<\/p>\n
If the lyrics of Olivia Dean<\/a>\u2019s most recent singles have you all up in your feelings, that\u2019s kind of how the singer hoped it would go.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw someone the other day saying that \u2018Olivia Dean was first saying \u201cI don\u2019t want a boyfriend,\u201d and now she\u2019s saying, \u201ccome be the man I need\u201d,\u2019\u201d Dean says, referencing her hits \u201cNice to Each Other\u201d and \u201cMan I Need.\u201d \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018girl, do you not change your mind?\u2019 Don\u2019t we all flip-flop around on our emotions?\u2019 Both things can still be \u2014 they\u2019re not mutually exclusive. It\u2019s all valid. And that\u2019s what this album is. There\u2019s many different stages of how you feel.\u201d<\/p>\n More from WWD<\/strong><\/p>\n The 26-year-old Brit is eating a piece of salami backstage at her venue in Edinburgh, dressed down in a baseball hat from the International Spy Museum, a memento from a recent stop in Washington, D.C. She\u2019s been on the road for much of the summer as she gears up to release her sophomore album, \u201cThe Art of Loving,\u201d on Friday, the highly anticipated follow-up to her Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut album \u201cMessy.\u201d This fall she returns to the U.S. to open for Sabrina Carpenter<\/a>, after which she\u2019ll play her own arena tour in Europe next year.<\/p>\n Dean\u2019s most recent single, \u201cMan I Need,\u201d became a hit as soon as it was released in August, spawning countless TikToks and hitting top 10 in dozens of countries.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crazy. Because in my mind, we\u2019ve been playing it in the live show for a couple months, and I\u2019ve obviously known about the song for a long time, so I kind of forgot about it in that sense that you forget that other people haven\u2019t heard it,\u201d Dean says. \u201cSo it now sort of has this second life for me, which is just so beautiful. It was just really fun to write. I wanted to write something with that kind of shuffle that makes me think of Michael Jackson, something that you could just keep moving to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Art of Loving\u201d comes over two years after her debut album, and with it the ever-looming pressure of a potential \u201csophomore slump,\u201d which Dean admits to feeling initially.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then I thought about, \u2018OK, how can I relieve some of that pressure from myself and make this ultimately what it should be, which is an enjoyable experience?\u2019\u201d Dean says of how she approached it. \u201cYou kind of have to go completely in the other direction and think, \u2018OK, what is the album that I would love to make purely for myself? Where would I like to make it? Who would I like to make it with?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI think it would\u2019ve been a mistake for me personally to now suddenly go into a really big, sexy, expensive studio and work with people I\u2019d never worked with before, and just push myself too far out of my comfort zone. I don\u2019t really like it when people say, \u2018get out of your comfort zone.\u2019 I like my comfort zone and I make really good things in my comfort zone because the kind of music<\/a> I make is vulnerable, and so I need to be comfortable. So I did feel that pressure initially, but I really tried hard to look after myself and think about how I could make the best music and what I needed to do to do so, if that makes sense. I felt it, but then I just ran away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n For her, that meant writing the album in her hometown of London, with people she\u2019s worked with before, in a studio decorated with pictures from her house.<\/p>\n \u201cI brought my own piano into the studio from my house, so all the piano on the album is mine,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that just seeps a warmth into it that you don\u2019t know what it is, but there is a warmth that I think we really tried to create and I think we achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n Dean started writing new songs as soon as \u201cMessy\u201d was released in June 2023, but didn\u2019t really recognize that she was properly making a new record until late this winter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt all happened quite quickly. You could say two years, but you could also say eight weeks,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cI think these songs are more intentional. I think they\u2019re more confident in some ways, more vulnerable also, and I just think that they\u2019re better,\u201d she adds. \u201cI don\u2019t think my old songs are bad, but I think as in anything in life, any passion or hobby or skill you\u2019re trying to learn, you want to get better, so hopefully this is better.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Art of Loving\u201d was inspired by an exhibition by the artist Mickalene Thomas that Dean saw in Los Angeles called \u201cAll About Love,\u201d in which Thomas responds to the classic bell hooks book.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been reading a lot of [hooks\u2019] books and watching a lot of interviews of her at the time, and really looking at love as a practice. Similarly to a musical instrument, you practice and you get better,\u201d Dean says. \u201cWhy don\u2019t we look at love in that same way and treat it as a real skill that you have to hone not just for yourself, but for the benefit of others in your life? And I guess that was the world that the album was written in. Really thinking about, \u2018OK, how do I love?\u2019 And all the different facets of love.\u201d<\/p>\n When on the road, she has started hosting after parties called \u201csweet things\u201d where people are encouraged to dance and enjoy themselves, away from their phones.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd sometimes we have a magician,\u201d she says. \u201cBring back magicians.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have to wait and see if a magician gets booked for her celebration after playing O2 in London next year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m playing arenas now. Can you believe it? Jesus Christ!\u201d she says. \u201cHow did we get here everyone?\u201d<\/p>\n Best of WWD<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for WWD’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If the lyrics of Olivia Dean\u2019s most recent singles have you all up in your feelings, that\u2019s kind of how the singer hoped it would go. \u201cI saw someone the other day saying that \u2018Olivia Dean was first saying \u201cI don\u2019t want a boyfriend,\u201d and now she\u2019s saying, \u201ccome be the man I need\u201d,\u2019\u201d Dean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2049770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[367642,316694],"class_list":["post-2049769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-olivia-dean","tag-wwd"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Olivia-Dean-on-Love-Growth-and-the-Road-to-Arena.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2049769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2049770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2049769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2049769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2049769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}