🎵 Weekly Music Newsletter: Dua Lipa’s Song of the Summer

Also, Foo Fighters first album since Taylor Hawkins’ death. Doja Cat becomes a rapper again. Ice Spice butchers Taylor Swift song. Squid carve niche in post-punk scene.

13 years ago today, Katy Perry’s California Gurls reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the first of five singles to top the chart from her Teenage Dream album—a feat equaled only by Michael Jackson’s Bad.

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The highly anticipated Barbie film, starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Helen Mirren, Will Ferrell, Issa Rae, Michael Cera, Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, and John Cena, will be released next month. However, here at Mic-Check, we’re more excited about the film’s similarly star-studded soundtrack than the film itself. The soundtrack will feature Dua Lipa, Nicki Minaj, Lizzo, Tame Impala, Charli XCX, Ice Spice, HAIM, The Kid LAROI, Karol G, PinkPantheress, Khalid, Ava Max, and Dominic Fike, among others, and will be executive produced by Mark Ronson. Aqua, the Europop group behind Barbie Girl, is notably absent.

We have received our very first taste of the upcoming soundtrack, out July 21, in the form of Dua Lipa’s Dance The Night, her first solo single since 2021’s Love Again. Ronson and Lipa previously struck gold with their 2018 Grammy-winning single Electricity. The pair’s latest collaboration was brought to life after Ronson slid into the Albanian singer’s Instagram DMs, asking her to co-write a full-cast dance number for the Barbie movie. Little did Ronson know that Lipa would appear on the big screen for that very same dance sequence. Lipa is performing double duty for the film, where she will make her acting debut as Mermaid Barbie.

In an interview with DAZED, Lipa noted that Barbie’s director Greta Gerwig’s inspiration for the film was disco, making Lipa the ideal musician for the film’s lead single. Dance The Night is a retro-futuristic disco pop tune, reminiscent of Lipa’s 2020 album Future Nostalgia. It’s quite possible that the track was originally written during the Future Nostalgia sessions but was ultimately left on the cutting room floor. Disco has become Lipa’s flagship sound, and…