By: Maddie Bimonte
After smashing success with Future Nostalgia, Dua Lipa returned to the pop scene this year with two singles to date as of writing this article: Houdini and Training Season. Both songs take an electronic dance-y beat over concepts revolving around not wanting to be tied down and toxic love relationships. The British artist is transitioning into a self-described “1970 psychedelic era” of music, attributed to the help of production by Kevin Parker of Tame Impala on Training Season.
At first glance, I had an earworm with both tracks. Houdini builds in such an interesting way, with the trippy synth chords as well as an infectious hook. The actual song isn’t too complex in its instrumentation, as it slowly adds more fills throughout the second verse and bridge. This is identical to what we hear on Training Season, leading to a pretty repetitive cycle of songs, especially when these two were released back-to-back in the tracklist of her new album promotion.
And while it’s great she’s sticking to a theme; it can seem a little boring in the long run as it is so similar. I am still unclear on how long the future album will be and what exactly it will be about, but it will be difficult to follow up with Future Nostalgia’s singles of Levitating and Physical, which had two completely different vibes.
Both songs use a dance break, or at least a gap prior to the bridge, in her live renditions of the songs. I think, personally, this was a great choice for the singles in terms of drumming up attention, but I think could be an issue going forward if the same format keeps getting recycled for every song on the new album.
I prefer Houdini more to Training Season mainly because the latter seems to emulate so much of the same things already heard in Houdini that I had a stronger reaction to Houdini when it first came out.
Houdini: 4/5
Training Season: 3/5
