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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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- Record Label: Warner Records
- Genre(s): Pop/Rock
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 21
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Mixed: 4 out of 21
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Negative: 1 out of 21
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May 2, 2024Urgent, upbeat, demanding and funky, Lipa is a finger-snap personified throughout Radical Optimism.
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May 3, 2024“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.
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May 7, 2024In 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.
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May 2, 2024Can 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.
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May 6, 2024There 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.
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May 13, 2024You 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.
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May 2, 2024Nobody 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.