The Art of Loving by Olivia Dean

Earlier this summer, Olivia Dean made a one-night stop in Washington, D.C., on her Across the Atlantic tour. A few concertgoers, myself included, saw her play an intimate, Monday night slot at a small, 1,200-capacity venue. She had no ornate stage set-up behind her, there was no rigmarole of choreography to follow along with, no theatrics of flashing lights timed to the beat. She didn’t even do an encore, proclaiming that the ordeal of feigning the end of the show only to come back on after a few minutes was “tired.” It felt personal, understated, and entirely Olivia Dean.

Just a few months later, the prospects of any more close-knit performances like this are increasingly rare for the British neo-soul singer, who has since exploded across the charts worldwide.

Now, Dean is set to headline six consecutive nights at the 20,000-person O2 Arena in London this spring as part of her sold-out UK tour, far cry from the 1,200-limit show DC saw this past summer. She’s joined fellow global sensation Sabrina Carpenter on her tour, including five shows at Madison Square Garden earlier this month, and is set to appear on Saturday Night Live this week. She’s even notched a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.

Her first LP, Messy, got a respectable amount of buzz when it came out in 2023, with “Dive” becoming its biggest hit, but it never took off. Her second album, The Art of Loving, which was released this fall, quickly careened to the top of the charts. She’s spent several weeks on the top 100 charts for her singles, and broken records held last by Adele to hit number one on the singles and album charts, as well as having four of the top ten songs in the UK.

Dean is no overnight star. She gained traction in the UK well before her splash on the U.S. charts. The twenty-six-year-old’s career began at the BRIT School in London, where she studied songwriting. Soon after, she sang back-up for Rudimental. Her work has earned her BBC and BRIT Awards, as well as a set at Glastonbury.

The Art of Loving took her to international fame, however. The singer’s sophomore album is a beautiful orchestration of exactly what the title promises: insights into falling in and out of love, whether with a partner, a friend, or yourself. The act of which can be extremely messy, but The Art of Loving weaves through it with a glossy finish that softens the harder-hitting emotions and sends the lighter ones soaring.

Dean and her team pre-released “Man I Need” and “Nice To Each Other” as the focus singles of the album, which both caught massive waves on streaming and social media, especially creators using her songs on TikTok. Both tell two different, but related stories that represent the album’s range. “Nice To Each Other” is a gentle track that delivers a seemingly light-hearted message in “we could be nice to each other,” but “I don’t want a boyfriend.” But Dean’s songwriting skills are on display, concealing storytelling below the surface with lines like “Here we are back again,” and “I don’t know where the switches are, or where you keep the cutlery.” Under the steady percussion, gusts of whirring electronic sounds suggest how her mind changes as much as the wind. Dean’s paramour in this song isn’t a stranger, but an old flame, and the casual setup she’s asking for is a protection measure for herself.

On “Man I Need,” Dean’s addictive 12/8 rhythm and vocal trail immediately envelops whatever space it plays in with an elegant buoyance that could get you out of your seat, just like the bossa nova she sings about. A classic love song, it’s the antithesis to Dean swearing, “I’ve done all the classic stuff and it never works” in “Nice To Each Other” — this track represents the path she’d take if she let herself fall.

Dean lets loose full vocals, but manages to still sound controlled, even when flitting between high and low notes on a dime, like in the sleek, jazzy “So Easy (To Fall In Love)”. Her energy is charismatic, but comes off effortless (although it’s almost surely not). Some songs capture a glimpse of raw emotion still healing, as in the near-guttural belts in “Loud.” But mostly, hers is a sound that could fit almost anywhere as a soundtrack to life. “I’m the perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life,” Dean sings in “So Easy”, “Anyone with a heart would agree.”

At the same time, her band shines through on several tracks. Dean and her instrumentalists spend the entire twelve-track album wrapped in a back-and-forth dance of letting one another take the lead. It’s dextrously synchronized, as saxophones burst through after her voice falters to silence, piano crescendos interject between her rests, and a single pluck of a bass powerfully commands a song to end. All the while, playful auxiliary and percussive accents hold down the sound behind them. It feels like the sonic equivalent of watching a watercolor come together without being able to see the painter, not knowing where the next splotch of color will appear.

Dean straddles the line between retro and modern throughout the album. “Baby Steps” digs up Motown techniques to sing modern lyrics, such as having no one to text when her plane lands. “Close Up” takes a step back to seventies bluesy sounds that make for easy listening, and feel most like the version of Dean trying to prove herself on Messy. Others, however, strike it well, like the aptly named “Something Inbetween,” with its muffled, funk-inspired bass line and floating synthesizer above it. “Let Alone the One You Love” is a ballad reminiscent of an Adele track that wields vocal runs and raw emotion that delve deeper than any other song. Staccato horns punctuating long musical phrases deftly create a feeling of unresolved pain in “who would do that to a friend, let alone the one you love.”

At times, she relies on cliches, which feel reflective of the topic she’s singing about (where are some of the most prominent cliches, if not in love), and are tried and true for a reason. Her production is utterly unblemished, glossy to the point of almost being too perfect. Her next album could prove whether the newfound fame she’s gained will make her more or less comfortable shedding the comforts of classics and trying to add more dimension to her canvas.

The distinct, living room feel of Dean’s album comes from more than just its warm brass mixed with cool percussion. She recorded the album in an east London house, complete with her own piano. She lived in it for weeks leading up to making the album, cementing the feeling of home for her and her listeners. The Art of Loving is the perfect record for sinking into a cushioned chair and letting your mind wander along with the soft harmonies trailing up and down the musical scale.

Her songs are transmutable into near-universal feelings of having love and losing it. “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” could be the music to accompany the joy of a newfound connection. “Baby Steps” could help you walk through the transition to going it alone. “Nice to Each Other” might be in mind before letting yourself take the plunge again. “Lady Lady” will be there to encourage you to embrace your own changes throughout it all.

The twenty-six-year-old doesn’t have all the answers on love. It’s all been sung before, and it’s never quite right, as Dean sings in the closing song, “I’ve Seen It”, “I’ve heard it laced in every song, And still the words all come out wrong.”

Love is not a science, it’s an art — and an imperfect, individualized one at that, Dean discovers on The Art of Loving. It’s everything at once: exhilarating, jubilant, melancholic, petulant, and above all, beautiful. Her songs convey all these and more in a radiant album that rivals nothing else on the charts.

“I understand it less and less,” she continues in “I’ve Seen It”, “I guess I’m not supposed to know it all.” As Dean continues to wade through the art of loving, she knows there’s either a lot to learn or maybe a lot that we’ll never figure out (or more likely, some of both). Perhaps her next project will uncover which it is.

Favorite tracks: Let Alone The One You Love, Lady Lady, Loud