8 November 2019
‘Don’t Start Now’ is a strange track. Its chorus is its least engaging and impressive part: terse and choppy, as if Dua Lipa is reading a list of bullet points in a PowerPoint presentation. You’ll remember that this is similar to the chorus of her first number one, ‘New Rules’, though that was literally a numbered list rather than a bulleted one. Also like ‘New Rules’, ‘Don’t Start Now’ is a post-break-up anthem. And Dua was as monotone on ‘IDGAF’ and ‘One Kiss’ as she is here. So, how come those earlier hits bore me but ‘Don’t Start Now’ sounds comparatively fresh and vibrant?
Disco-pop is the answer. Just as Regard’s ‘Ride It’ a few weeks earlier represented a chart-topping return for down-the-line dance bangers, ‘Don’t Start Now’ harks back to the invention and attitude of Xenomania-style ’00s UK chart pop. The bassline is brisk and funky, the production is spacious, and the shards of micro- and nano-hooks catch the light; I especially like the space-age swooshes, the laser-effect “poom”, the giddy wood-block hits, the soupçon of Chic-style guitar, and the random background vocalisms such as “wuah, wuah!” and what I think is “Internet!”. Most impressively of all, ‘Don’t Start Now’ is the track that finally works out what to do with Dua; on those previous try-hard hits her declamatory style and inert presence sink the track into a muddy stodge, but instead here she’s a solid core at the heart of this disco-pop whirl, like a handbag in the centre of the dancefloor.
So effective and successful is this disco-pop move in making Dua Lipa an A-list pop star that we’ll see her top the charts again a few years later with a track that’s a pure disco throwback. For the time being, ‘Don’t Start Now’ is the best indication yet that the turn of the decade will leave the tired ’10s trop-house sound behind and bring us back to chart pop music that’s more dynamic and curious.
