Dance the Night
"Dance the Night" is a song by English singer Dua Lipa from the soundtrack to the fantasy comedy film Barbie. Lipa co-wrote the song with songwriter Caroline Ailin and its producers Andrew Wyatt and Mark Ronson; the Picard Brothers also contributed to production. Atlantic and Warner Records released the song as the soundtrack's lead single on 25 May 2023. A disco, disco-pop, and synth-pop song, it was inspired by a dance sequence in the film and is about always appearing flawless despite heartbreak.
Music critics overwhelmingly compared the song's sound to Lipa's second studio album, Future Nostalgia, which was viewed positively by some but left others disappointed. It was nominated for several awards, including Song of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. "Dance the Night" reached number one in several countries, including the UK, and received multi-platinum certifications in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland, and the UK, as well as diamond in France. It also reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100.
The music video for "Dance the Night" has a pink theme inspired by the Barbie aesthetic. It intersperses Lipa performing choreographed dances while singing the song with clips of Margot Robbie, Issa Rae, and Emma Mackey dancing at a disco party in the film, featuring a cameo appearance from Barbies director Greta Gerwig at the end. The video received praise for its playful nature and Lipa's outfit. The song was included as the primary musical motif in the film. In 2024, Lipa sang one line from it while opening the 66th Annual Grammy Awards and performed it in full live for the first time at the Royal Albert Hall.
Background and release
In March or April 2022, Mark Ronson received a text message from music supervisor George Drakoulias that simply stated: "Barbie?" Ronson was initially asked to create two songs for the fantasy comedy film Barbie: a pop song for a big dance sequence that was to be filmed within two weeks and a 1980s-style power ballad inspired by Ken. The film's director, Greta Gerwig, was inspired by the Bee Gees' work on the 1977 Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and requested that the pop song also be disco, sending him a playlist of her favourite music for reference. Observing similarities between Barbie and the ebb and flow of disco's popularity, Ronson watched the 2020 documentary film The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, which depicted Disco Demolition Night in 1979 Chicago, an event that signaled the genre's decline and closely paralleled Barbie's situation according to him. He set out to create a disco song which had "an unexpected slightly harder edge to it" and created a track called "Tastes Like Barbie" with Andrew Wyatt, while nearing the deadline. Gerwig was impressed and played it "100 times" while going to the film's set. Subsequently, they made a "dream list" of artists they desired to feature on the soundtrack and Ronson produced several other songs for it.Ronson believed "Tastes Like Barbie" sounded like Dua Lipa's second studio album, Future Nostalgia, and direct messaged her on Instagram to ask her to sing it for the soundtrack. Lipa, who was busy headlining the Future Nostalgia Tour and planned to distance herself from that disco sound on the follow-up album, accepted as she was a fan of Gerwig's work. She flew to New York and wrote the lyrics with Caroline Ailin in a studio over one week, the song now titled "Dance the Night"; Wyatt and Ronson are also co-writers. Lipa intended to soundtrack a scene where all things go "from good to bad" for Barbie, and she goes from being happy to thinking about death: "I love dance-crying. I knew it had to be fun, but I knew it needed a little element of sadness or a little pang of insufficiency". Initially satisfied with the melodies, chorus and verses, she later felt it could be improved and created new verses. Lipa wanted to synchronise the song to the choreography in its accompanying dance scene in the film—which she watched—approaching the process like writing a film score. Ronson and Lipa abandoned an initial melancholy version of the song and made it more upbeat to suit the scene, which represented a flawless day in Barbie's life. It was rewritten several times, and Lipa recalled: "Barbie completely took over our lives — we were completely Barb-ified." Parts of the song were updated to complement Margot Robbie's hand movements during the scene. The Picard Brothers assisted Ronson with the string arrangement.
In April 2023, it was revealed that Lipa had joined the cast of Barbie as Mermaid Barbie. On 22 May 2023, "Dance the Night" was announced as the lead single from the soundtrack, Barbie the Album, set for release three days later. This marked her first musical output since the conclusion of Future Nostalgias release cycle. Lipa shared a clip, in which she steps out of heels and recreates a shot of Robbie's arched foot in the second Barbie trailer before blowing a kiss to the camera; the song was later included in an official trailer. Warner Music Group sent it for radio airplay in Italy on 26 May, and Atlantic and Warner Records co-promoted the song to contemporary hit radio stations in the United States four days later. Warner also released "Dance the Night" on physical formats like cassette and CD.
Composition and lyrics
"Dance the Night" is 2 minutes and 56 seconds long. Wyatt, Ronson, and the Picard Brothers produced the song. Wyatt plays bass and synthesiser; Ronson plays guitar and Rhodes piano; and the Picard Brothers play keyboards and programmed the track with its engineer Brandon Bost. The song also features cello, violin, and viola in its instrumentation, and it was mixed by Serban Ghenea at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach with assistance from Bryce Bordone.Musically, "Dance the Night" is a disco, disco-pop, and synth-pop song with influences of dance-pop. Consequences Mary Siroky described it as "a pitch-perfect mixture of synth-pop and disco", and Time Outs Ella Doyle believed the song to be pop but "reminiscent of disco at points". An up-tempo song, "Dance the Night" begins with violins and theatrical strings, followed by a beat drop. The song incorporates disco elements, acoustic guitars, and funky bass over its synth instrumental. Lipa employs a low yet distinctively feminine voice, which adeptly infuses emotional depth into manufactured-sounding music according to Lucas Martins of Beats Per Minute. Writing for PopMatters, Peter Piatkowski believed its neo-disco pays homage to the classic disco sound of Chic, Ashford & Simpson, and Hal Davis, and the strings and bass resemble the work of Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor.
The lyrics of "Dance the Night" relate to the plot of Barbie and are about someone who always appears flawless. They detail how the narrator cannot be bothered to cry about a complex relationship and heartbreak when dancing. Lipa asks the listeners to "come along for the ride" and declares that she shines the most when faced with difficult situations. In the chorus, Lipa sings that she will keep dominating the party and "dance the night away", without anybody finding out that she is heartbroken. Despite being emotionally on edge, she continues to make herself look good and does not miss a beat while dancing. Lipa compares the tears streaming down her face to diamonds: "Even when the tears are flowin', they're diamonds on my face."
Critical reception
"Dance the Night" received acclaim according to Peoples Jack Irvin. Siroky picked the track as "Song of the Week" and believed it could contend for the title of "song of the summer". She thought it would continue the trend of Lipa's songs being successful in playlists. Megan Armstrong of Uproxx opined that "Dance the Night" would receive a high amount of airplay during the summertime. Writing for Paste, Victoria Wasylak said the song could compete with any track on Future Nostalgia. The Sydney Morning Heralds Robert Moran and Doyle found it the embodiment of Lipa's signature sound.The sound of "Dance the Night" was overwhelmingly compared to Future Nostalgia by music critics, some of whom viewed this positively while others considered it a disappointment. Rebekah Gonzalez of iHeartRadio described the track as "another disco banger", and Tomás Mier of Rolling Stone thought several songs on the soundtrack bore a similarity to the artists' previous material and that this is what made it succeed. Pitchforks Cat Zhang believed it was a "throwaway product" that was only half saved due to the film usage, and The Independents Adam White thought the song was a "flat imitation" that did not match the quality of Future Nostalgia.
Critics also commented on Ronson's role as the producer. The Guardians Elle Hunt believed "Dance the Night" featured the same sophisticated orchestration and meticulous attention to detail that made Ronson a highly sought-after producer; The Observers Kit Buchan thought he succeeded but did not have "a requisite sprinkling of saccharine camp" for it. Martins praised the strings and thought the song fitted Barbie perfectly, but he opined that it did not reach the same level as Ronson and Lipa's first collaboration, "Electricity". Piatkowski praised the disco production for defying the bubblegum-pop expectations, and a couple of others thought it was suitable to dance to.