This makes chart music more democratized but also more fragmented. Artists get a lot more bang for their buck by focusing on a core audience at the expense of a general one.
This reflects a broader trend in popular culture: the collapse of the monoculture. The public used to have a “canon” that everyone consumed: seminal works like Thriller by Michael Jackson and Hotel California by the Eagles. Nowadays, even the most popular media struggles to stay in the conversation as our media diets continue to diverge.
I see Future Nostalgia as a last gasp of the monoculture. People craved commonality during quarantine, and Dua Lipa was uniquely able to thread the needle between core and general appeal. Lipa very well might be the last traditional “main pop girl”: a pop star so famous that loving their music doesn’t come with much of an association at all. I can’t recall anyone ever expressing super negative opinions about Lipa specifically.
The Weeknd’s After Hours is a nice foil to Future Nostalgia’s neutrality. Even though “Blinding Lights” was bigger than “Levitating”, it was not nearly as representative of its source album. A lot of After Hours is downright inaccessible, like the six-minute title track. Sure, there was some mainstream appeal, but its distinct features: the moody introspection, the enigmatic persona, the cryptic cutscenes: all of those were designed with the Weeknd’s core audience in mind. Future Nostalgia has none of that insularity; you get exactly what was advertised: an album packed front to back with accessible, “Levitating”-caliber bangers. A once vanilla characteristic became a refreshing novelty in the modern music landscape.
But Future Nostalgia also benefitted from a perfect storm of factors, including its place in the streaming age. Because the Internet is what generated that late surge in general interest in the first place. And it was essential to so much of the marketing: from Studio 2054 to that one TikTok sound. So while Future Nostalgia’s comeback might be impossible to replicate in 2030, it was probably equally impossible ten years earlier. You had a mainstream artist who was still a relatively blank slate, a global pandemic, and, above all else, a sweeping vision of what a pop era could be. Without any of these things, Future Nostalgia might have gone the way of CALM: fondly remembered but mostly forgotten.
Look at Where I Ended Up
In 2021, Dua Lipa’s career hit high after tremendous high. In March, Future Nostalgia won Pop Vocal Album of the Year at the Grammys. During the show, Lipa gave a performance to remember. Even though she was already dominating the charts, this was Lipa’s first introduction to a broader American audience. It allowed older viewers to put a name to a face: they could now identify that singer their teenager was always talking about.
Just two months later, “Levitating” peaked at #2 on the charts. While it would never get that top slot, it would finish the year as the biggest song of 2021. This coincided with the BRIT Awards, during which Lipa put on a well-received medley. It was a nice reminder of the sheer range of the era: from “Don’t Start Now” to now.
In July, Lipa released yet another single: “Love Again”. “Love Again” has everything you could want in a pop song: innovative sampling, moody orchestral strings, and a hard-hitting hook. It peaked at a modest #31, still impressive for such a late release. And in October, Lipa reunited with Elton John on the ultimate nostalgia track: “Cold Heart”. The song has been a remarkable radio staple, still in the UK Top 100 at the time of this writing. All of these things gradually turned Lipa into a household name.
In 2022, Lipa kicked off her long-awaited Future Nostalgia tour. To the surprise of no one, it was a wild success — I’m sure her team was just bursting at the seams with ideas bottled up by quarantine. And the best part? She reclaimed that infamous dance move from what felt like an eternity ago. This was the ultimate full circle moment: an explicit acknowledgement from Lipa herself of how far she had come.
It’s unclear where Lipa goes from here, and she’s certainly keeping people guessing! In February 2022, Lipa took an unexpected turn and cut ties with the very team that brought her to where she was. The reasons for this are unclear, but I suspect that she craves yet another reinvention. Lipa cites Madonna’s long career as an inspiration, stating “no matter how much you think you know, you are always coming up with better ways to explain yourself”. Later, she doubled down, telling WSJ that her new album is “probably not what fans want to hear”. Madonna was known for reimagining her sound and aesthetic many times over the course of her career. Whether the Madonna path will work for Lipa remains to be seen.
In any case, Lipa shows no signs of slowing down. Among her current projects are a culture newsletter, numerous fashion campaigns, and a sort of anti-Joe Rogan podcast, all of which are cementing her reputation as a cultural tastemaker. And of course, she recently made her acting debut in the Barbie movie, which also netted her a fifth top 10 hit. Three long years have passed since Future Nostalgia, and Dua Lipa is still more relevant than ever.
At the end of it all, I see two main lessons: it’s never too late to reinvent yourself, and you can often turn a setback into an opportunity. Commitment is powerful, and it takes less time than you might think to change your “brand”. In 2018, it was hard to predict just how much the perception of “Dua Lipa” would change — going from that ‘New Rules’ girl to disco-channeling “female alpha” in just three short years. When we look back at the Future Nostalgia era, it’s clear that this reinvention was intentional every step of the way.
Even when her carefully-laid plans were in disarray, Lipa kept her eyes on the prize. She could have written COVID off as a loss like many stars, but instead she executed a successful Plan B. It’s possible that the no-COVID timeline could have gone better for her, but could she really have gotten much bigger than she currently is? Quarantine ended up being just as much a launchpad for her career as it was a stumbling block.
Dua Lipa isn’t exactly relatable to the average person, but we can all take inspiration from her success. With enough vision, commitment, and intention, it’s possible to carve yourself into the person you’ve always aspired to be.
Thanks for reading!
—K
Back to Part 1
The “Levitating” remix was actually released as a single: not quite the same as releasing the original, but it was something!
These albums were Chromatica and Smile. I’m impressed if you could name both!
Studio 54 was an exclusive 70s nightclub at the center of the disco world. The place was packed thousands above capacity every night, and even celebrities were turned away at the door. Studio 54 attendance was the ultimate expression of status, and it had a hedonistic aesthetic that captured the public imagination. Owner Steve Rubell famously claimed that “only the mafia” made more money than Studio 54. Despite its runaway success, Studio 54 was shut down after just three years due to tax evasion, rampant drug use, and a litany of other crimes. However, Studio 54 continued to live on in the public memory, inspiring things from the “velvet rope” to one of the newest nightclubs in Seattle.
I respect the degree to which Elton John tries to stay involved with modern music. In recent years, he’s also collaborated with Lil Nas X and Rina Sawayama.