The beauty of pop music is that it is (or at least should be) lawless, ungoverned by any stringent definition aside from the need to have mass appeal to a wide variety of demographics. It’s not niche.
But it rarely sets trends. By definition, it follows them. It’s a viral TikTok dance, a phrasal template, a generic AI chatbot that’s almost incapable of creating something new (if the disparate parts don’t already exist).
While it may sound out-of-touch, I’d say the overwhelming majority of modern pop artists don’t have the talent, imagination or bravery to create their own rules. Or push the industry forward in any way aside from just being really popular. Sometimes for no discernable reason.
Sonically, Dua Lipa is an easy exception.
She pulls on authentic strands of disco, electronica and funk for her high-polish pop, a patchwork sound that has distinguished her from artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift and Charli XCX. Her music is whip-smart, fashionable and imbued with the kind of swagger that places her comfortably on any style, whether she’s leaning more towards rave and electronica or bouncing around on a hip hop beat.
But it’s not personal. It’s diametrically opposed to the open-book, sometimes brilliant – often not – songwriting that has made Swift a bonafide superstar. It’s not as thoughtfully experimental as Beyonce’s post-2013 work, either. Dua Lipa’s perfection as a pop superstar lies in her pragmatism.
She knows she doesn’t need any shocking self-revelation, and even if her music can be annoyingly coy for her most loyal fans, her ability to weave through big dance-pop numbers is vastly unmatched, and has been since Madonna.
Plus, in the age of noxiously toxic parasocial relationships, it’s refreshing to have an overtly commercial pop star move away from the autobiographical pop so characterise of this era of branded “authenticity”. Again, the beauty of pop music is that it is lawless.
How was Dua Lipa’s last show in Sydney?
Australia rarely gets to kick off a tour, but Dua decided to start down under this time. She’s here to showcase Radical Optimism, an album that doesn’t hit the same heights as her defining project, Future Nostalgia. But she’s clearly determined to lift its material to the same upper echelon of pop where you’ll find omnipresent hits like “New Rules,” “One Kiss,” and “Break My Heart.”
While the cloyingly poppy “One Kiss” has lost its lustre, “New Rules” and “Break My Heart” come across brilliantly live. The latter sits in the first of five “segments” of the show, while Lipa’s breakout hit is slotted into the jaw-dropping encore, given a bit of edge with a bouncy remix and twisted with a future-forward, sci-fi sound that wouldn’t sound out of place at a Yeet or Playboy Carti concert.
Dua’s encore is unquestionably the highlight of the show with three of her biggest hits performed in full but blended as part of a seamless show-within-a-show. It has the high-energy of a one-shot blockbuster, muted only by head-scratching choreography.
Visually, the biggest surprise is the Mexican-indebted “Maria”, featuring Dua performing on an extended section of the stage in the middle of Qudos Bank Area, while a sole dancer elegantly spins against a bright orange sun. It’s the type of sophisticated staging that reiterates just how complete Dua Lipa is an entertainer.
Vocally, however, the tour’s subsequent dates should be all about “Anything For You,” the only ballad in the set. The endearing song is pared back enough to showcase Dua’s strong and distinctive range as she lifts into the sky on a tiny glowing disc, sitting above the ring of fire that surrounded her for the previous performance, “Love Again”.
It was a much more effective play at arena-sized intimacy than a throwaway rendition of “Big Jet Plane”, her surprise duet with Angus Stone in a bid to continue her standard of bringing out one “local” guest per night.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The reviewer attended Dua Lipa’s show at Qudos Bank Arena on Saturday 29th May.
Photo credit: Pete Dovgan – you can see more of Pete’s photos from the Friday night show HERE
