Houdini is still doing around 3M daily streams. She's fine.

 

Arts not the charts babes, she is here for the Grammys not some quick little peaks

Not sure whether this will end up becoming a hit (I never predicted Flowers being this gargantuan smash so you never know lol), but Training Season doesn't really feel as bombastic as her other singles, and the chorus is way too similar to Break My Heart. It's very "been there done that" and it does seem like she's out of ideas this era. Even Houdini felt catchier and more instant, and the fact that it hasn't taken off yet is quite worrying.

Do people really think Houdini and Training Season are "art"? They're more quick lil Zara bops, just not as good as her previous singles.

Chasing hits is always more embarrassing than just letting things be and move on to something else later on when nothing sticks. The two songs are good. Stand by them. They’re not worlds apart from Future Nostalgia as most fans think, but they will definitely sound different in album context if DL3 is the darker synthpop/rave sister with psychedelic undertones. I still don’t hear the references in the music that she mentioned (Primal Scream, Massive Attack, Nelly Furtado), but hopefully they are the album cuts. It seems to me her team is just dropping the more familiarly Dua songs to hook audiences, but the rollout is all over the place in comparison to FN and the sound lacks the surprise factor of Dua coming into her own person as she did in 2020

Dua needs to be performing everywhere. That’s what made Future Nostalgia the ERA that it was. I think because this is technically her 3rd album but it’s not her 3rd smash album in the US. It’s her 2nd. To people out the zeitgeist, it’s sophomore to them & I don’t think they’re promoting her like it is. 

 

The songs are doing well on Spotify. She just needs to be performing and cementing her name here. She’s not yet at the sit back and let the songs work part.

Dua has to move. But honestly taylor swift can't sing or dance so why move. 

She's artistically stuck in the future nostalgia era. 

Houdini is doing very well actually but some of you are so US centric that if a song does averagely in America, you consider it a flop even if it’s performing really well globally, which is the case for Houdini. And i’m sure Training Season will follow a similar path. Also both songs are catchy and great. 

These new songs are lifeless

1 minute ago, Raspberries said:

These new songs are lifeless

Wrong thread 

The songs are good and very interesting but it lacks the IT factor to be the hits people are expecting from her. I don’t know if her and her label are worried tbh because it doesn’t seem clear what’s the plan behind this era at all but I think she’s doing very well but the expectations were very high tbh.

 

Also I think her styling this era has been… interesting? I don’t know I mean her washed up face with no make up doesn’t scream pop star and made her look bored and lifeless which was an issue a lot of people were saying on her debut and then she switched it up on her own way with FN.

 

I hope she succeeds at least like DSN type of smash because she desevees it. You can tell she stands by her art and has worked so hard to be on the place where she is upgrading her performance skills and vision and that’s something I applaud because it’s very rare nowadays in an industry full of mediocrity. C’mon Dua 

The thing is that Dua doesn't have a big loyal fan base, she relies too much on the GP and that's never a good thing because sooner or later they will lose interest, look at what happened to Katy, she was the IT pop girl at one point but since she didn't take the time to build a strong fan base she ended up flopping HARD, I fear Dua will have the same fate.

she took a very long break (4 yr gap) between her last album and now.. So she is getting katy perry'd.... 

Well, the song is not catchy.

1 hour ago, shimind said:

she took a very long break (4 yr gap) between her last album and now.. So she is getting katy perry'd.... 

Please... She had like 3432543 side projects.

I honestly think it’s because her songs sound the same

I kinda think Dua’s new songs are underperforming bc they are lacking on a lyrical standpoint. They don’t have any universal lyric or narrative that the GP can easily relate to.

 

Compared to past singles:

 

”Don’t start caring about me now”

“Am I falling in love with the one who can break my heart?”

”Dance the night away”

”You got me in love again”

 

Dua’s past hits actually had strong hooks with easily digestible messages. Nobody in the GP understands what “training season’s over” means and most of them don’t know Houdini enough to fully understand “catch me or I go Houdini”. She needs a song with a universal message if she wants to smash again.

She’s in her flop era in the US for sure, but I think she will have some cute hits overseas.

9 hours ago, Jay07 said:

Do people really think Houdini and Training Season are "art"? They're more quick lil Zara bops, just not as good as her previous singles.

Training Season is kinda cute. But Houdini is mediocre though.

8 hours ago, shimind said:

she took a very long break (4 yr gap) between her last album and now.. So she is getting katy perry'd.... 

Seeing as the era lasted for like 2 years, then she had many side projects and a top 10 with the Barbie soundtrack just recently, this excuse does not work. 

 

The GP are simply not connecting with this new music. Houdini missing the top 10 was shocking . 

She isn’t doing that poorly, but in my opinion there’s minimal interest because these songs sound the same as her old work. No artistic progression.

Dua has so many people pressed. She's iconic now. 

11 hours ago, False God said:

She went straight to her witness

Witness has a top 5 hit in the US. This is more comparable to Smile.