Dua Lipa has given her sequined swan song with “Dance the Night.”
Though Lipa, 28, has found major success with the disco sound on songs like “Don’t Start Now,” “Physical” and “Levitating,” the musician will put the mirror balls in storage going forth. In fact, she told the Los Angeles Times that “Dance the Night,” her Grammy-nominated song for the Barbie soundtrack, was her final disco track for the foreseeable future.
Lipa was on tour when Mark Ronson, the celebrated producer who oversaw the Barbie soundtrack’s creation, reached out to her about doing an original track that helps “paint the picture of the movie,” she said. Ronson noted that director Greta Gerwig asked if Lipa’s song could be disco since it would be for the big dance scene at the start of the film.
“I was like, ‘Oh, f—k, I’m moving away from [disco] for my new album,’” she told the Los Angeles Times before realizing she couldn’t turn this opportunity down. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ve got one more in me.’”
That proved to be easier said than done. Lipa said that trying to write for Barbie presented some challenges. ”I’m so used to going into the studio and talking about myself and my feelings and what’s happening in my life,” said Lipa. “Trying to embody a character that’s [in] somebody else’s world, how do I go in and tell that story? [This was] an assignment, which I hadn’t really done before.”
Lipa said that the scene’s choreography helped her shape the lyrics and that the pivotal moment – when the main character Barbie (Margot Robbie) asks her fellow Barbies if they ever think about dying – also influenced the song’s creation. “I knew it had to be fun,” said Lipa, “but I knew it needed a little element of sadness or a little pang of insufficiency, which I think maybe we’re all susceptible to.”
The resulting song was a commercial and critical success. “Dance The Night” hit No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top of the UK Singles Chart. It also netted a Song of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media nomination for the 66th Grammy Awards.
Lipa kicked off her new era on November 10 with “Houdini,” the first single off her forthcoming album. While still within the dance realm, the song has a more modern sheen than her nu-disco bops, with darker, fuzzier, distorted elements closing out the track.
