If you’re already primary you possibly can take some probabilities. Safe that her 2020 pandemic residence NPR Tiny Desk live performance nonetheless holds the file for the most-seen Tiny Desk ever with greater than 130 million views, Dua Lipa was again within the crowded public radio workplaces on Friday (Oct. 25) when her second stripped-down present spotlight tracks from this 12 months’s Radical Optimism album.
Talking to NPR’s Ari Shapiro in an interview earlier than the four-song episode dropped, Dua defined that she flipped the uptempo album observe “Completely happy For You” right into a stripped-down piano and voice ballad that represented the music in its “purest kind,” stripped of the effervescent digital manufacturing. “It’s what it’s within the second, and I feel you simply really feel that music in another way,” she mentioned. “You take heed to the lyrics differently, and it was actually enjoyable to consider it and take it again to the fundamentals.”
She additionally talked about how she flipped the oft-used phrase “if these partitions might discuss” on “These Partitions” by “personify[ing] the partitions, as a result of nobody is aware of you greater than the 4 partitions in your room.”
The mini-concert opens with an unplugged, meditative tackle “Coaching Season,” highlighted by acoustic guitar and electrical piano and a gently thrumming bass and angelic backing vocals earlier than the singer’s seven-person band picks up the tempo and (gently) rocks the workplace with a jazz pop tackle the Radical Optimism single.
“I’ve all the time needed to come back down and be by the desk,” a smiling Dua informed the assembled NPR staffers. “We did a at-home Tiny Desk in 2020, so this feels actually, actually particular,” she added, cheekily questioning if anybody had seen that little record-setting present. She then slipped into the chilled out “These Partitions” earlier than organising “Completely happy For You” by saying she’s all the time been impressed by the best way artist’s reimagine their songs for the collection.
Which is why she additionally switched up the association for the music about her being comfortable that her ex has a brand new girlfriend, swapping the unique’s wistful pop dance vibe for a skeletal, emotion-forward keyboard and voice association that introduced new poignancy to the wish-you-the-best lyrics.
“Even the arduous components have been all for the perfect/ I see the place you’re at now, you picked up the items/ And you then gave them to any person else,” she sings over keyboardist Georgie Ward’s light backing. The session ends with the album’s first single, the licensed banger “Houdini,” whose slinky, joyful vibe possible despatched the NPR crew shuffling again to their desks with a giant smile on their faces.
Try Dua’s Tiny Desk present beneath.
