Radical Optimism

Radical Optimism is the third studio album by English and Albanian singer Dua Lipa, released on 3 May 2024 by Warner Records. It is her first full-length studio album release in four years since Future Nostalgia (2020). Lipa worked on Radical Optimism with producers such as Kevin Parker, Danny L Harle, Ian Kirkpatrick, and Andrew Wyatt. The album was preceded by three singles: "Houdini", "Training Season", and "Illusion".

Radical Optimism received generally positive reviews from critics upon release. Most reviewers praised the album's neo-psychedelia, but some found it less radical than it could have been. In the United Kingdom, it debuted atop the UK Albums Chart and scored the biggest opening week for a British female in three years. The album was supported by the Radical Optimism Tour, which started in June 2024.

Background
Dua Lipa's second studio album, Future Nostalgia, was released in March 2020 to widespread acclaim. Credited as a significant factor in the revival of disco and dance-pop music in this decade, *
 * the record yielded multiple singles including "Don't Start Now" and the RIAA diamond-certified "Levitating". It won Best Pop Vocal Album and British Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards and Brit Awards ceremonies, respectively. Future Nostalgia was succeeded by a remix album and reissue.  Lipa embarked on its namesake tour, which included 91 shows across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, from February to November 2022.
 * the record yielded multiple singles including "Don't Start Now" and the RIAA diamond-certified "Levitating". It won Best Pop Vocal Album and British Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards and Brit Awards ceremonies, respectively. Future Nostalgia was succeeded by a remix album and reissue.  Lipa embarked on its namesake tour, which included 91 shows across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, from February to November 2022.
 * the record yielded multiple singles including "Don't Start Now" and the RIAA diamond-certified "Levitating". It won Best Pop Vocal Album and British Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards and Brit Awards ceremonies, respectively. Future Nostalgia was succeeded by a remix album and reissue.  Lipa embarked on its namesake tour, which included 91 shows across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, from February to November 2022.
 * the record yielded multiple singles including "Don't Start Now" and the RIAA diamond-certified "Levitating". It won Best Pop Vocal Album and British Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards and Brit Awards ceremonies, respectively. Future Nostalgia was succeeded by a remix album and reissue.  Lipa embarked on its namesake tour, which included 91 shows across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, from February to November 2022.
 * the record yielded multiple singles including "Don't Start Now" and the RIAA diamond-certified "Levitating". It won Best Pop Vocal Album and British Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards and Brit Awards ceremonies, respectively. Future Nostalgia was succeeded by a remix album and reissue.  Lipa embarked on its namesake tour, which included 91 shows across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, from February to November 2022.

In 2023, Lipa revealed her third studio album would be released sometime in 2024 with a new sound that sees her moving away from the disco soundscape of Future Nostalgia; instead embracing more of 1970s-era psychedelia. After having deleted all of her Instagram posts in October 2023, she revealed she had gotten her hair coloured red via a picture of herself captioned "miss me?". In anticipation of new music, Lipa posted pictures to her social media with cryptic captions and temporarily replaced the cover art of her previous albums with kaleidoscopic versions on streaming services. In the cover story for the February 2024 issue of Rolling Stone, Lipa described her forthcoming album as a "psychedelic-pop-infused tribute to UK rave culture".

Lipa announced her third studio album, titled Radical Optimism, and its release date, via an Instagram livestream on 13 March 2024. The album is her first studio effort in four years, following Future Nostalgia.

Music and lyrics
Radical Optimism is a dance-pop, neo-psychedelia, electropop, and Europop record. It "taps into the pure joy and happiness" of having clarity in situations, including "hard goodbyes and vulnerable beginnings" that eventually turned out to be milestones as a result of choosing optimism and grace to navigate "through the chaos". The album is inspired by "the energy of [Lipa's hometown] London, and the rawness, honesty, confidence and freedom of 90s Britpop". In a press release, she expressed her desire to "capture the essence of youth and freedom and having fun" with the record. The concept of radical optimism was introduced to her by a friend a few years prior, which resonated with her and allowed it to "weave" into her life. Inspired by the term, Lipa found herself doing research on the history of "psychedelia, trip hop, and Britpop". The concept turned out to be a "confidently optimistic" feeling to the singer that she sought to incorporate in her recording sessions.

Release and promotion
Radical Optimism was released through Warner Records on 3 May 2024, and was made available for streaming, digital download, cassette, CD, and vinyl LP variants. Pre-orders for the album began on 13 March 2024.

Title and artwork
Lipa unveiled the album's cover, title and tracklist on 13 March 2024. According to Lipa, the title Radical Optimism was inspired by "the idea of going through chaos gracefully and feeling like you can weather any storm". The artwork of the album was unveiled along with its announcement. Shot by Tyrone Lebon, it depicts the singer floating in an ocean and the fin of a nearby shark seemingly approaching her.

Singles
The lead single "Houdini" was released on 9 November 2023, with its accompanying music video. The song topped the charts in Belgium, Bulgaria, and Greece; reached number two in the UK, the top-ten in various countries, and number 11 in the US. It also topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs chart for 17 weeks, becoming her second-longest-running number-one on the chart. An extended edit of the song was released on digital and streaming services on 1 December followed by remixes by Adam Port and Danny L Harle, one of the track's producers, on 22 December 2023 and 19 January 2024 respectively.

The second single "Training Season" was debuted live at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on 4 February 2024 before being released on 15 February. It was issued on limited 7-inch vinyl, CD, and cassette formats in addition to accompanying instrumental, a capella, extended, and extended instrumental versions on digital and streaming platforms. The song's music video, directed by Vincent Hancock, was released alongside the track. The single debuted at number four in the UK, six in Ireland, 10 in New Zealand, 11 in Canada, 27 in the US, and within the top 40 in various other countries. An acoustic version of the song was released on digital and streaming services on 22 March 2024, followed by a remix by Chloé Caillet on 29 March.

"Illusion" was released as the album's third single on 11 April 2024. Accompanying instrumental, a capella, and extended versions were released the same day on digital and streaming services. The song debuted at number nine in the UK, becoming the album's third consecutive top ten entry, and within the top 40 in various other countries. The track also reached the summit of the US Dance/Electronic Songs chart, becoming the second single from the album to reach the peak there. The song's accompanying music video drew comparisons to Kylie Minogue's video for her 2003 single "Slow".

Live performances
As part of promotion for the album, Lipa performed the album's singles at various venues across various media forms. Performances of "Houdini" and "Training Season" filmed in a London warehouse were released to YouTube on 12 January 2024 and 15 March, respectively. The performances, subtitled "London Sessions", were also released in audio form on digital and streaming services on the same day as their respective debuts. Lipa opened the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on 4 February 2024 with "Houdini" and debuted then-unreleased "Training Season", along with "Dance the Night", a song for the 2023 film Barbie. She performed "Training Season" again at the Brit Awards 2024 ceremony on 2 March. On 12 April, Lipa performed a private concert at a McDonald's convention in Barcelona. Her setlist at the event consisted of the album's first two singles alongside several other songs from her catalogue.

Lipa recorded a performance for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge series at Maida Vale Studios that aired on BBC One on 6 May 2024. Her performance included "Training Season", "Illusion" and "Happy for You" from Radical Optimism in addition to her 2015 single, "Be the One", and a cover of Cleo Sol's 2021 track "Sunshine". On 25 April, she performed the first three singles off of the album at Time magazine's 2024 100 Gala. The event aired on the ABC network on 12 May. On 4 May, a day after the album's release, Lipa hosted Saturday Night Live and performed "Illusion" and "Happy for You" during the show. The next day, she performed the same two songs again alongside "Houdini" and "Training Season" during a surprise concert in Times Square in New York City.

Lipa will headline the 2024 edition of Glastonbury Festival in June as well as Open'er Festival, Rock Werchter, NOS Alive, and Mad Cool in July. She will also conduct a one-off concert on 17 October at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Fans who pre-ordered Radical Optimism were granted pre-sale access on 10 April, followed by the general ticket sale two days later, via Ticketmaster.

Tour
On 18 March 2024, Lipa announced the Radical Optimism Tour, a concert tour in support of the album. Tickets went on general sale on 21 March via Ticketmaster; fans who pre-ordered Radical Optimism were granted pre-sale access.

Critical reception
Radical Optimism received generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 73, based on 21 reviews.

Writing for Evening Standard, El Hunt says that "Radical Optimism, despite having a title that sounds like an inspirational fridge magnet, boasts some real dance-pop gems which belong right at the top of her output", but adds that it's a "slightly half-hearted experiment". For the Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney noted that "there's a lot of production layering and effects, but the songs share a similarly straightforward groove".

Aimee Phillips of Clash lamented "I can't see Radical Optimism sliding in straight to number one in fans' affections, but if the slow-burn of Future Nostalgia is anything to go by, Dua Lipa would have grounds to be, as her latest project suggests, radically optimistic about the album’s future". DIY writer Lisa Wright remarked that "on her hugely-anticipated third, there's plenty of sun-drenched sonic optimism but not so much that's all that radical".

Radical Optimism has received some mixed reviews. In The Line of Best Fit, Claire Biddles said "In her [Dua's] dance-pop singles, she's proven that she can do the "pop" part, but the "star" is still lacking". Writing for NME, Thomas Smith wrote that "perhaps it's unfair to hold Lipa too strongly against what might have been a throwaway comment in a profile too literally, but Radical Optimism offers little else to latch on". Jaeden Pinder of Paste felt the album lacks "depth and risk", describing it as a "series of vignettes" rather than a "fully fleshed-out record". Some critics have reviewed the album as inferior to Future Nostalgia and said it failed to match the high expectations set by Lipa. Common complaints found the album's production to be underwhelming and underdeveloped.

For The Sunday Times, Dan Cairns writes of the album that it "excels..in its sonic detailing," citing 6 tracks as "genuinely fantastic songs, befitting of a star" whilst summarising the album as "Radical? Nope. Great (in parts). Absolutely".

Commercial performance
Radical Optimism debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart with 46,300 units, marking the best opening week for a British female artist since Adele's 30 in November 2021. It marked her first number one debut and her second number one overall.

In the US, Radical Optimism debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 83,000 equivalent units sold on its opening week, consisting of 51,500 pure album sales. With this feat, it became Lipa's highest-charting album in the country, surpassing the number three peak of her previous LP Future Nostalgia. It was also the top-selling album in pure sales that week and marked Lipa's highest first week overall units.

Across Europe, the album peaked at number one in Austria, Croatia, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Wallonia while debuting in the top ten in others.

Track listing
Note
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 * $undefined$ signifies a vocal producer

Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Radical Optimism.

Musicians
 * Dua Lipa – vocals (all tracks), backing vocals (tracks 5, 7, 11)
 * Caroline Ailin – backing vocals (tracks 1–4, 6, 8–10)
 * Kevin Parker – bass (tracks 1–3, 5–8, 11); guitar, keyboards, percussion, sound effects (1–3, 5–7, 11); drums (2–8, 11), programming (2, 3), backing vocals (3)
 * Danny L Harle – synthesiser (tracks 1, 2, 4–11), drum programming (1, 2, 4, 6–11), backing vocals (1, 2, 10), bass (1, 4, 6, 8, 10); keyboards, percussion (1, 4, 7); programming (3, 9); drums, guitar (4); claps (5, 6, 10), whistle (7), piano (9)
 * Tobias Jesso Jr. – backing vocals (track 3)
 * Andrew Wyatt – guitar, synthesiser (tracks 4, 10); piano (4), backing vocals (10)
 * Cameron Gower Poole – drum programming, thumb piano (track 4); tambourine (5)
 * Jan Brzezinski – additional piano (track 4), piano (9)
 * Ali Tamposi – adaptation (track 5), backing vocals (8)
 * Ian Kirkpatrick – programming (tracks 8, 9), drums (8), guitar (9)
 * Adam James – acoustic guitar (track 10)

Technical Design
 * Chris Gehringer – mastering
 * Josh Gudwin – mixing
 * Cameron Gower Poole – engineering
 * Kevin Parker – engineering (tracks 2, 3)
 * Patrick Kehrier – engineering (track 8)
 * Danny L Harle – arrangement (track 2)
 * Will Quinnell – mastering assistance
 * Daniela Sicilia – engineering assistance
 * Josh Kay – engineering assistance
 * Jan Brzezinski – engineering assistance (tracks 2–11)
 * Patrick Gardner – engineering assistance (track 2)
 * Elena Totaj – branding, packaging design
 * Eni Pirana – branding, packaging design
 * Tyrone Lebon – photography
 * BoDeBo Represents – photography production