New Music Friday: Dua Lipa at the top, James Arthur at the bottom, various songs in between

Song of the week:
Dua Lipa — ‘New Rules’ (Initial Talk mix)
This is an official release of the phenomenal vigilante ’80s version’ that was knocking around on social media a couple of weeks ago. At the time we tweeted: “Not to be dramatic but the future of Dua’s career rests on whether or not she’s performed this version live by the end of this month.” There’s still a week until the deadline but whether a performance happens or not what we were really looking for in that tweet was some sense that Dua would acknowledge or embrace this brilliant, unexpected pop accident, welcome it into her universe and celebrate the joy at its heart. Pop is full of artists (and labels, and management teams) who ignore this sort of stuff, or try to shut it down: another act might have said “we’ve had some very expensive and serious remixes done already, this isn’t what we had in mind and we don’t think it’s very fun at all”. They might have had the remix pulled from YouTube, burying it forever in a heap of cease and desists. Dua’s lot have made it canon. It’s a decision that elevates Dua Lipa to Major Pop Act status. It’s been coming all year, of course, but this is the thing that tips it over the edge. So we’re making the Initial Talk mix of ‘New Rules’ Song Of The Week for that reason, and we’re also making it Song Of The Week because it’s really brilliant, and we’re also making it Song Of The Week because we slept on it when it first appeared due to a misguided notion that the chorus was disappointing. It just took a few hundred listens. That isn’t an excuse, we take responsibility for our mistakes and hope you can understand that our younger self doesn’t reflect who we are today.

Wrong of the week:
James Arthur — ‘Naked’
Terrible voice, terrible song, terrible mental image. Straight to the naughty step for Max Martin.

Additional notes:

• The latest Rae Morris track, ‘Atletico’, is a wonderful pop moment and makes it three-for-three on the ‘singles off the forthcoming album’ front. (The album is very splendid.)
• When we Shazammed the One Bit / Noah Cyrus song a few days ago (it was on the radio, you see) we were the first ever to have Shazammed it. Have you ever been the first person to Shazam a song? It’s quite a rush. You feel fucking invincible.
• Mimoza has released a song that’d make a good Little Mix single.
• To be fair, so have Little Mix.

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