She anchors these songs with snappy basslines, then makes them transcendent, fully conveying the transformative nature of the romance she’s singing about: Levitating blooms like a row of tropical flowers, while the chorus of Hallucinate, Lipa’s own I Feel Love, seems to enter an interstellar dimension. Occasionally, too literally – the kitsch title track cites futurist American architect John Lautner, too arcane a reference for a pop song – but otherwise her fusion of disco and ruthlessly efficient contemporary pop is viscerally brilliant. Presumably emboldened by her success, on Future Nostalgia, Lipa sticks to the titular theme. The varying quality and sound of Lipa’s long-in-the-making debut was a real-time document of how modern pop stars have to evolve in public.
