The single will be released on on April 11, with the complete album arriving on May 3
The countdown to Dua Lipa‘s third studio album Radical Optimism will continue with the release of its third single “Illusion,” out April 11. The album will arrive in full on May 3, but first the singer has some bluff-calling to do.
“Don’t you know I could do this dance all night?” Lipa asks in the snippet for “Illusion,” which features pulsating pop production. “Ooh, what you doin’? / Don’t know who you think that you’re confusing / I be like, “Ooh, it’s amusing” / You think I’m gonna fall for an illusion.”
“Illusion” follows the release of “Training Season” and “Houdini,” which arrived in February 2024 and November 2023, respectively. “Sonically, I wanted to live in this psychedelic, organic, Brit-pop world. It’s something that I’ve been influenced by,” Lipa recently told Rolling Stone. “There was just so much freedom in that era in the way that people made music and in the experimentation of it. That’s just what I wanted to do. I just wanted to dive into a different place sonically and try out something new. I had the most fun making this record.”
She added: “For Radical Optimism, I went in and tweaked every single song so many times because I felt confident enough that I could get better and change the story and see how it can progress. But also, I think it was just the idea that when you write something, how are you going to feel about it a week later? Or a month later? It was cool to just keep adding and changing it up. It reflected exactly where I am at this point in my life.”
“Illusion,” which Lipa said puts her in a “really good mood,” sounds similar in ethos to its predecessor “Training Season,” even if its thematic thread runs more parallel to “Houdini.” There’s an uncertainty to the single, where she sings: “Are you someone that I can give my heart to? Or just the poison that I’m drawn to? It can be hard to tell the difference late at night.” But on “Illusion,” she’s beginning to see more clearly through the smoke and mirrors.
