The 50 best albums of 2020, No 2: Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
The name alone suggests that we’d look back on these songs with happy memories attached. But will we ever be nostalgic for 2020? I suspect that Lipa will: 2020 is the year she became a pop behemoth. She transcended the “great look, serviceable songs” box she’d been marketed into and became one of pop’s most exciting major players: she out Gaga’d Gaga and out Kylie’d Kylie. In late November, more than 5 million people tuned in to her Studio 2054 livestream to watch her cavort around London’s Printworks with a gang of dancers and pop guests, heavy with product placement, meme-able moments and bookended by giant Lipa-helmed brand endorsements. It was enormous fun but less illegal rave than high-budget school disco, recalling the satire of Josie and the Pussycats and images of the Spice Girls travelling through Times Square in Spiceworld, their own gigantic faces grinning down from every billboard. There was no hint of wryness here: Lipa is making hay while the sun shines. And why not, for a pop star who’s been building to megastar status breaking through when arenas are closed and clubs left dark?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/17/the-50-best-albums-of-2020-no-2-dua-lipa-future-nostalgia