Summer records usually try to shout. Topic’s new one with carteblanche does the opposite. “Lucky Ones,” out now on Universal Music, is built for that last stretch of warm evenings when nobody has anywhere urgent to be. It still hits like dance-pop. It just refuses to rush you.
That is the point. After a run of club-facing records — “TIK TAK” with SARRA, an official rework of Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now,” “Sorry Papi” with Becky G, and “Missing You” with Shimza and A7S — Topic changes the angle. “Lucky Ones” started as a band song. The dance production came later. You can hear both layers. On the surface it is the warm, hook-first dance-pop he has been known for. Underneath it leans into widescreen synths and indie-pop instincts, the kind of indietronic space people associate with Empire of the Sun more than a straight festival drop.
Topic has said the record feels like a return to his roots. A few years ago his sound was often tagged “melancholic dance music”: emotional writing carried by a driving beat. After a stretch of Afro-influenced club records, he has been pulled back toward indie pop. Writing “Lucky Ones” as a song first, then turning it into a dance record, is how those two sides meet. The no-pressure mood is not a marketing line. It is the architecture of the track. Easy summer hook, roomy synths, a pulse that keeps moving without demanding you sprint.
carteblanche is the newly formed project of London-based GRAMMY-nominated singer, songwriter and DJ Joshua Grimmett and GRAMMY-nominated songwriter-producer Tancrede Rouff. Josh is one half of Goodboys, the duo behind records with MEDUZA, Becky Hill, Tiësto and Odd Mob. Tancrede’s credits include ODESZA, Portugal. The Man and Zerb. They launched the project in 2025 with “The City,” a collaboration with Alex Wann and Notre Dame, and have been rolling out more singles through 2026.
They wrote “Lucky Ones” in London with Topic and A7S during a couple of studio days set aside to try new vibes. It was the second song from those sessions. carteblanche have said they were trying to bottle the feeling of escaping with friends or someone you love, with no schedule and nothing to prove. They were about to go on holiday themselves. That headspace is all over the production: content rather than climactic, widescreen rather than cramped.
Topic is the German-Croatian DJ and producer who broke through internationally with 2019’s “Breaking Me” featuring A7S, a multi-platinum record that has passed six billion streams worldwide. His catalogue has picked up gold, platinum and diamond certifications across a run of dance hits. In July 2024, “I Adore You” with HUGEL and Daecolm became Beatport’s number one Afro House record and spent weeks as Shazam’s number one global dance track. In 2024 he also launched WILD KID, his own label and party series, as a space for more artistic freedom inside electronic music.
“Lucky Ones” sits in that freedom. Dance pop, progressive house and synthpop are the listed lanes, but the interesting part is the sequence of the writing. Song first. Club second. That is why it feels slightly left of a standard pop single without losing the hook that made Topic a streaming giant in the first place. Late-summer playlists have been crowded with big-room energy and Afro-house heat. A record that sounds like a holiday already in progress is a useful counterweight.
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What do you hear first in “Lucky Ones” — the band-song core or the dance record it became? Drop it in the comments.
