Why We Should Rethink the Pressure on Pop Stars to Reinvent Themselves

2024-05-04 21:17:03

If a pop star doesn’t deliver a new era, including sound and aesthetics, good pop songs are suddenly considered boring. Others, who want to present a new era at all costs, seem too stubborn. Why we should take a more relaxed view of the “Eras”.

Column by Verena Bogner

Every time Dua Lipa releases a new song I get scared. I really love Dua Lipa, her album “Future Nostalgia” carried me through the green locks of the Corona, her show in the Stadthalle made my pop heart beat faster. Last year, Dua began teasing her next “Era”: She deleted her Instagram posts and told the New York Times that her next album would be influenced by “1970s-era psychedelia” – in stark contrast to disco-heavy “Future Nostalgia” – would stand.

She did not keep this promise with the singles “Houdini”, “Training Season” and “Illusion”. They sound like the B-sides of “Future Nostalgia”, like leftover songs that flow with Dua’s classic sound. Don’t get me wrong: the tracks are perfect pieces of pop, but they don’t reinvent the wheel. Dua Lipa is always lovingly criticized on social media for this and I also wonder: “Why does everything Dua Lipa do sound so Dua Lipa?”

Stars like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Madonna have cemented one thing in our minds: female pop stars in particular need to constantly reinvent themselves to stay relevant and interesting (more on that in this column). Dua Lipa is clearly defying that logic with her new tracks and album, Radical Optimism, and she doesn’t deserve to be labeled boring or uncreative. She just found the sound that suits her and continues to improve it.

Pop stars have often failed due to the concept of the album era, such as Lady Gaga with her crazy “Artpop” phase, who only recently received the fan recognition she was denied ten years ago. Taylor Swift, the master of “Eras”, is also currently being criticized for not ushering in a new phase of her career with “The Tortured Poets Department”, but simply calling it “more of the same”.

Anyone who has yet to find his sound, unlike Dua, is Jojo Siwa. The American was present as a child and is known as a dancer and actor. She recently released her single “Karma” – and to promote it, she’s been putting in one outrageous performance after another. Jojo Siwa became known as a little sunshine, her trademark colorful hair bow. Now she is seen with KISS-esque makeup and suddenly she wants to be seen as a bad girl. In an interview she even claims that no star of her generation has “changed as much” as she has. She does everything she can to usher in a new “Era,” but her strange behavior hits the limits of this concept: If the “Era” itself becomes more important than the content of this “Era,” it won’t help anyone.