"Hung Up" vs. "Overpowered"

"Overpowered," the first song from Rosin Murphy's new album, is curious tidbit of a disco song that plays like a recent song from another disco-lovin' pop star, particularly Madonna's "Hung Up." Both contain throbbing and restless basslines underneath fairly basic lyrical messages - I want to make it without you, but I keep finding myself drawn back. The songs don't clearly name any particular "you," and that's one of the biggest draws for both songs. Audiences can easily apply the content of each song to any person, place, or thing that causes a great physical/psychological reaction and the ensuing dependence.In our post-modern excuse for a pop landscape, the similarities between "Hung Up and "Overpowered" may be parody, or they may simply be the result of influence of one artist on another. It may even be the influence of parody, or parody of influence. Which ever way you slice it, each artist's video brings added layers of similar meaning to their song's lyrical themes. The videos take the unrequited and restless love songs and expand them throughout a whole city scene. In Madonnna's video she grows restless waiting by the phone (albeit writhing on a dance studio floor) and yearns to be out and on the streets, clubs, and dance floor. In Roisin's video she is restless on the stage and yearns to be out on the streets and headed home. Both songs are easily addictive, easily transferable to the listeners own life, easily placed at opposite ends of anyone's "All Night Long" play list, and each could send us out in search of both a good time and the road home.