Prior to her new song “Don’t Start Now,” it seemed unclear how Dua Lipa would fit into the ever-growing, increasingly more competitive pop stratosphere. Was she a smoky voiced balladeer? A go-to collaborator for EDM producers? A bubblegum pop princess? She existed in all three worlds on her self-titled debut album, but it seems that Lipa is finally finding her pop footing.
Lipa reunited with the team behind her formidable, catchy breakthrough hit “New Rules,” but “Don’t Start Now” takes her sound to a higher level. Above one of the year’s strongest bass lines, Lipa vocally struts her way through a Studio 54 fantasy. With biting sass, she tells a lover who has left her scorned that she has happily moved on. The song is the peak of pop catharsis: it unfolds into one of the year’s most glamorous new tunes. You wish you could see Bianca Jagger ride into the club on a white horse as this song plays in the distance.
“Don’t Start Now” is the first single off Lipa’s upcoming sophomore album. She performed it over the weekend at the MTV EMA’s.
Find a playlist of all of our recent Songs You Need to Know selections on Spotify.