Dua Lipa has teamed up with The Blessed Madonna to create an album chocked full of club classics.
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Six months ago, Dua Lipa released her highly anticipated second studio album Future Nostalgia. It became her first ever UK number one album and gained masses of critical praise. But the release wasn’t quite what Dua Lipa (or anyone, for that matter) had expected. With the cancellation of festivals and concerts, the disco-infused album could not be promoted and performed as it normally would. 2020 has forced artists to think and create outside of the box, and so Lipa has teamed up with The Blessed Madonna to bring us Club Future Nostalgia, a 17-track remix album full of collaborations with some of the best DJs and artists across the globe. As well as the 11 tracks from Future Nostalgia, Club Future Nostalgia also includes two extra songs – ‘Love is Religion’ and ‘That Kind of Woman’.
Opening with the title track ‘Future Nostalgia’, Lipa welcomes us to Club Future Nostalgia. The lyric “you want a timeless song, I wanna change the game” takes on a new meaning this time as the album merges the classic dance mixtape with the new rules of pop. In Club Future Nostalgia, the past, present, and future are blended effortlessly.
Despite being a very different version from the original album, Dua Lipa and The Blessed Madonna have worked together to ensure that the remix doesn’t stray miles from the addictive disco-pop of Future Nostalgia. This is partially due to the sublime choice of samples distributed throughout the record; from Neneh Cherry‘s ‘Buffalo Stance’ on ‘Good in Bed’ to Jamiroquai‘s ‘Cosmic Girl’ on ‘Break My Heart / Cosmic Girl’, the samples compliment each song perfectly and ensure a seamless transition into the next track.
The halfway point of the album is marked the remixes of ‘Hallucinate’, which are split in two. The first displays Mr Fingers working his magic to combine Gwen Stefani‘s ‘Hollaback Girl’ with Dua Lipa’s whispering vocals. The track then builds fantastically into Paul Woolford’s more upbeat version, where familiar club piano samples build into the chorus of ‘Hallucinate’.
Club Future Nostalgia also features some big names. Madonna and Missy Elliott contribute their iconic and distinguishable voices to the remixed rhythm of ‘Levitating’, while Gwen Stefani brings her sultry voice to mix with Lipa’s on ‘Physical’. These features don’t take away from the brilliance of the tracks, instead combining multiple genres and eras together for some unskippable bops.
Club Future Nostalgia succeeds in achieving Lipa’s vision of bringing the dance floor to her listener’s homes – it’s difficult to listen to the project and not feel electrified by it’s infectious sounds, which mix dance, house, and pop in a variety of ways. While dancing in nightclubs will remain a distant memory for now, Club Future Nostalgia is open and ready for business.
Club Future Nostalgia is out now via Warner Records. Watch the video for ‘Levitating (feat. Madonna and Missy Elliott) [The Blessed Madonna Remix]’ here:
