‘Don’t Start Now’ — A Review
With a distinct production, catchy baseline, and commanding words, can Dua Lipa break the Grammys curse?
“I’m not where you left me at all”
That’s a powerful line for a woman who has only had one album. In the music video, a smartphone can be seen being raised as she sings that line. While primarily directed at her former boyfriend, I can’t help but imagine that she also sings that while pointing the finger at us, the jury at her trial.
If Don’t Start Now is a taste of what is to come on her second album, it is safe to say that, indeed, Dua Lipa is most certainly not the woman we remember.
Don’t Start Now isn’t necessarily new territory for Lipa. As evident by her breakout hit and summer anthem New Rules back in 2017, break-up tunes are in Lipa’s lane. With feisty and commanding lyrics that talk of a woman who couldn’t care less about the tragedies of her past relationship, the song effortlessly energizes anybody who listens to it. What makes this one so special is the way that message has been packaged.
Simply put, this song showcases a more refined Lipa. On her previous songs, in spite of the huge potential, it was clear that they were sung by a woman who was still in the exploratory stages of her artistry. You couldn’t really attach a certain sound to Lipa the way you could to her pop contemporaries like Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish.
Now, however, the disco and euro-dance influences on this track come together to produce a tune that’s nothing short of what twitter calls ‘a banger’. Lipa effortlessly switches between her suggestively sensual vocals on the verses to the bold and provocative statements she shoots on the chorus, her processed vocals and steadily rising production keeing up with her growing ferocity. This is in contrast to her more restrained and cautious vocal performance when lecturing her friend on New Rules.
When Lipa took the stage at the 2019 MTV EMAs, expectations were, understandably, low. Her track record of having virtually no stage presence and out-right hilarious choreography established her performances as those to be taken with a grain of salt and brought into question Lipa’s validity as an ‘artist’.
That was, of course, until she actually took the stage.
In the 202 seconds that she was on stage, Lipa’s fierceness, impeccable moves, and her ability to own the stage silenced even her most skeptical of critics who had coldly questioned as to whether Lipa could ever be taken seriously as a performer. At the end of her performance, as the crowd roars like never before, Lipa can be seen letting out a quick sigh before an ever so small smile creeps up her face.
As she sang, she’s definitely not where we left her two years ago, and she couldn’t be happier to let you know about that.
