The Art of Loving
The Art of Loving is a certainly fitting title for Olivia Dean’s sophmore studio album. Tackled from every possible angle, love is the shining star of this record: saving it for yourself, breaking up, the friendship kind - Dean writes about all of it. Her storytelling set to melodic, frivolous neo-pop tracks makes The Art of Loving feel authentically uplifting. Instrumentally, vocally, and lyrically, it just feels warm - in the best way. Even Dean’s sadder, reckoning tracks (i.e. Let Alone The One You Love, Loud) don’t even feel all that heavy. The record feels coherent, like a “perfect record”… maybe too much so?
Dean’s voice certainly suits what she does. Her almost too-polished, contained, near-commerical sound is great for the radio. It works, by all means. In just two years, with those big songs you hear played in cafes have hundreds of millions of streams, and have placed her within the top 200 most listened-to artists globally as of this month. On the one hand, it is not a crime to make music for driving in the car with mom. Hell, we need those albums (so we don’t end up getting yelled at for playing Charli xcx). But man, that “ba- ba- ba- baby steps” (Baby Steps) leaves something to be desired.
That being said, I do find Dean’s fresh, fun-loving pop to be a breath of fresh air in the era of super sexual and/or 2000’s inspired pop. We don’t need more Sabrina Carpenters or Tate McRaes. We need talented, sophisticated song-writing that unites people through pop rather than dividing them or scandalizing them. Another highlight of the album has to be Man I Need. The song went massive ever since being pre-released as a single and for good reason. I could eat up that piano in the chorus all day. It is danceable, screamable. The kind of song that can get you out of bed in the morning. Or into bed… From top-to-bottom, it is a track that just feels good.
Her style, as of now, feels very cookie-cutter. Despite her debut album’s title (Messy), we have yet to see Dean mess around. She is a good girl. And sometimes it is hard to watch good girls be so talented. In other words, it is simply a shame to think that Dean’s immense talent might forever be contained to such simplicity. I would love to see Dean be nasty, moody, to genre-mix, play with her vocal range and maybe even throw in some RAYE or Lola Young-style rapping (both also former students, like Dean, of the reputable BRIT School). On The Art of Loving, Olivia Dean is comfortable - beautiful, graceful, fun-loving, poised, and paletable - but comfortable.
