Dua Lipa, Houdini | Song Review 🎵

Grammy-winning pop superstar Dua Lipa brings the heat on “Houdini,” her second single of 2023, and first associated with her forthcoming album.

She’s back! Who? 🏆 Grammy-winning pop superstar, 🎙 Dua Lipa. To be fair, Dua Lipa already got the ball running in 2023 with her 🏆 Grammy-nominated, Barbie single, 🎵 “Dance the Night”. That said, 🎵 “Houdini” marks her first single not attached to the biggest movie of 2023. She penned the record alongside 🎼 ✍ Caroline Ailin, Danny L Harle, Kevin Parker (of 🎙 Tame Impala fame), and Tobias Jesso Jr..  Harle and Parker also produced the record, characterized by a sick, danceable groove.  This is where Dua Lipa’s bread 🍞 is buttered 🧈!

In addition to the beat, “Houdini” features a colorful palette of sounds – the keys 🎹 and synths rock 🤘 (in a 1980s sort of way, of course 😉).  Beyond the backdrop, Dua Lipa brings the heat vocally.  Her performance is solid, yet never too much – non troppo, if you will.  It’s cool how the songwriting incorporates Houdini into matters of the heart.  In this case, it’s singledom! The centerpiece, the chorus, arrives early, with Dua Lipa revealing the deck of cards 🃏:

“I come and I go

Tell me all the ways you need me

I’m not here for long

Catch me or I go Houdini

I come and I go

Prove you got the right to please me

Everybody knows

Catch me or I go Houdini.”

Ooh, wee! Lipa tells Apple Music,  “‘Houdini’ embodies the energy of a good night out. This was the first track I wrote about that fun and freeing time of being single.’”  She adds, “Sometimes you just have to pull a Houdini and leave a situation that’s no longer serving you.” Oh, snap 🫰!  The melodies are tuneful in the verses as well, and beyond the chorus the post-chorus is rad too:  “If you’re good enough, you’ll find the way / Maybe you could cause a girl to change her ways / Do you think about it night and day? / Maybe you could be the one to make me stay.” All in all, Dua Lipa delivers another bop with 🎵 “Houdini”, PERIOD.

🎙 Dua Lipa • 🎵 “Houdini” • 🏷 Warner Records UK • 🗓 11.9.23

[📷: Brent Faulkner/The Musical Hype; Warner Records UK; OpenClipart-Vectors, PIRO via Pixabay]