Olivia Dean Is For Lovers

Olivia Dean lives for the drama. Not drama in the parlance of reality TV or social media — the drama of moving through the world like you’re the main character in a movie, of treating yourself like the object of romance you know you are. “I really try to live my life that way. When I get ready in the morning, I’m like, ‘From this moment, I’m going to play a ’60s French soundtrack while I do my makeup,’” the British soul-pop singer says. “And I’ve decided recently: I’m going to make heels an everyday thing. I’ve left the trainers at home. I want to feel like that bitch all day.”

The 26-year-old loves the little rituals of going out — putting on a cute dress, enjoying some cocktails, and having a dance at the bar. “I’m not really up in the club like that. I love dancing, but not in the club,” she says. “Not untz-untz. You won’t catch me at untz-untz. It’s more disco or salsa. I really want to learn to salsa dance.”

We’re chatting over glasses of champagne in Dean’s hotel room at The London in West Hollywood, a month before her Saturday Night Live debut and a few weeks before she’ll receive her first Grammy nomination, for Best New Artist. Reclining on a cream sectional — still in her elaphe-printed leather Jimmy Choo “Bow” heels — Dean is giddy, clearly excited by her good fortune and also a little drained from the time-zone-crossing work such fortune demands: It’s 6 p.m. when we meet — 2 a.m. back home in London.

Dean tells me she could never live in LA — its car culture is too isolating. “It’s very A to B,” she says. “I like the middle. What’s going to happen on the way? Who am I going to bump into?” (She’s the kind of artist you can envision walking down the street as flash mobs break out behind her and small animals flock to her.) Also: Nobody really dances in LA anymore. “I’ve noticed it very severely when I’ve been here,” she says. “Like, ‘Woah, guys, is anyone having fun? You know you’re allowed to have fun!’ There’s such a culture of being observed here, and I can’t live my life that way. I think that people need to release themselves. Release yourself from the idea that somebody might find you cringe. F*ck them! Be cringe, and be free!”

There’s perhaps no heroine in pop easier to root for right now than Dean, a heart-on-her-sleeve songwriter who documents love and heartbreak with the intentional, warm gaze of a Polaroid camera at a party. With her second album, The Art of Loving, the rising star has become the darling of the music industry on both sides of the Atlantic. Here in the States, her joyous breakout hit, “Man I Need,” which makes a strong case for knowing how you want to be loved and asking for it, became her first Billboard Hot 100 entry and preceded a string of dates opening for Sabrina Carpenter. In her homeland, she became the first female solo artist to simultaneously have four singles in the U.K. singles chart’s Top 10. “I know that so many songs are written about love,” Dean says, “but I think it’s the most important thing in the world, so we must keep digging on the topic.”

“I like intensity in all areas of my life. I’m not a very nonchalant person. I don’t do things by half.”

“Man I Need” has been especially inescapable on TikTok — proof that internet virality and nourishing songcraft aren’t mutually exclusive, and that there’s no one way to the top in our algorithm-driven culture. “I remember making a very conscious decision with my managers to not think about numbers or money or trophies or any of that, and to only write with artists that I could say I was a fan of,” says Grammy-winning songwriter-producer Tobias Jesso Jr., who co-wrote “Man I Need” and the album track “Something Inbetween.” “Olivia had been writing great songs long before she met me, because she knows exactly who she is, and it radiates into her music in a beautiful way. I love working with artists like her, who have very strong opinions, because I believe that’s where the soul of any given song comes from — an artist’s ability to know themselves.”

To Dean, this is the best way to make it in today’s pop landscape. “It’s really exciting right now. It’s moving in a way that people are more individuals. I personally don’t feel any competition whatsoever or any comparative nature with any of my peers in that way,” she says. “The women are just absolutely dominating music in general right now, which is amazing.” That includes acts like RAYE and Lola Young who, alongside Dean, make up a wave of soulful truth-tellers arriving from across the pond to push pop to bolder places. “I think that maybe the British thing is happening because there’s a storytelling and an honesty that is inherently British,” Dean says. “I don’t know — maybe I’m chatting out my arse.”

“She writes like she’s sitting across from you and that pulls me into her immediately,” says Ravyn Lenae, who also opened for Carpenter this year (and whose hit “Love Me Not” Dean recently covered live). “Her melodies feel timeless but her perspective is so fresh. There’s a softness and a real humanity in her work.”

For Dean, pouring her personal life into her songs is a non-negotiable. “I would never write a song if it wasn’t something that actually happened to me,” she says. Recently, someone challenged her on this: Isn’t a beloved classic like The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” proof that purely fictional stories can make for great music? She laughs recalling her reaction: “That’s great for The Beatles. That’s not why I do it.”

“I do it for the feeling of the documentary-ness of it,” she continues. “I do it so that I can listen back to it in 10 years and be like, ‘OK, that was about that breakup.’ ‘That was about that time in my life.’ That’s interesting to me.”

Dean’s interest in matters of the heart has led many fans and critics to describe her music as feeling like a rom-com — a comparison Dean herself doesn’t quite see. “That’s not something that was on the mood board for me,” Dean says, admitting it’s not her favorite genre. (Though she makes an exception for Love Actually: “That is a flawless film.”)

She really likes zombie films instead. Dean, it turns out, is a little bit of a closet geek. The singer is obsessed with her PS4 and playing The Sims. “I game,” she says proudly. Off stage, she enjoys yoga, cooking, knitting, nesting at home — the kind of hobbies she and I jokingly call “grandma activities.”

Finding the essence of home has become a key part of her creative process. Dean made her first album, 2023’s Messy, the modern way, hopping from studio to studio as she pieced together a body of work. Though that project captured her range and poetic writing style well, in Dean’s eyes, the studio shuffle is not a very romantic way of making music — dealing with “other people’s mugs where they make their tea, other people’s toilets where you’re having a bathroom break.”

“We put a lot of focus on romantic love. It takes up a lot of headspace that could be shared in the rest of life.”

So for The Art of Loving, she took a different approach. Last year, she moved into a grand house in East London and transformed it into the live-work studio of her dreams for eight weeks. She brought her guitar and piano from her home and filled the place with loads of plants, flowers, and her favorite books — she is never far from bell hooks’ 1999 classic, All About Love. (Dean says she came up with her album title after seeing an art exhibition at The Broad in LA from the painter Mickalene Thomas, also called All About Love, that responded to the themes of hooks’ work.)

“We wrote the album in the spring, so just lots of nature around, bird noises. The door was open,” Dean says, beaming. “It was the best place I’ve ever made music in because it was mine. It was ours. At its core, it felt like having people over. I’ve never made music in that way before. I’m always the person coming over.”

She relished her newfound autonomy over the sessions. “I’m waking up, and I’m setting the tone of the room,” she says. “I’m going to burn the incense, and when people arrive, I’m already there. I’ve pulled up what I want the reference to be for the day.” (What incense was she burning? “Attracts money — that was the scent,” she says, laughing. “Been burning that. Been burning that!”) And there’s no going back: “It has to be that way now. But I think that’s a privilege. I’m very aware that that was not a possibility for me when I first started making music.”

To her listeners, this resolve and clarity of vision are palpable in Dean’s work. “People connect to Olivia’s sincerity,” Lenae says. “She shows up as fully herself, vibrant, grounded, and relatable. That honesty comes through in her voice and in the way she carries her stories. I think it’s so special when a woman of color succeeds in staying true to her path while honoring her musical roots with so much grace.” And to her collaborators, it’s what makes her an ideal creative partner: “It’s always been a great experience with Olivia because she’s secure in her taste, so nothing is taken too personally, and we can just get down to business finding the best ideas and the best way to convey them,” Jesso Jr. says. “It never feels rushed, and it’s always rooted in truth... It’s my favorite style of writing.”

In the new studio, Dean had a lot to get off her chest — she’d been going through some heartbreak. “I call it the bin fire year,” she says. “That’s what last year felt like for me.” She jokes that she could have called the album The Art of “Damn, I Got My Sh*t Rocked.”

“I’m just trying to have a good time — allowing you to also have a good time and not worry about what you don’t like.”

Dean wrote the songs in more or less the order they appear on the track list, processing her experience in real time. “Some of the songs I haven’t sung live yet or haven’t even sat with myself for too long. I like that. I think it’s exciting,” she says. “I like intensity in all areas of my life. I’m not a very nonchalant person. I don’t do things by half. I enjoy the intensity of having just written something three months ago [and not having] a chance to even overthink it.” It was important for her to cover the full emotional spectrum: “It can’t just be all happy, ‘Ooh, come be the man I need!’” she says. “Sometimes it’s, ‘Oh wow, you didn’t want to fall in love with me — that hurt.’”

By the time Dean was nearly done, she had 10 songs, but she believes 12 is the magic number of tracks. So she thought long and hard: “Where are we going to leave this with you, girl? What’s the end of the story?”

The penultimate song, “A Couple Minutes,” imagines a brief encounter with an ex that allows for closure and, ultimately, acceptance. “When they say loving someone is kind of letting them go, I do really believe in that sometimes,” she says. “Wanting them to shine, and just achieve everything that they want with their life, whether that includes you or not.”

But on the closing track, “I’ve Seen It,” which you can imagine playing at every cool girl’s wedding for years to come, Dean zooms out, taking stock of all the ways her life is already full, from her parents to the besties she shouts out by name: Eleanor, Rosie, Louise.

“I cried in the studio when I wrote ‘I’ve Seen It.’ And when I played it to my friends, they cried — and that is the most consistent place for love in my life,” Dean says. “We put a lot of focus on romantic love sometimes. It takes up a lot of headspace that I think could be shared in the rest of life.”

“I’m really into Snoopy at the moment,” Dean says. We’re now sitting in the dark — the almost-winter sun has already set — talking about the music she’s into at the moment. “I’m collecting Snoopy memorabilia, and I’m into the feeling of Snoopy. Like Snoopycore.” She doesn’t just mean the classic Vince Guaraldi soundtracks; she also has a playlist inspired by what she thinks the sweet anthropomorphic dog would listen to, like the work of late jazz legend Wes Montgomery. “That’s what the inside of my brain sounds like.”

Dean grew up in north London in a music-filled household. Her English father introduced her to Al Green and Carole King, while her Jamaican-Guyanese mother raised her on artists like Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and Angie Stone — Dean’s middle name, Lauryn, is a nod to the Lauryn Hill. She is a certified neo-soul baby.

“I’m a bubble of peace and serenity. I’m not on TikTok, I’m playing The Sims — you can’t get to me.”

As a kid, Dean performed in a gospel choir and took musical theatre lessons before enrolling in The Brit School, a famous performing arts academy that counts Amy Winehouse, Adele, FKA Twigs, and RAYE among its former students. (In a recent interview with NYLON, RAYE called The Art of Loving one of her favorite albums of the year and gushed over her former classmate: “She’s a great artist with a great voice who writes great songs — warm songs, and we can all use a little bit of music warmth, I think.”) Dean quietly got her break there at the age of 16, when Emily Braham, then a manager for the U.K. electronic act Rudimental, gifted the school some tickets to the group’s show. In exchange, the school invited her to a showcase of some of its brightest students, including Dean. “There was just something — and I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I was texting the school during the song like, ‘I need to meet this girl,’” recalls Braham, now Dean’s manager, as she joins us in the hotel room.

Dean almost missed getting discovered, however. “I just happened to be walking past reception one day, and they were like, ‘Olivia, somebody’s trying to get in touch with you. Check your emails!’” Dean says with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘I don’t even send an email.’” She and Braham met for coffee, where they ironed out the foundation of their partnership: “I don’t work for you, you don’t work for me,” Braham says. “Everybody around is as important as each other in pushing you forward.”

“Very important,” Dean says. “We’re all cogs in the big wheel.”

Back then, Dean had a small list of goals: release an album; perform with U.K. late-night host Jools Holland; and play Glastonbury. By 2023, she achieved all three. Now, fresh off her opening stint for Carpenter (which included five nights at Madison Square Garden), she’s getting ready for her own headlining arena tour across North America, Europe, and Down Under next year. (Dean’s tour is so hot-selling, in fact, that she successfully called on Ticketmaster last month to cap her tour’s resale tickets at face value in the fight to keep “live music affordable and accessible.”)

“To see the work that goes into putting on a show like that, the precision and the amount of people that it takes, is really inspiring to me,” Dean says of watching Carpenter. “I’ve never played venues that big before. To be able to support her and warm the crowd up and just play before going into my own tour is the most invaluable experience.”

It got her thinking about what she wants her own shows to feel like. One thing she doesn’t want? For anything to feel too polished, “where you start kind of wearing the same thing for every show,” she says. “I love pulling stuff, vintage or not even — just for every show to have its own specific look. I love the idea of me coming out and it’s like, what are we getting tonight? Let me give you your money’s worth! ‘This is your look, Denver!’”

This is great news not only for fans, but for the fashion world. Dean knows how to turn a look: On the U.K. festival circuit last year, she wore custom looks from Chopova Lowena (Glastonbury) and Miu Miu (Love Supreme Festival). While supporting Carpenter this fall, she rocked stunning Rodarte and Clio Peppiatt gowns pulled from the runways. Dean, who’s also the face of Burberry’s Her fragrance, credits her stylist of several years, Simone Beyene, with giving her a fashion education.

“I had no understanding of the fashion space and designers, and I’d never worn a heel before I met Simone,” she says. “It’s like she’s opened up a whole new way for me to express myself. And we just play.” Before, Dean adds, “I used to come to the fitting and be like, ‘Oh God, I can’t wear that.’ And now it’s like, ‘Can I wear that?’ I love the challenge.”

“Pop star has the connotation of not being in control. I feel quite grounded. I wouldn’t say I feel like a part of celebrity culture.”

She’d like to do more in the fashion space, maybe even walk in a runway show, and she’d also like to give acting a try. She had that epiphany while watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another — mostly because of Teyana Taylor’s performance.

“First of all, Teyana Taylor is so hot,” Dean says. “I’m straight as an arrow, babe, [but] I was like, ‘Damn. Maybe for you,’” she says, bursting into laughter. “I don’t know what it was. I just came out of the cinema, and something clicked like, I’d love to be in a movie.”

On Halloween at Madison Square Garden, Dean and her band all dressed up as characters from Scooby Doo. Dean, as Daphne in a vision of ’60s mod, confidently slunk around the stage in her Manolo Blahnik Marduk pumps, occasionally swinging her arms like she was in an old-school girl group. “People have seen videos of me performing and asked about my dancing or if there’s a choreographer, and I’m like, ‘Clearly not!’” she tells me. “I’ve never choreographed anything I was ever going to do.”

That’s just not the kind of performer she is. “I’m just trying to have a good time. In my having a good time, I’m allowing you to also have a good time and not worry about what you don’t like. Maybe that’s cringe, but I don’t really care. I’m a bubble of peace and serenity.” Bubble of peace and serenity — it’s become a mantra of hers lately. “It’s like, I’m not on TikTok, I’m playing The Sims — you can’t get to me.”

“I used to come to the fitting and be like, ‘Oh God, I can’t wear that.’ And now it’s like, ‘Can I wear that?’ I love the challenge.”

The TikTok fast is new as of a few weeks ago. “I’m trying to see how long I can go without ever looking at it,” Dean says. Dating apps are also a no-go right now. “God forbid!” she says. “I don’t love that it’s like, ‘You could have whoever you want.’ Just swipe, swipe, swipe. It all feels a bit too disposable.”

So how does she meet people?

“I just live my life,” she says. Besides, with the way her career is going, she’s got enough on her plate as is. “I let it take over because I love it,” she explains. “I love my job, I’ve got so much stuff to be getting on with, and I feel so healed. But also, that whole album — and that process of living through what happened to make the music — was very exhausting.”

As her star gets even brighter, Dean admits she has some reservations about being called a pop star. “It has the connotation of not being in control,” she says, and that’s not how she rolls. “I just feel quite grounded. I just talk to my family and my friends from school. I wouldn’t say I feel like a part of celebrity culture in that way.”

She may not have a choice for much longer. But Dean isn’t resisting pop stardom so much as defining it on her terms: show up, tell the truth, guard the peace that makes the work possible. The bubble isn’t a fantasy — it’s a boundary that keeps her anchored as she floats higher and higher. “I really feel like I’m turning up to do my job and trying to do it really well — and then I’m going home.”

Top image credit: Moschino blazer (worn as corset), Adidas jacket