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Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over

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Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over
Standard edition cover
Studio album by
Demi Lovato
ReleasedApril 2, 2021 (2021-04-02)
RecordedFebruary 2018–March 2021[1]
Length57:11
LabelIsland
Producer
Demi Lovato chronology
Tell Me You Love Me
(2017) 		Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over
(2021)
Singles from Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over
  1. "Anyone"
    Released: January 26, 2020[2]
  2. "What Other People Say"
    Released: February 4, 2021[2]
  3. "Dancing with the Devil"
    Released: March 26, 2021[2]

Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over is the seventh studio album by American singer Demi Lovato, released on April 2, 2021, by Island Records. The album follows a period of time out of the spotlight for Lovato after being hospitalized for a drug overdose in 2018. The project was recorded alongside a docu-series by YouTube Originals titled Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, which documents Lovato's recovery and self discovery.

Multiple versions of the album were made available to pre-order, including alternate artworks, bundles and a Target-exclusive edition with bonus tracks. An expanded edition of the album was released digitally including three bonus tracks. Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over was also delayed in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it is preceded by three singles: her comeback single "Anyone", "What Other People Say" with Sam Fischer, and "Dancing with the Devil". Ariana Grande, Saweetie, and Noah Cyrus are featured on the standard version of the album, while Sam Smith and Marshmello are featured on the digital expanded edition of the album.

Background and development

Following the release of Lovato's previous studio album Tell Me You Love Me (2017), she took a hiatus from her career following her 2018 hospitalization and subsequent treatment for a drug overdose. In May 2019, Lovato revealed she had signed with a new manager, Scooter Braun,[3] and confirmed to Teen Vogue the following November that new music was coming, stating "I didn't say when — now I'm just teasing you. It's important to remember that I am so cautious this time around of jumping back into things. I've really decided to take my time with things. When the time is right, I will put it out there. I am dying to release new music ... but everything in due time."[4] Lovato made her first musical appearance since her hiatus with a performance of single "Anyone" at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in January 2020.[5] Through 2020 Lovato released further stand-alone solo singles "I Love Me" and "Still Have Me" and collaborations "I'm Ready" with Sam Smith and "OK Not to Be OK" with Marshmello. Lovato also released "Commander in Chief" as a political ballad ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Planned for release in 2020, Lovato's seventh studio album was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[6]

Lovato's first music release of 2021 was the single "What Other People Say" in collaboration with Australian singer Sam Fischer. The release and title of Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over was subsequently announced on March 16, 2021. Lovato explained that the original title was just “The Art of Starting Over, but she then decided to give it a double title to reflect the importance of "the darker opening songs" on the album.[7] During a livestream on the audio-chat app Clubhouse, Lovato explained about the album, "If you listen to it track by track, if you follow the track listing, it's kind of actually like the non-official soundtrack to the documentary. Because it really does follow my life over the past couple of years. When we went through the track listing and kind of mapped out how it kind of coincided with my life's story, it made sense to add the more emotional stuff in the beginning and then transition into 'The Art of Starting Over'".[8] Lovato also revealed three collaborations with female artists on the album: Ariana Grande, Saweetie, and Noah Cyrus.[9][1]

A promotional website was launched for the album, where its artwork and pre-save link was released on March 16, 2021.[10] The album serves as a companion piece to Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, a YouTube Originals docu series, which began release on March 23, 2021.[11] Both projects focus on Lovato's near fatal 2018 overdose for the first time, while also exploring her life and path to healing in the time since.[12]

Artwork and versions

Multiple versions of the album were issued with different album covers including three variations for DTC versions of the album via Lovato's website,[13] as well as a UK exclusive cover[14] and another version for Target in the United States. The UK versions all feature an additional bonus track, while the Target version adds two bonus tracks in addition to the different album cover.[15] Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over was also made available in a bundle featuring the three exclusive album covers along with either the UK-specific cover or the general standard edition cover.[16] Multiple DTC cassette variations were made available for preorder via Lovato's website. All three alternate covers have their own cassette variations exclusive to the UK,[17] while the American cassette release uses the standard edition cover art.[18] The album artwork was shot by American photographer Dana Trippe.[19]

Music and lyrics

Lovato described the songs as a mashup of genres, including R&B, soul, country, and 1990s pop.[20] At the premiere event for the documentary, Lovato described the album as her "most cohesive project" ever made.[21] The first three tracks of Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over are listed as "Prelude", and consist of "power ballads chronicling Lovato's darkest days" before moving into her recovery. Opening track "Anyone" was compared by Olivia Truffaut-Wong of Bustle with Lovato's 2011 single "Skyscraper", which was also deemed as her musical comeback following her stint at a treatment center in 2010 for issues with bulimia and self-harm.[22] Bryan Rolli of Forbes opined the lyrics talk about the singer's "feelings of isolation and anguish", as exemplified in the chorus, "Anyone, please send me anyone / Lord, is there anyone? / I need someone".[23] Second track and lead single "Dancing with the Devil" was described by Billboard as "powerful" and "confessional"[24] and Entertainment Weekly opined that it "evokes Adele's "Skyfall" theme,[25] while "I.C.U. (Madison's Lullabye)" is a "stark piano ballad"[26] which "echoes a key scene in her documentary in which Lovato wakes up post-overdose, temporarily blind, and can't recognize her sister sitting at her bedside." Playing the song privately for her younger sister was "a really emotional and personal experience" for Lovato.[25]

Following the spoken-word interlude "Intro", the fifth track "The Art of Starting Over" was reported to sound "like early Stevie Nicks", with Lovato describing it as "the perfect driving song," while adding, "There's been so many times in my life where I've had to start over once again, whether I felt like I've hit rock bottom, or after a breakup. We can pull ourselves back up and keep fighting the good fight."[25] The "guitar driven" Oak Felder-produced "Lonely People" was inspired by "a text from [Lovato] about how even if she was happier single, it could still be lonely", while "The Way You Don't Look at Me" was described by Entertainment Weekly as a "standout track with a swirling, melodic hook" with Lovato singing, "I've lost 10 pounds in two weeks, 'cause I told me I shouldn't eat" and "I'm so scared if I undress that you won't love me after". Co-writer Justin Tranter stated that "it's this very intimate, raw, heartbreaking song, but there's this beauty to it, because of how it sounds and it feels, and Demi's vocal performance on that really destroys me." Eighth track "Melon Cake" contains lyrics referring to Lovato's struggles with eating disorders; described as "punchy"[1] and a "plinky-plunky bop about the bad old days when Lovato struggled with pressure "to make me Barbie-sized"".[25] The Ariana Grande collaboration "Met Him Last Night" was referred to by NME as a "dark and atmospheric electro bop".[27]

"What Other People Say" is a collaboration with Australian singer-songwriter Sam Fischer, and is about the "feeling of being alone and not wanting to let people down". Lovato said, "This song is a reflection on what it's like to lose who you truly are in an effort to please other people and society. It's why I wanted to make this song with Sam – ultimately it's about two humans coming together to connect and find solutions to their problems". Fischer described that the song as "about the pressures of society and how getting caught up with the wrong things can change you."[28] Twelfth track "The Kind of Lover I Am", a "lightly funky number", was compared with Harry Styles' 2019 single "Watermelon Sugar"[27] and features the lyrics "Doesn't matter if you're a woman or a man, that's the kind of lover I am," with Lovato elaborating that "I'm a very fluid person when it comes to sexuality, so I wanted to write a song about that. That's something that I hadn't written about since 'Cool for the Summer'. But this isn't about bi-curiosity anymore. It's a part of who I am and I feel very secure in that."[25] The "savagely upbeat banger" "15 Minutes", features Lovato "neatly turn[ing] claims from her ex-fiancé that she was trading on their breakup for clout right back around" with the lyric "Good riddance — you got your 15 minutes".

"My Girlfriends Are My Boyfriend" features "Billie Eilish-esque close-mic'd vocals and staccato electronics",[29] while "California Sober" is a "strummy mid-tempo" which "explains where Lovato is at with her recovery today"[1] and "Butterfly" discusses "the complicated relationship" she had with her biological father, who passed away in 2013.[25]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic79/100[30]
Review scores
SourceRating
The Daily Telegraph[31]
Evening Standard[32]
The Guardian[29]
The Independent[33]
The Line of Best Fit[34]
NME[27]
The Times[35]

Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over received favorable reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from publications, the album received a weighted average score of 79, based on 5 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [36]

In a positive review, Nick Levine of NME wrote that Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over is Lovato's "definitive artistic statement to date", further describing the album as "musically varied and lyrically unvarnished: an album of 'take me as I am' jams that to an extent recalls Pink's career-making 2001 album 'Missundaztood'".[27] Kate Solomon from i opined that Lovato had achieved a cohesiveness to the album not present on previous efforts "by echoing the peaks and troughs of recovery, the moments of pure relief and joy at being alive elevating even the minor swings and misses. She has pulled off an amazing trick: making an album about death that is full of life."[26] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian awarded the album three out of five stars, commenting that the album is "simultaneously shocking, laudable and a little underwhelming."[29] Mark Richardson of The Wall Street Journal wrote that while Lovato's previous album Tell Me You Love Me (2017) "found her embracing R&B and club-ready electronic pop", Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over "is much more subdued and that it is "certainly a recovery narrative, but the details of her story, many of which make it into these songs, are almost unbearably harrowing.".[37]

Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph acclaimed the album, saying that "mixing intimate ballads with upbeat club tracks, Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over is the perfect contemporary pop artefact".[31]

Singles

The album was preceded by three singles: "Anyone", "What Other People Say" with Sam Fischer, and the album title-inspired "Dancing with the Devil".[2]

Track listing

Dancing with the Devil ... the Art of Starting Over track listing[25]
No.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length
1."Anyone"
Dayyon Alexander3:47
2."Dancing with the Devil"
Allan[a]4:03
3."ICU (Madison's Lullaby)"
  • Lovato
  • Atterberry
  • Philip Cornish
  • Phil the Keys
  • Allan[b]
3:16
4."Intro"——0:26
5."The Art of Starting Over"
  • Oak[a]
  • "Downtown" Trevor Brown[c]
  • Zaire Koalo[c]
2:47
6."Lonely People"
  • Oak[a]
  • "Downtown" Trevor Brown[c]
  • Zaire Koalo[c]
2:40
7."The Way You Don't Look at Me"
2:28
8."Melon Cake"
  • Lovato
  • Michaels
  • Tranter
  • Cannata
3:32
9."Met Him Last Night" (featuring Ariana Grande)
  • Tommy Brown
  • Xavi
  • Allan[b]
3:24
10."What Other People Say" (with Sam Fischer)
3:14
11."Carefully"
  • Aquilina
  • Andersson
  • Allan[b]
3:11
12."The Kind of Lover I Am"
  • Lovato
  • Michaels
  • Pennell
  • Tranter
  • Felder
  • Trevor Brown
  • Simmons
  • Oak[a]
  • "Downtown" Trevor Brown[c]
  • Zaire Koalo[c]
3:09
13."Easy" (with Noah Cyrus)
3:28
14."15 Minutes"
  • Lovato
  • Tranter
  • Atterberry
  • Gregory Aldea Hein
  • Felder
  • Trevor Brown
  • Simmons
  • Oak[a]
  • "Downtown" Trevor Brown[c]
  • Zaire Koalo[c]
2:51
15."My Girlfriends are My Boyfriend" (featuring Saweetie)
3:07
16."California Sober"
  • Lovato
  • Pennell
  • Aquilina
  • Andersson
  • Felder
  • Alex Niceforo
  • Sam Homaee
  • Jon Wienner
  • Keith Sorrells
3:05
17."Mad World"Roland OrzabalAllan[a]3:02
18."Butterfly"
  • Lovato
  • Pennell
  • Aquilina
  • Andersson
  • Aquilina
  • Andersson
  • Allan[b]
2:37
19."Good Place"
  • Lovato
  • Michaels
  • Tranter
  • Cannata
3:04
Total length:57:11
Expanded digital edition bonus tracks[38]
No.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length
20."I Love Me"
  • Alex Nice
  • Sorrells
  • Felder
3:24
21."I'm Ready" (with Sam Smith)
Ilya3:29
22."OK Not to Be OK" (with Marshmello)
Marshmello2:39
Alternate cover and UK release bonus track[13][39]
No.TitleLength
20."Gray"3:11
Target edition bonus tracks and international physical deluxe edition[15][40][41][42]
No.TitleLength
20."I'm Sorry"3:42
21."Change You"3:10
Total length:76:59

Notes

  • On CD editions of the album, tracks 1–3 are listed under a subtitle of Prelude, whereas tracks 4-19 are listed under the subtitle The Art of Starting Over.[25]
  • "Mad World" is a cover of the song of the same name, as written by Roland Orzabal and originally performed by Tears for Fears
  • ^[a] denotes producer and vocal producer
  • ^[b] denotes vocal producer only
  • ^[c] denotes a co-producer

References

  1. ^ a b c d Ganz, Caryn (March 16, 2021). "How Honest Can Demi Lovato Be?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 16, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d Paul, Larisha (March 18, 2021). "Demi Lovato Teases Ariana Grande Collaboration On New Single". udiscovermusic. Universal Music. Archived from the original on March 20, 2021. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  3. ^ Halperin, Shirley (May 12, 2019). "Demi Lovato Signs With Scooter Braun for Management". Variety. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved May 13, 2019.
  4. ^ McNamara, Brittney (November 2, 2019). "Demi Lovato on New Music, Body Acceptance, and Strength at the 2019 Teen Vogue Summit". Teen Vogue. Archived from the original on February 18, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
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  6. ^ Rowley, Glenn (July 7, 2020). "Demi Lovato Opens Up About Body Image and Addiction Issues in New Interview". Billboard. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  7. ^ Shafer, Ellise; Shafer, Ellise (March 16, 2021). "Demi Lovato Announces New Album 'Dancing With the Devil… The Art of Starting Over,' Coming Next Month". Variety. Archived from the original on March 16, 2021. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
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  9. ^ Kaufman, Gil (March 8, 2021). "Are Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato Collaborating on a New Song?". Billboard. Archived from the original on March 14, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  10. ^ "Demi Lovato". Art of Starting Over. Archived from the original on March 14, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
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  12. ^ "Demi Lovato Is 'Dancing With the Devil' on Her New Album". Paper. March 16, 2021. Archived from the original on March 29, 2021. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
  13. ^ a b Versions of the album available direct from Lovato's official store:
  14. ^ "Dancing with the Devil... The Art of Starting Over UK Exclusive CD Cover & Bonus Track". Universal Music. Archived from the original on March 16, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  15. ^ a b "Demi Lovato – Dancing With The Devil… The Art Of Starting Over (Target Exclusive, CD)". Target. Archived from the original on March 16, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
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  22. ^ Truffaut-Wong, Olivia (January 27, 2020). "Demi Lovato's Tearful Grammys Performance Of 'Anyone' Marked A New Beginning". Bustle. Archived from the original on January 27, 2020. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
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  38. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on April 2, 2021. Retrieved April 2, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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  40. ^ "Demi Lovato - Dancing With The Devil… The Art Of Starting Over (Exklusive Deluxe Edition mit 2 Bonustracks) - (CD)". Archived from the original on March 29, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  41. ^ "Dancing With The Devil…The Art Of Starting Over E Deluxe". Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
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