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Radical Optimism Image
Metascore
73

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The third full-length release for pop artist Dua Lipa features contributions by Caroline Ailin, Danny L. Harle, Tobias Jesso Jr., Julia Michaels, and Tame Impala's Kevin Parker.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 21
  2. Negative: 1 out of 21
  1. 100
    Urgent, upbeat, demanding and funky, Lipa is a finger-snap personified throughout Radical Optimism.
  2. May 3, 2024
    80
    “Optimism” is pummeling, concerted and arranged exactly how it should be, a pop record meant to wash over you like a breeze rolling off of the surf.
  3. May 7, 2024
    80
    In tandem with Danny L. Harle, known for inventing the new personal genre called harlecore, and collaborations with Caroline Polachek and Charli XCX, Dua Lipa and Parker made Radical Optimism sound extremely lush and slick but raw and fresh.
  4. 70
    Can a pop album succeed without functioning as a referendum on fame or as a work of musicology? Is it enough just to deliver a bunch of loosely connected bangers and bops? At its best, “Radical Optimism” answers yes — or at least makes you want the answer to be yes. Lipa has style and attitude to spare; her singing is sly, throaty, slightly Bond-girl conspiratorial.
  5. May 6, 2024
    68
    There are a lot of great ideas, but those ideas don’t necessarily translate into greatness, largely because the album feels a bit drowned in its own creative progression. .... I can say, however, that tThere are a lot of individual moments on Radical Optimism that are lovely to listen to, and—despite my qualms—it’s definitely worth a spin.
  6. May 13, 2024
    63
    You see parts of what should be interesting music throughout, but Radical Optimism seems more interested in never failing to be good than in succeeding at all at being excellent.
  7. 30
    Nobody needs to know the details of Lipa’s real life to lend her songs weight, but there should still be something in her performance, delivery, songwriting or production that sets them apart from platitudes, from background noise.

See all 21 Critic Reviews