Song Information
About the Song
“New Rules” is a song performed by British singer Dua Lipa and included on her self-titled debut studio album, *Dua Lipa*. Released as a single in July 2017, the track became the major international breakthrough of the album and played an important role in establishing Lipa as a mainstream pop artist.
The song was written by Caroline Ailin, Emily Warren and Ian Kirkpatrick, with Kirkpatrick also handling production. Although Dua Lipa performs the recording, she is not one of the credited songwriters, making “New Rules” different from many of the songs she would later help write herself.
Lyrically, “New Rules” is built around the idea of creating personal rules to prevent someone from returning to an unhealthy relationship. Instead of presenting heartbreak only through sadness, the song approaches the situation as a process requiring discipline and self-control.
The central concept involves recognizing patterns that could lead someone back to a former partner and establishing boundaries to prevent those patterns from repeating. This gives the song an empowering quality while retaining the emotional tension of a breakup song.
Musically, “New Rules” combines contemporary pop production with electronic and tropical-influenced rhythmic elements. The relatively controlled verses build toward a highly memorable chorus, where the song’s central rules become the main structural and lyrical hook.
The accompanying music video became particularly important to the song’s success. Rather than focusing only on Dua Lipa as an individual performer, the video uses coordinated movement and a group of women supporting one another. This visual approach reinforced the song’s themes of friendship, independence and resisting the temptation to return to an unhealthy relationship.
“New Rules” became Dua Lipa’s first number-one single in the United Kingdom. It also developed into her first major Top 10 breakthrough in the United States, significantly expanding her international audience.
The song’s success transformed the commercial trajectory of her debut album. Lipa later described the opportunities created by “New Rules” as exceeding what she had expected from the recording.
The track also helped establish several characteristics that would remain important to Dua Lipa’s later career: dance-oriented production, a confident vocal delivery, visually distinctive music videos and pop songs centered around memorable rhythmic hooks.
“New Rules” remains one of the defining recordings of Dua Lipa’s early career. Its combination of an accessible breakup theme, memorable chorus, dance-pop production and distinctive visual presentation helped turn the song into an international breakthrough.