Dua Lipa attended YSL Beauty’s launch of YSL Loveshine in Paris yesterday. Professional photos will be attended when made available.
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Dua Lipa and Callum Turner were spotted leaving Paris’ Silencio nightclub in the early hours of the morning. This morning they were spotted arriving to a train station. More photos were also added to yesterday’s uploaded albums.
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ELLE wonder how optimistic Dua Lipa really is.
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Dua Lipa and Callum Turner were spotted in Paris dining at Bistrot des Tournelles on March 24th and then grabbing lunch earlier today, March 25th. Dua was also seen arriving to a YSL Beauty event and then was spotted leaving with Callum.
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Dua Lipa has announced she will perform at The Royal Albert Hall in London on October 17th. Fans can pre-order Dua new album ‘Radical Optimism’ before 15:00 on April 9th to access presale!
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Dua Lipa has released an acoustic version of ‘Training Season.’
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Dua Lipa was recently interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine about Radical Optimism. Read the interview below:
How are you? How are you feeling now that the album has been announced?
I feel so good. It is actually a bit of a relief. Because up until this point, I was trying to talk about the album without talking about the album, which is difficult. Now that it’s out, I feel like I can breathe and really just talk freely.You’ve given us hints here and there about the album, but haven’t been able to go into it deeply.
What’s carried me through in all my music is this hint of optimism at the end. Hopefully, I get to sing [these songs] for a very long time and people listen to them and sing them as well, so it almost becomes like a mantra. What you’re saying is very powerful, so I want there always to be a hint of optimism so that you always see the light at the end of the tunnel in some way, or you manifest something good in your life. That’s what I wanted from this record.There is this Time essay by Guillermo Del Toro about optimism: “Optimism is the hard choice, the brave choice. And it is, it seems to me, most needed now, in the face of despair — just as a car is most useful when you have a distance to close. Otherwise, it is a large, unmovable object parked in the garage.”
That’s amazing. It’s true. It’s like optimism is radical. It is the hardest thing you can do: remaining positive, especially when everything around you is telling you “It’s not going to work out, or you’re not good enough, or this isn’t going to happen” — whether it’s at the hands of the internet or the way that you feel internally, whatever brings up those feelings. Remaining optimistic is so important. I think the more of that we can spread and put it into our relationships and the people around us and instill that, I think it’s really important.I think your last album, Future Nostalgia, signified radical optimism for a lot of us listeners during the pandemic.
To be honest, with the last album and the last tour, the term “radical optimism” came into my mind a lot because there were so many ups and downs. There were so many moments where things didn’t go the way that I had planned them to. There were moments where I felt like I was underwater, and you just have to keep going and you have to remain optimistic and things work out in the end one way or another. Whenever you feel like something is the worst thing that’s happening, there’s always some light at the end of the tunnel. I’m happy to have made an album that represents that for me.Were you trying to channel that sonically on the new album as well?
Sonically on the album, yes, I wanted it to be fun, but also I think it was the theme for the record. Sonically, I wanted to live in this psychedelic, organic, Brit-pop world. It’s something that I’ve been influenced by. There was just so much freedom in that era in the way that people made music and in the experimentation of it. That’s just what I wanted to do. I just wanted to dive into a different place sonically and try out something new. I had the most fun making this record.Tell me about this album cover.
Every photo [this era] looks like it was taken in a different scenario, but they all represent the same thing. The picture for “Houdini,” for example, was very self-reflective, looking at myself and appreciating where I am, who I am, and what my worth is.And then “Training Season” is me on scaffolding in a very uncomfortable position, but looking very calm. I feel like that resonated with the song. It resonated also with the idea of this radical optimism while being in uncomfortable situations, but being graceful in the process. And this [cover image] shot in particular, remaining calm near a shark, is a massive juxtaposition.
Fans are going to ask if your role as Mermaid Barbie in Barbie had a part in some of the underwater aesthetics of the cover.
No, but I feel like I’m never going to let go of these mermaid allegations, it seems! I just love to be underwater. That wasn’t the inspo, but I love that it all trickled into it together, all these different parts of me and my journey that have brought me to this point. If that’s mermaid Barbie, then so be it!I was snooping on Dua Lipa stan Twitter accounts, and some fans were talking about the fact that Harry Houdini seemingly had a moment fighting a shark. Was that intentional?
It actually wasn’t intentional. I do love the little connections that all the fans make because, to be honest, it sometimes surprises me. But I think for me it was just conveying the juxtaposition of light and dark, happy and sad, finding the gracefulness and the chaos, all those feelings connecting. I feel like you can’t have one without the other. This is obviously an overly dramatic way of explaining that, but that’s what the connection is.I saw another tweet from a fan asking about the track list, and how maybe the deeper we go into the track list, the more personal the songs are. Is that a correct theory?
That’s interesting. They’re all pretty personal. I think, to be honest, “End of an Era,” which is the one that starts the record, is this hopeful, manifestation song. It is really fun and dance-y. It’s one of my favorites on the record. And “Happy for You,” which it ends on, is very self-reflective. [By the end], I’ve done a full 180. Throughout this whole record, I see myself grow so much — my perspective changes. There’s no leftover feeling of sadness or hurt. I’m grateful for every experience because it brought me to where I am today.Is there one song on the album that you see yourself coming back to a ton?
So many. I feel like “These Walls” was one that I kept coming back to. “End of an Era” because it was just the maddest one when we were mixing it. I listened to that one over and over again. “Illusion” just puts me in a really good mood. “Maria,” it’s a fun one, but it feels very mature to me. See? Now that the title’s out, the songs aren’t, so I’m also trying to figure out how to talk about it. “Maria,” to me, feels very mature in the sense of growing and seeing relationships from a different perspective. I love that one. “Anything for Love” is a personality piece, just really letting you into a studio session.I did an interview with Katy Perry last year, and she shared this anecdote of seeing you perform at the Hollywood Palladium and knowing you’d be the pop “It girl.” What do you think of that? Are you friends with Katy?
I love Katy! I am friends with Katy. I think she’s amazing. That was a full-circle moment for me when she came to see my show at the Palladium because when I was 15 years old, I went to go see her at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. It was her California Dreams Tour, and she was bringing fans onstage and I jumped onstage and I danced. There’s this embarrassing picture of me online, but I love her. To get the nod from someone like her, someone who I look up to, is really encouraging.In our Rolling Stone cover story, one of the things that was talked about was the fact that you would go in and edit a lot of the songs. Would you consider yourself a perfectionist?
I think, in my eyes, I have to get it to a point where I feel like it’s close to perfect. I think that is important to me, but it’s also something that comes with confidence. Before, on my previous records, on Future Nostalgia, I did some tweaking of lyrics at the end when I went into the booth to finish it off. But I felt like whatever I wrote on the first day, that was it.Whereas for Radical Optimism, I went in and tweaked every single song so many times because I felt confident enough that I could get better and change the story and see how it can progress. But also, I think it was just the idea that when you write something, how are you going to feel about it a week later? Or a month later? It was cool to just keep adding and changing it up. It reflected exactly where I am at this point in my life.
Are you feeling radically optimistic right now?
I’m feeling the most radically optimistic right now. I feel really, really good.
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Dua Lipa recently spoke to Variety about her upcoming album Radical Optimism. You can read the interview below:
What was it about the idea of “radical optimism” that inspired you to use it as your album title?
Radical optimism, in itself, felt like something that really resonated with me over the past few years. It felt like even through my last record and into the new one, it was just so much about learning from every experience, taking everything as a lesson or seeing it as a gift in some way, whether it was good or whether it was bad, and just appreciating that even from some bad situations, something great can come of it, or I can grow to be a better or stronger person from all of it.I think that was something that propelled me in so many different ways. I think being outside of your comfort zone is something I talk about a lot, because that’s where you do the most growing, which is in the most uncomfortable situations and in the most unexpected situations and in the moments where you don’t think… You go, “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” but it does. How do you adapt in those moments? How do you walk through the fire? How do you push through? And that is something that really resonated with me.
When you talk about uncomfortable moments, what are you referring to exactly?
Well it can be anything, from a breakup to a personal relationship, a work relationship, a friendship, something going wrong or all your stuff is missing from your freight cargo when you’re on tour and you don’t have any of your costumes, which has happened. It can be anything. At any moment, life is so unpredictable and people and things can surprise you all the time, and I think a quality of mine that I like, if I can say, is just remaining open-hearted even when things don’t go right and not shutting down and being like, this is something that really hurt me and I’m never going to trust anyone in my life ever again. You can’t go through life in that way. If someone is out there with any wrong or malicious intent or whatever and it happens to you, maybe it was there for a reason. You’re meant to see it, you’re meant to go through it. So for that, I’m grateful.You’re coming off of “Future Nostalgia,” which was such a massive record for you. How did you get back into the creative space to begin this next chapter, and do you feel the weight of “Future Nostalgia” going into that?
For me, writing for my new album, for “Radical Optimism,” everything was delayed because I had been on tour, and during that tour, every break that I had in between, I went to the studio. So I was breaking away from the “Future Nostalgia” world and going into “Radical Optimism.” So for me, it was very important to have a sonic separation and to try to experiment with different sounds. And it took me a while, I started actually writing in 2021 but I didn’t really get anything until my very first session with Kevin Parker, Danny L. Harle, Tobias [Jesso Jr.] and Caroline [Ailin], which was in June 2022. So it was just a lot of writing and writing and figuring out where I was going and experimenting with different sounds until I was like, I’ve got it, I know where I’m headed. There’s always one song that’s that eureka moment that takes you into the next phase of the album. And I wanted a sonic departure. I also fell in love so much with the live versions of the songs, and so I loved having that organic musicality behind it, have that be really prevalent throughout the whole new album. So yeah, that’s what I aimed to do.You talk about your eureka moment. What was that for you?
It was a song called “Illusion.” That was a song where I felt like lyrically, I got this radical optimism. I felt very strong in the moment when I was writing that song, because it was really seeing past someone’s bullshit, I guess, for lack of a better word. And understanding it for what it is and just entertaining it for the hell of it, even though you see what’s happening. But I felt in a stronger power of position, because I was like maybe before, I would have fallen for something like this and now I can dance with the illusion, and it’s something for me too, you know? I think musically also, when Kevin and Danny came together and it was the live drums and the synths and the big music breakdown, in my head the big dance moment, when all those came together it was just a feeling. I had a feeling and I was like, now I have something to bounce off of. And in that first week, even though sonically they’re in the same world but they’re very different, I wrote “Illusion” and then I wrote “Happy for You” and “Happy for You” is a much bigger ballad, in a way. Somewhat. I wouldn’t really classify it as a ballad. Because I don’t do songs that are slow and big and emotional, but I just put them in the ballad section, I’m like, I don’t do those. But this feels almost in a world where I can really have this epic singing record that I was able to be very vulnerable and open in. But still sonically, it has this tremolo sound that I’m really obsessed with and it’s Kevin’s voice replicated. We use it as a sample throughout. That was just a moment for me to be really vulnerable and open and honest in what was happening in my life at that point. But I feel overall, in this whole record, I just grew as I was writing. I feel like I matured throughout.It feels like on this album, you sing a little differently, like from your diaphragm, putting a lot of raw emotion into it. Did you feel any difference singing and performing while recording this album, versus with previous records?
Yeah, for sure. I think my voice has changed. Especially when I listened to my earlier records. I think being on tour for a whole year, in 2022, and then also recording the record, like it’s a muscle, so I was using it every night. I was getting stronger, I was able to run and sing and dance and do all of that at the same time. So I feel like my vocal capabilities just got better. And I have much more control over my own voice. And I think in the beginning, for sure, my first tour I was figuring that out. I was losing my voice all the time, I was really nervous about getting sick. All my fears were connected to my voice, my throat. Like, I’m not going to be able to do this today because I might lose my voice and then I can’t sing. And I’m also past that where every morning when I’d wake up, if I wasn’t feeling well, I’d be like, alright, hot shower, cup of tea. And I’ll be good to go. It’s so in your mind as well. I think I strained my voice because I was so nervous before of losing it that now I’m much freer and much more confident. I feel like I’ve just learned to use my voice and my body in a way that’s very strong.You’ve said that this album is inspired by Britpop, but it still sounds like a hard-nosed pop record. How did Britpop inspire you and speak to how the songs were shaped?
Well, for me, I think the Britpop element that really came to me was the influences of Oasis and Massive Attack and Portishead and Primal Scream, and the freedom and the energy those records had. I love the experimentation behind it. And of course, it’s a pop record. I’m a pop artist, that’s what I do. But I think overall, the different sounds that are being used, the different breaks in the music, the use of musical samples, whether that’s with Kevin’s voice or with the different instruments that we used, overall it was me going completely out of what I knew, and exploring something different. And that’s what I got from my inspiration. I wasn’t going into Britpop and being like, I’m making this record that sounds exactly like… Because it doesn’t. But it’s a feeling that they portray that when I hear “Teardrop” by Massive Attack and I’m like, how did this song even come to be? It feels like it just happened in a moment of real freedom and writing and emotion, and I think that was just the feeling I was trying to convey more than anything.The album cover is a stunning shot. What made you go in this artistic direction?
I feel like this screams radical optimism to me. Just being in this setting, being very calm in the moment… I’m in deep waters, I’m in with a shark and I’m remaining calm and collected throughout. That is radical optimism to me. I think everything about this record has been [about] being in the chaos and remaining grounded throughout. When I saw it, when all the pictures were printed out, this was it. This was my first instinct. This is radical optimism to me.What’s the big statement that you are trying to make with this record, and how do you hope people receive that?
I think for me, the importance of understanding that when things are bad, there’s always some light at the end of the tunnel. I always think about it like, when I’m in the midst of a mess of turmoil or everything’s going wrong, I always tell myself, in a couple months, I’m gonna look back on that moment, and be like, thank God I walked through it. I didn’t decide to hide or not deal with the problem at hand, whatever it is, but actually choose to go through it. And that’s how I grew. And I feel like that just overall, especially in the world right now, I think it’s important that we just learn to walk through the fire and not hide away from it, or shy away from it. That’s just optimism. It’s probably the most daring thing we can do. Sometimes.At least, for me, I used to say that I used to be able to write songs way easier when I was sad. Because that was more of a tangible emotion that you can hold on to, and you can write about. But to write about something when you’re happy without feeling like you’re compromising yourself or making this like cheesy pop song or whatever, and making it something that’s deep and emotional, but it is optimistic, is actually way harder. And so, sometimes being optimistic isn’t the easiest thing to do. But it’s the most important thing throughout because it’s the thing that’s going to carry us into the next stage.
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Dua Lipa was interviewed by Trixie Mattel as the pair sat and painted Dua’s cover artwork for Radical Optimism.
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