This week, Dua Lipa released her third studio album, Radical Optimism, and it’s shifting mass units...to the point where it’s being reported that it’s outselling its nearest rival, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, 2:1.
While that might sound like a shocking statistic for someone who’s reading it without a frame of reference to current pop culture goings-on, rest assured that this is a level of success that has absolutely been earned over the course the past few months and, even more so, over the past few days.
Dua Lipa during her performance of "Illusion" on Saturday Night Live.
This past weekend, Dua Lipa did double-duty on NBC's Saturday Night Live, serving both as host and musical guest, and let it be said that, even if the episode's sketches weren't necessarily up to the standards we've seen over the course of recent episodes (and, yes, we realize that's setting a pretty low bar), Dua Lipa wasn't afraid to get out there and be in as many of them as possible. Even if she didn't necessarily take a leading role, she was present and willing to be as ridiculous as was required of her.
In addition, she did the requisite two numbers required of all musical guests on the show; she was introduced for "Illusion" by Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan, and for "Happy for You," she scored an intro by no less a celebrity than Jerry Seinfeld, who'd popped up on "Weekend Update" to mock how much press he'd been doing for his Netflix film Unfrosted.
Yesterday, her Radio 1 Live Lounge session made its debut, and although the full session has yet to make its way to YouTube, the official BBC Radio 1 YouTube channel has released two of the tracks: a version of "Illusion," and - for the obligatory cover song portion of the proceedings - a version of Cleo Sol's "Sunshine" which really gives her a chance to show off her vocals outside of the dance-pop that listeners have been hearing from her lately.
Even before the Radio 1 Live Lounge performances dropped, however, Dua Lipa had already made a major splash elsewhere on the internet, thanks to having done a pop-up performance in Times Square.
Sponsored by American Express, the performance found the streets filled to the brim around the stage where she was performing, as one might reasonably expect after all the promotion she's been doing and the popularity she's earned with a string of singles like "Houdini," "Training Season," and - you guessed it "Illusion."
Unsurprisingly, she did all three of these songs in the heart of Times Square, along with the aforementioned "Happy for You," and when she announced that the fourth song would be her last, you could hear the moans from the crowd, who would've been just fine if she'd continue to play all night. As such, one can only imagine that the inevitable tour behind Radical Optimism is going to be one that's right up there with - dare we say it? - Taylor Swift.
Okay, fine, maybe it won't be quite that big. But you can count on more sellouts than not...and that's not radical optimism, that's just a fact.
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