‘Radical Optimism’ is Dua’s shortest era on US Charts

[InsomniaMonster69 3,471]

Honestly surprised it spent that much weeks on the charts... it really felt like a non-event...

[clownery 6,729]

6 hours ago, A Very Gaga Holida said:

The singles weren’t too good, honestly. I mean, they’re somewhere between good and quite mediocre. So were FN’s ones, but they were still more epic and they had great videos and promo. FN was her Teenage Dream, I fear.

"Training Season" is the catchiest song I've heard all year. I can't say the same about the whole album, though. I've never really been interested in her music.

[SevenWonder 4,404]

7 hours ago, nkta said:

What can she do at this point to succeed? This album is not bad, singles were okay (Houdini was great), she did decent promo (Brit Awards, Grammy, music videos)… And yet here we are…

I guess, she is hurt by all the competition this year: Sabrina, Chapelle, Billie, Charli dominate pop so much right now that there is barely any place left for other pop girls 

I think this is it. Agreed. 

She also was up against either shiny new artists (Chappelle, Sabrina) or established artists who fing BROUGHT it (Billie, Charlie). She went the safe route and she's not as big as Ariana (who also went safe), so it didn't really work out for her. 

[Judas Oyster 1,915]

10 hours ago, nkta said:

What can she do at this point to succeed? This album is not bad, singles were okay (Houdini was great), she did decent promo (Brit Awards, Grammy, music videos)… And yet here we are…

I guess, she is hurt by all the competition this year: Sabrina, Chapelle, Billie, Charli dominate pop so much right now that there is barely any place left for other pop girls 

That's a good point actually. I like Dua a lot but I also didn't feel the new album, the only song I can listen to is Houdini and that one I really used time and mental effort to like it. I enjoy it some days, some other days not.

But back to your comment:

COVID-19 period actually made her shine when others didn't do much. I remember her live stream concerts, videos etc. I mean the album released as COVID reached news outlets in the Western world. It was a well planned album release, promo and more poppy songs with good quality, and when you do not have competition: well it's easy to shine thru. I know Gaga was one of the few pop acts but there was barely any promo with Chromatica, it was clear that Gagas management decided to some coins on promo because Gaga wanted to release the album then, and so they did - but they held back a lot of promo, plans etc that was originally planned as a full release, whereas Dua's management not only did some promo, they did a lot more than originally planned.

Anyway: yes, I think the pop situation today is quite hard competition and being (trying to be) experimental for Dua was a legit artistic choice, but did not work commercially this time around.

[andy232000 11,977]

Kinda sad. This is a good album. I think pretty on par with her debut and maybe just slightly below FN. But in the end number wise this was a larger album than FN so it was successful depending on what metric you want to measure it.
 

In terms of the era as whole, yes, it was underwhelming. It never really got traction at all and I think the expectations were just too high and unreachable for not just Dua, but any other artist. She did the multiple singles, multiple MV, she has a huge surprise show in Times Square, headlined Glastonbury and a successful summer tour. But the perception of success was just too high. Radical Optimisms biggest flaw, was being forced to come after/compete FN.