The Singles Jukebox

525,600 sadbois…

[Video]
[5.53]

Leah Isobel: Every time I try to write this blurb, I stare at a blank screen for 30 minutes before closing the page. I start with how the instrumental choices here invoke classic pop forebears — flamenco guitars that, in this context, feel like Madonna; descending piano lines that recall ABBA — and I come up short. I start with her affected enunciation, leaning into the simulated emotion (“I try to see my lovers in a gühd light”) and the, uh, being-British (“I hope it hits me like an aurrow“) that are her two trademarks, and I come up short. I start by comparing “Training Season” to “Houdini,” which did ultimately grow on me, and I come up short. I just don’t have anything to say about this song; it’s so taut, so perfectly and unremarkably muscular, that my attention bounces right off. So it’s a Dua Lipa single.
[5]

Katherine St. Asaph: Dua Lipa is the human incarnation of the [6] to [7] range. Here we have some exotica married to the amusing idea that the main attraction of a vertiginous, libidinous love affair is “conversation overload.” I don’t know — that line, and the surrounding lyrics like “he’s straight talking to my soul” and “are you somebody who can go there?”, come off so dating podcast-brained and thus absolutely safe that they make the instrumental sound overheated and unconvincing.
[6]

Jackie Powell: Red hair. Leather outfits. Vocal growling — it happened right here during Dua Lipa’s performance at this year’s BRITs. The disco of “Dance the Night” and Future Nostalgia has officially run its course. While I had questions about how convincing Lipa’s previous single “Houdini” was of her transition into “psychedelic-pop” and “Nineties rock,” Lipa makes a much more cogent argument for her new era with “Training Season.” With main collaborator Caroline Ailin, Lipa constructs an extended metaphor that equates dating to a high-stakes track meet. The influences of Kevin Parker and the Brit pop-rock of Oasis and Blur that Lipa grew up with are much more apparent — the heart of the song is a conversation between a guitar and a bass during the verses, in addition to a rhythm acoustic guitar that accents the chorus. The bridge — which is a full bridge, not just a bunch of vocalizations — is a melodramatic but compelling build that brings everything into complete focus. Her lyrics continue the extended metaphor about running, but finally we’ve arrived at the meet itself, and a classic piano serves as the person who formally tells the runners to take their marks and go. Throughout “Training Season,” Dua Lipa wields a type of command that’s edgier than her previous work. Interesting doesn’t have to be toxic, as she told Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone, and “Training Season” is her way of responding to the toxic masculinity that has become part of the story of the pop rock music she’s influenced by. 
[9]

Ian Mathers: Ah yes, another installment in the Dula Peeps Men (Still) Ain’t Shit extended cinematic universe. From magic to sports, where will we go next? Farming? Food preparation? I do wish this was as fun to listen to as “Houdini,” though.
[6]

Taylor Alatorre: The anti-chemistry between Dua Lipa and her Stereogum-bait producers is even more evident here than on “Houdini,” and I find it strangely engrossing, albeit with the balance tipped toward “strangely.” Getting spins remains the goal, but there’s this constant tug-of-war regarding the best strategy for getting them. Kevin Parker tends toward memorable, if incongruous moments of harmonic tension and build-up, while Danny L Harle is presumably the one responsible for those geometric guitar plucks and the antiseptic bubble that is the chorus. Meanwhile, Dua Lipa is there, plugging her vocals into the the designated slots, feeling less essential to the character of her own song than ever. Such are the dangers of outsourcing your sonic re-invention to the indie gentry.
[5]

Andrew Karpan: I’m less of a cynic, and I think the idea of burning through various versions of Kevin Parker’s “Less I Know the Better”-type beat through the gasoline shimmer of hyperpop disco (TM) is as fine enough an idea as any to sell the Dua Lipa project — the value proposition of which remains largely unchanged, even as it continues to be twisted into slightly fewer, but more deliberate, directions. Her voice can always bend, but always the same way, beating on, against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the ’clurb. 
[5]

Dave Moore: I’m not sold yet on Dua Lipa’s chorus-agnostic era. As a perennial Lipa skeptic I thought the stylistic recession on “Houdini” worked for her, and I suppose it works about as well here, but the song is bereft of that one’s small pleasures. It sounds like she’s rubber-cementing random pop hooks together, whereas before it at least sounded like she was using chewing gum. 
[6]

Oliver Maier: Something like “Lay All Your Love On Me” is straining to muscle out from beneath Dua’s tepid synth-funk, but there’s never any real danger it’ll break free and liven things up.
[4]

Joshua Lu: There’s a deadliness to “Training Season” that few artists can execute as well as Dua, with her coquettish voice slinking around you like a snake does its prey. But where the song should grow in intensity, it instead chooses to shrink, and where it should throw a curveball, it instead aims for simplicity — why does the chorus end with such a standard fade-out that resets all of its momentum? The song has all the foundations of a great pop single but is too satisfied with sounding like a decent album track.
[5]

TA Inskeep: Her singles have a habit of sneaking up on me. “Levitating” improved by hearing it constantly out in the wild (I don’t generally do terrestrial radio, but it was unavoidable). “Cold Heart“‘s mash-up eventually sucked me in, and I can’t get the short sharp (un)shock of “Houdini” out of my head (it’s an [8], just a sparkling pop single). “Training Season” won’t join that class, as it has nothing to it but a mild EDM build (ca. 2008) in the chorus that just — ends. And Lipa sounds even more bored than usual.
[4]

Hannah Jocelyn: This would have been a [10] if it came out shortly after Currents; it’s still pretty great in 2024, with much more lively production than “Houdini” and genuine risks like that harsh synth towards the end. I’m on board with this direction!
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: I wonder if it burns Caroline Polachek up that Dua Lipa will have the big mainstream hit album she will never have and that Danny L Harle is involved with it. I would advise her to listen to Martina Sorbara’s 2002 album The Cure for Bad Deeds and accept her niche status instead of fighting it. It might just lead her to eggs over easy.
[6]

Dorian Sinclair: So, I read a lot. It’s my primary leisure activity. I read books that profoundly move me, books that open me to whole new ways of thinking, books I immediately recommend to everyone I know. But I also read a steady stream of 5.5/10 genre novels. They’re an important reset between more impactful works: faultlessly competent, reasonably engaging, instantly forgettable. This, to me, is Dua Lipa.
[5]

Aaron Bergstrom: Feels like it should work but comes off as listless, directionless, joyless. It’s a mild to moderate case of Training Seasonal Affective Disorder.
[4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Training season? Guess it makes sense that she sounds so out of breath in that chorus then. 
[6]