Monday, January 29th, 2018

Dua Lipa – IDGAF

Nor do we, tbh…


[Video]
[4.57]

Katherine St Asaph: What if Vertical Horizon’s “Everything You Want” were performed by an automated nail-polish-emoji tweet?
[2]

Iain Mew: Back when the album came out, this was as obvious an initial highlight as “New Rules.” It hasn’t grown in the same way since, lacking the same emotional and musical depth and range, but if it’s one-note in its strutting dismissal, it’s still one-note done very well.
[7]

Alfred Soto: With the martial percussion, multi-tracked chorus, and overdubbed “hey!”s, Dua Lipa shows she’s got Jack Antonoff on the brain. I hear nothing much of interest in a track — and she’s too old to use adolescent abbreviations and hashtags. The guitar figure makes for a dandy na-na-na-hey, though.
[3]

Micha Cavaseno: Drearily stern and martial, abandoning a sense of scorn or regret for sheer resistance. Perhaps the lack of tragedy is a good thing in the sense of conveying Dua Lipa as having been utterly exhausted of sympathy or a desire to meet anyone halfway, but a similar lack of inviting experience beyond a tired guitar lick makes for a very uninviting listen.
[3]

Stephen Eisermann: Dua Lipa has an especially expressive voice; that’s not a bad thing, but it’s very telling. There are certain songs she’s released (or been a part of) where she comes across as borderline disinterested and then there are tracks like this one where her investment is very clear. This petty kiss-off sounds right in Dua’s wheelhouse and she sings the song so effortlessly and confidently that the rather pedestrian lyrics take on a stronger emotional heft than what is expected. Her voice and tone alone elevate a song from wannabe edgy fodder into a genuinely cool pop song.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: Our Scott Mildenhall recently wrote, in regards to Troye Sivan’s “My! My! My!,” about how songs with exclamation marks in the title should not be lightweight. I have a similar personal rule for pop songs but for ones using the word “fuck,” and Dua Lipa’s doesn’t quite pass. “IDGAF” falls in the category of break-up pop that’s more wish fulfillment than truth: words you wish you could’ve said at that moment that left you dumbfounded. Relieving as it may feel to sing them, the fuck-yous in the chorus fall too perfectly into place to hold them close truly as one’s own. And for that key “I don’t give a fuck,” it lands way too gracefully like she practiced the landing for weeks before she laid them down.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: I still love Dua, but “IDGAF” feels by-the-numbers, both in spite of and because of the cursing in the title. At best, her music feels both effortless and controlled; at least-best, Lipa gets stuck into a genre where she doesn’t belong. This falls way into the latter category, with MNEK providing a instrumental with unnecessary gang vocals (was there a Songwriters Retreat around a campfire one year?) and a Robin Schulz guitar line I thought was on its way out — “Waves” came out four years ago. I like the moment in the post-chorus where the gang momentarily leaves and she actually gets to sing by herself, but then they come back, as does a Jack Antonoff-style piano which has nothing to do with anything. The video has the exact kind of subtle confidence that made me like her in the first place, but this doesn’t nearly match Dua at her best.
[5]

Reader average: [4.59] (5 votes)

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3 Responses to “Dua Lipa – IDGAF”

  1. it took me way too long to figure out what the melody was ripping off

  2. whoops I already used the songwriters retreat joke on the One Foot blurb :P

  3. Ryo that’s a good rule of thumb for songs with The Swears, nice work