NPR’s YouTube series of Tiny Desk Concerts have a habit of going viral; placing top-tier and rising music stars in an ultra-intimate setting for stripped-down and stunningly real performances of their hits. Harry Styles, Coldplay, Mac Miller, BTS, and even Adele have each had their moment under the Tiny Desk spotlight, so when London songstress Dua Lipa took to the stage, the fact her epic set hit 5M views in a matter of weeks came as no surprise.
For her recent viral set, Dua Lipa, now aged 29, brought her hits, “Training Season,” “These Walls,” “Happy For You,” and “Catch Me Or I Go” to the Tiny Desk. Stripped back of all their radio-pop glaze, these acoustic renditions take on rare flavors which Music Man readers will likely never have heard in Dua’s hits before, flared with jazz and a Billie Eilish sense of artistry.
Fans have been blown away by this performance, commenting on how these unplugged, intimate sets bring out the best of each featured artist, spotlighting their natural talent, with Dua’s class personality shining bright through each song.
But it’s not only the glimpse of Dua’s vibrant, down-to-earth nature that has viewers gripped through this 20-minute clip; her drummer, Adam “Smiley” Wade, lives up to his nickname, hilariously looking as stunned as Dua’s biggest fan might be as he keeps her beat with a blazing and infectious smile.
This isn’t the first time Dua Lipa’s stunned home audiences with a Tiny Desk concert, either. Back in December 2020, the London singer performed a Tiny Desk concert from home, featuring her hits “Levitating,” “Pretty Please,” “Love Again” and “Don’t Start Now,” soon becoming the most viewed video on the entire NPR channel, racking up over 131M YouTube hits to date. But for her 2024 reappearance, Dua hand-picked her favorite tracks from her latest album, “Radical Optimism,” wowing the crowd all over again.
The new album, released in May 2024 and named “a treasure trove of earworms” by the Grammys, shot to #1 on the UK albums chart and reached #2 in the US, with its UK #2 lead single “Houdini.” Dua went on to headline Glastonbury the next month, and has lately hit the road for her Radical Optimism World Tour with 69 shows lined up across four continents.
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