It's not often that I can say I saw a famous singer before they hit it big, but I can say that about Dua Lipa. In 2016 my daughter and I attended a Troye Sivan concert, for which Lipa was one of several opening acts; still a relatively obscure newcomer, she completely won us over with her dazzling stage presence and irresistible club-ready beats. The following year we saw her headlining her own show for a crowd of a few hundred at Irving Plaza—where at one point she broke down in happy tears mid-song, moved that the audience was singing along and clearly knew all the words.
That's something she would get used to quickly. Today she's the winner of multiple Grammys and other music awards, selling out concert halls and stadiums around the world, and her sleek, shimmering dance-pop reigns in nightclubs and on Spotify playlists. Nowadays she's often armored in glamour and cool, but I think back to the night she was momentarily overwhelmed as the audience—a New York crowd far from her London home, and even farther from her family's Albanian origins—sang her words back to her. And I can't help but feel proud for that young woman, gazing out into the sea of faces she'd forged a connection with, and perhaps realizing with some awe that her dream of stardom was coming true in real time, right before her eyes.
I could happily recommend any of the songs from her self-titled debut album and her follow-up Future Nostalgia, but I'm going to go with "Physical," a fun and outrageously bouncy track that pays obvious homage to Olivia Newton-John's 1981 hit. The official video (with clearer audio, in case you just want to enjoy the song) is gorgeously produced and worth watching. But the alternate "workout" version below brings the song's inherent Jane Fonda goodness to the fore, and is the perfect soundtrack for your home exercise routine (whether or not you're as limber as Lipa's dancers):
BONUS: The New York Times recently featured "Physical" in their "Diary of a Song" video series, and it's worth listening to Lipa and her team—co-writers Sarah Hudson and Clarence Coffee Jr., vocal coach Lorna Blackwood, and producers Jason Evigan and Koz—discuss how the song came together. I love it when pop stars' less-known collaborators, who all too often go unappreciated, get the recognition they deserve. It often takes a village to create the music we enjoy.
And for good measure, here's Olivia Newton-John's "Physical." I'd never realized how much body-shaming the video had, and I can't quite decide if the twist at the very end is progressive or if it further perpetuates stereotypes (which means it's probably both). But it's still a fun song to move to; hopefully Dua Lipa and Olivia Newton-John combined can help you dance away the world's woes this week, if only for a few minutes at a time.
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Listen to the Spotify playlist here.
Watch the YouTube playlist here.