Dua Lipa is here for a good time.

Her 2017 eponymous debut was a mixed bag of commercially trendy pop, but she made one of the biggest sophomore improvements with her 2020 smash Future Nostalgia. After a disco revival that had come out of nowhere, Future Nostalgia was filled with solid, dance-floor ready retro tracks that continued to pick up steam during the pandemic (and, honestly, are still fresh four years later).

It was reassuring when Lipa released “Houdini” last fall — a rollicking, stomping funk single assisted by superstar producers Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) and Danny L Hearle (Caroline Polachek, Charli XCX). It’s a highly addictive, playful track about her standards (“Prove you got the right to please me,” she spits) that coalesces into an exuberant, distorted hook that proves irresistible on the song’s extended version. But something stuck out in its writing that made it feel like an odd choice of lead single — its hook, “Catch me or I go Houdini.” Hmm.

Her next two singles spelled a fate for Radical Optimism — all fun, no substance. Like pop stars before her such as Ellie Goulding, Ava Max, or Ariana Grande who prioritized a tight beat over actually saying anything, Lipa’s writing is drier than ever. “He’s straight talking to my soul, conversation overload,” she sings on the rudimentary “Training Season,” but on the decidedly better “Illusion,” she sings on the chorus, “I be like, ooh, you think I’m gonna fall for an illusion.” On one astute line, however, she recognizes the need for a fun night out, succumbing to someone who might be a red flag: “I just wanna dance with the illusion.” It’s not delusion if you know you’re acting as such.

The same unfortunate pattern continues. On chic opener “End Of An Era,” she painfully details a conversation of saying hey and asking for each others’ names. “Happy For You” is a retread of a post-breakup reminiscence, with an awfully dated instrumental, “French Exit” clunkily justifies ghosting a relationship amongst handclaps and needless French translations, and “Anything For Love” turns from ballad to slinky number halfway through, then ends before it can get going. “Whatcha Doin” sees her anxious that this relationship could be the one to change her, something “Break My Heart” did better, though one good line comes with “If control is my religion, and I’m heading for collision.”

We should want more from our pop singer-songwriters, but there is something to be said about a fun album to dance to. It is unfortunate that the previous Lipa album was as strong as a pop collection could be, and this is more of a smattering of songs fit for summertime, but the record often includes hooks that lets you look past some of the more uninteresting writing. That’s not to say it’s devoid of ideas, either: on “Falling Forever,” she questions how long she can keep a good feeling going over thundering drums, and she finds comfort in an outside view on “These Walls,” which, cleverly, tell her “break up,” and “you’re fucked,” if they could talk. And, sure, despite an unfocused line or two, “Houdini” is delightfully devious. Radical Optimism “isn’t for thinking,” an astute tweet says, but “for being on rooftops with your friends drinking cocktails.”

While Radical Optimism rises nowhere near the cultural staple Future Nostalgia, its hooks and vocal delivery promise it’ll be kept on repeat this summer. Surely most of the tracks on Radical Optimism will soon be bumped in commercial gyms and pop playlists everywhere, but as a definitive artist statement, it’s a little bare.

Order Radical Optimism by Dua Lipa HERE