By now, it’s not exactly “undercover” (despite any “spy movies” a certain pop star is about to be in [*cough cough* Argylle]) that Dua Lipa is heavily inspired by Madonna. Just as most pop stars are, and will likely continue to be whether they’re aware of it or not (such is the power of being a progenitor). For, as listeners already witnessed on her sophomore album, Future Nostalgia, Lipa went all in on emulating the disco-fied but modern sound that Madonna cultivated for 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor. She even went so far as to tap Madonna for a collaboration on a remix of “Levitating” for Club Future Nostalgia (the twenty-first century’s answer to You Can Dance…apart from Finally Enough Love). But now that Lipa has mastered the sound of Madonna’s mid-00s era, she appears determined to do the same for its aesthetic.
Enter the video for “Houdini,” the lead single from her forthcoming third album (the title of which has yet to be revealed). While Gen Z might not be aware of Harry Houdini’s renown as a master of “magic” (or even Madonna’s)—or, more to the point, escape artistry—they could be forced to look into it now thanks to Lipa’s analogy. One that she chooses to carry out within the confines of an empty dance studio à la, that’s right, Madonna in the “Hung Up” video. Directed by Emmanuel Cossu, Lipa’s visual accompaniment to “Houdini” starts out, as “Hung Up” does, with Lipa working out some moves in an empty dance studio, complete with a full-length mirror that serves as an entire wall. The opening notes to the song then immediately confirm that, yes, it’s produced by Tame Impala (a.k.a. Kevin Parker). Along with Danny L Harle of PC Music repute. So it is that Lipa wants us to know that, although she’s “veering away” from the 70s disco sound in favor of a 70s psychedelia one (which makes Tame Impala the perfect collaborator), she’s still very much in full Madonna Confessions on a Dance Floor mode. Even if it’s minus the hot pink leotard with coordinating sparkly purple belt.
Indeed, Lipa opts for more “sexy-comfortable chic” (think: a riff on what Sporty Spice was already doing) in dark blue track pants and a black mesh tank with a flesh-colored top underneath. The latter deliberately giving off the “is she topless?” vibe (Madonna, in contrast, never left that as a question mark during her Erotica era…or any era, for that matter). As she walks with sultry panache along the length of the mirror, Lipa’s reflection proceeds to do its own thing on the choreo front (and yes, the video’s choreography, Charm La’Donna [how coincidental that her last name rhymes with Madonna] is a key part of what makes it so captivating). Thus begins the “magic” (i.e., optical illusion) portion of the program that one would expect of a song with such a title. A brief “blackout” of the lights in the studio then allows for the “magic” of materialization, for that’s when a bevy of shirtless dancers subsequently appear all around Lipa in an orgiastic mise-en-scène. One that also mimics certain portions of the “Hung Up” video—specifically, when all of Madonna’s dancers are writhing around on and near each other in a club (one that also apparently has arcade game options, including the then-pervasive Dancing Stage Fusion…just an upgraded version of Dance Dance Revolution, really).
While Lipa never leaves the dance studio for any “slice of life” purposes, the undeniable visual connection between “Houdini” and “Hung Up” (oh, look at that—both songs start with an “H”) is further heightened by the lyrics themselves. For a start, that comes in the form of Lipa declaring, “Time is passin’ like a solar eclipse…/It’s your moment, baby/Don’t let it slip.” This is like her version of Madonna saying, “Time goes by so slowly for those who wait/No time to hesitate.”
Additional similarities in the lyrical motifs also occur via Lipa’s own warning that she won’t stick around very long for someone who isn’t worthwhile. As manifest in the lines, “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.” This not only mimics Madonna’s sentiments when she says, “I can’t keep on waiting for you/You’ll wake up one day/But it’ll be too late,” but also mirrors who she was as a person during her early days of trying to make it/“be somebody” in New York. A journey that was slightly more circuitous than Lipa’s, who had the “London advantage” of attending schools targeted specifically toward singing and acting. And clearly, all that education has paid off…as one can see by watching Lipa own the rehearsal studio. Whether or not the dancers she’s only seeing in the mirror are “actually there” or mere phantasms (how Black Swan) of a magical nature depends largely if one believes in magic in general, and hauntings in particular.
Appearing multiple times and in multiple ways throughout the video, the dancers (all sporting the same shade of red-hued hair as Lipa), at the zenith of the song’s musical breakdown, multiply in such a way as to give an “in da club” effect before Lipa is shown once again entirely alone in the studio. After all, half the work of being a creative person is having the imagination to envision how the final product will turn out once the necessary collaborators become involved.
The indelible images from both “Houdini” and “Hung Up” are the ones of each pop star watching themselves in the mirror as they perform (and, at one point, Lipa’s barrage of mirrored images become quite funhouse-y). As though that reflection they see is the performer self, while the one watching is the “mere mortal” self who yearns to be seen the same way (/live up to impossible expectations) the performer is by her fans.
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