A definitive ranking of Dua Lipa’s 25 best bangers

Dua Lipa is one of the single greatest pop stars we have. She’s an artist who has an effortless skill at creating pop music that feels cool to people who would never normally even give pop music the time of day. In the short few years since her commercial breakthrough, Dua Lipa has gone from an assured debut full of hits into a sophomore album that redefined what it meant to be a pop artist in the 2020s. From her debut, to Future Nostalgia and beyond – here are the 25 greatest Dua Lipa songs ranked.

25. No Lie

Back in 2016, Dua Lipa was very “the girls that get it, get it, and the girls that don’t, don’t.” We were in a pre-New Rules era – but one of the girls that did get it was Sean Paul, and getting Lipa on for No Lie made for one of 2016’s bangers with the best vibes. The two work together so well, and all these years later with as much career growth as Dua has had it still has a likability factor that’s hard to match.

24. Scared To Be Lonely

Teaming up with Martin Garrix, Scared To Be Lonely is just very 2017 in a way that five years later is starting to feel really nostalgic. That Chainsmokers tinged drop is so of the time, but you know what? Always been a bit partial to this song, and Dua’s voice absolutely soars on it.

23. That Kind Of Woman

Originally heard via a Stuart Price remix on Club Future Nostalgia, we eventually got the original That Kind Of Woman when Dua Lipa released the Moonlight Edition of Future Nostalgia as a bonus track. Like so many of the songs from the era, it’s got an infectious groove that lures you in instantly. It reaches its best stride with the Daft Punk soaked vocoder section near the end.

22. Genesis

Perhaps I will be under fire for this, but I firmly believe that Dua Lipa’s self titled debut album has practically no good album tracks in the mix. Sorry! But the exception? Genesis. What a spectacular song this is, and an absolutely note perfect choice to open an album. The lyrics are incredible (“In the beginning, God created heaven and Earth / For what it’s worth, I think he might have created you first”), the production slinky and snappy and the chorus wonderful. A hit that never was.

21. Be The One

Dua Lipa’s first bonafide hit single, 2015’s Be The One was a sleeper hit and got a re-release in 2016 to further success and acclaim. It’s one of the dreamiest songs out of all the ones ranked here, with that signature smoky Dua Lipa vocal ascending over the Digital Farm Animals production. A bit of a 2010s classic.

20. Kiss And Make Up

I think this collab happened just a bit before BLACKPINK fever hit its peak, and I wish they sat on it a bit and gave it a proper big single release like it deserved. Kiss And Make Up is the best thing about the extended edition release of Dua’s debut – a raucous and fun banger that’s pure pop at its best. It’s giving Little Mix in the best ways.

19. One Kiss

With One Kiss, Dua Lipa and Calvin Harris did the impossible. They united the gays, the girlies and the footie lads in perfect harmony. If it came on at a pre-drinks, party or club dance floor all of life would flock there. And even though it got overplayed to death and has a *certain* dance move attached to it that’s more notorious than even the song itself, it remains an absolute rammer.

18. Prisoner

2020 belonged to Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa in near perfect harmony, so what else would they do than smartly team up for a duet that fused the genres both of them were peddling in their respective album eras? Great decisions made across the board, and a song that really managed to feel like a pop MOMENT.

17. Break My Heart

With its instantly recognisable INXS interpolation, Break My Heart is one of the most straightforward bangers Future Nostalgia has in its track list. It doesn’t stand toe to toe with the greatest moments on the album, it’s all a bit too Meghan Trainor safe for that, but there’s an undeniable and infectious pop smash here.

16. Love Again

God, Future Nostalgia is special, isn’t it? A lesser artist would have a tune as excellent as Love Again front and centre as the lead single, but out of all the Dua Lipa songs ranked here things just get better and better. Love Again builds so spectacularly – the way the music drops out apart from the guitar strums in the chorus? The random swoops of strings? Pure bliss.

15. Love Is Religion (The Blessed Madonna Remix)

The only song from Club Future Nostalgia without a non-remixed release is Love Is Religion, and honestly? This version smashes the original leaked Love Is Religion out of the park. The original sounds like filler from her debut album, the remix a Madonna homage of the highest order. Love Is Religion is absolutely spectacular – a soaring, Like A Prayer-esque moment for Dua with some of the danciest instrumentation she’s ever recorded with. Absolute euphoria from start to end.

14. Levitating (The Blessed Madonna Remix)

A divisive remix, but to me, a really special one. I love remixes when they’re completely different from their source material, a new take on something great that brings something to the table the other one never did. The Blessed Madonna’s rework of Levitating is a darker twist, with Stuart Price’s iconic production along for the ride too. Add in Missy Elliott and THEE actual Madonna, and I’m in heaven. Is it better than the original? No. But it’s outrageously great in its own lane.

13. Pretty Please

What a fucking excellent groove Pretty Please has! It has that Pharrell finger snapping vibes production, and stands out against the other tracks on its album thanks to Dua’s more muted and moany vocals. It wouldn’t be out of place on Britney or In The Zone era Britney Spears, and I don’t care what anyone says – I love the cowbell.

12. New Rules

There’s a reason New Rules made Dua Lipa the biggest artist in the world – it’s slinky, sensual, exciting. It sounded like nothing else in the charts, and still is a song that I don’t think I can imagine a single artist other than Dua Lipa recording. It’s her signature song for so many people, a song that defined the late 2010s and steered pop music directly into Dua Lipa’s direction.

11. Lost In Your Light

Just missing out on a place in the top 10 ranked Dua Lipa songs is Lost In Your Light, her debut’s most underrated single by an absolute mile. I love how much Lost In Your Light stands out from the rest of the songs on her debut, a pop rocky moment that feels like a true duet. It’s just so feel good, and full of warmth. I’ll never tire of it.

10. Electricity

Is this in actual fact the best dance song ever made? Not for me to say. But yes, it is.

9. Cool

Dua Lipa writing Cool with Tove Lo was just the meeting of minds I needed. Cool, another Future Nostalgia song that it’s outrageous to think wasn’t a single, is one of the best songs Dua Lipa has ever done and deserves its top 10 place. I love how all out 80s it is, and this video of a recent live performance really showcases Cool’s POWER. Her Duassy was slammed into that microphone.

8. Blow Your Mind (Mwah)

For the longest time, Blow Your Mind sat right at the top of my personal favourite Dua Lipa songs. It’s absolute pop heaven as far as I’m concerned, and one of the best songs released in 2016. The bratty vocals, the sassy chorus, the mwahs – it’s so much fun to sing. It reminds me of uni predrinks. It was MY song. And it kind of always will be x

7. Hotter Than Hell

Hotter Than Hell is the song that made me a Dua Lipa fan. It was the song that I couldn’t get enough of, and it has aged like a fine wine to be honest. All these years later and it still holds up to be ranked as one of the very best Dua Lipa songs. I love that it’s a song about being hot as hell and manages to feel spoiled scorching. Her vocals are unreal on it, and the chorus dance break is Eurovision in the most perfect way. Her Fuego!

6. Fever

When you say underrated, I SCREAM Fever. Fever is the song that made me a die hard Angèle fan. I love that it’s the only song on Future Nostalgia that feels like a little slice of modern electropop, the production glimmers and never does more than it needs to. The two trade verses so wonderfully, but it’s honestly Angèle who elevates this song to its heights. “Car dans mes yeux, ça se voit /
La fièvre dans les yeux, oui, ça se voit” – perfection.

5. Future Nostalgia

Probably one of the best album openers in music history. And I’m not being hyperbolic. The tone is SET. The mood is RIGHT. The bops are BOPPING. There’s something so campy and euphoric about the title track that I’ve been infatuated with from the moment I heard it. I love that Dua chats her way through the verses, pounds her full puss into the chorus and then does that heavenly little head voice post-chorus. It’s so special.

4. Levitating

Of course, the only one that matters, the one without he who shall not be named. Levitating is Stuart Price produced disco at its finest – a fusion of disco influences that cross decades and come together into this 2020s melting pot of megasmash greatness. Levitating felt like it lived in the charts as rent free as it lived in our heads – I would struggle to think of a time of day I’m not up for bopping to it.

3. Hallucinate

When we were in the pandemic, I remember thinking about songs I couldn’t wait to hear on a dance floor for the first time when the clubs reopened. For some reason, I didn’t really give Hallucinate much particular thought in the matter. In July ’21, when I was at my first gay bar in over a year and a half, I walked down some stairs onto a lit up floor and Hallucinate was playing. The chorus dropped, after that perfect little break it does just before it slaps your tits, and I ascended like I’ve never ascended before. It’s absolutely euphoric. One of the most instantly danceable songs on Earth.

The SG Lewis production goes beyond hard. AND it’s underrated. STOP SLEEPING ON HALLUCINATE!

2. Don’t Start Now

Good grief. GOOD GRIEF. What a bloody excellent lead single this is. The kind of song that made the entire of the 2010s go out on a pop high – a 2019 classic that lead us into one of the best eras in pop history with such a storming force the world is still shaking. The best version of Don’t Start Now is the Live In LA mix, a five minutes and 40 seconds odyssey that is true disco of the highest order. The radio edit is great, the live version is… music’s finest moment. Better than Mozart I fear. When she says “Just when you thought it was over” I collapse.

1. Physical

Guys, this is POP music. The power of pop. Physical is one of the most arresting and special songs, like, ever. It will never fail to make me feel like I’m flying into battle and going too smash my day into smithereens. I can’t walk down the street listening to it without wanting to punch the air or have a random scrap. It stirs something deep inside my soul. Released just before Covid really  got its grips into the world, Physical was our last dance floor hurrah. It still sounds to me like that final great moment before the world went to shit. It’s got so much hope and sounds so much like endgame.

It’s that final middle eight that clenches its spot at the top of all of Dua Lipa songs ranked – “Hold on, just a little tighter, come on, hold on”. We kept on dancing like she asked us, and we’ll never stop

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