The British singer and songwriter knows the secret of happiness – and also reveals this in an interview
With her unmistakable sound, the musician has been thrilled since her debut album Messy, she has long been one of the most exciting voices in her generation. In 2023, when her first LP appeared, Amazon Music appointed her “Breakthrough Artist of the Year”. BBC Music Introducing also crowned her to the “Artist of the Year”. Now the next chapter is coming up: On September 26, 2025, her second album The Art of Loving will be released. We spoke to Olivia Dean about the process of creating the record, your personal change and the many facets of love.
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Olivia Dean: When feelings become a person
Already when entering the interview location, her charisma immediately stands out: Olivia Dean exudes calm and serenity-an aura that immediately jumps to her. You quickly notice that this is not a staged professionalism, but something real. But, as she tells, it wasn’t always like that. “I have cultivated this serenity over the years,” she says, and adds: “But I have always been someone who is very present, no matter who I speak or what I do. I think that is the secret of happiness in life: just being exactly where you are, and exactly what you do.” Only one of many wisdoms that Dean shares that day and who also do their new album. Because the Art of Loving is about these moments. To love the question of what it means, whether others, life or not least yourself.
For Dean, working on the second studio album was a deeply therapeutic process. “It healed a lot in me and I think something has changed in me too,” she explains thoughtfully. “I really attached great importance to me. Sometimes you are so fixed on the end product that you don’t think about whether you actually enjoy the work on it.” This time she wanted to do it differently – less pressure, more freedom. For the first time she recorded her songs in her own studio in East London, a place that means freedom for her: “I had time and just tried not to put myself so much pressure. Some people work well under pressure, but I don’t. I break up under pressure.”
New atmosphere brings new feelings
The atmosphere in the studio made it possible for her to deal with her feelings more intensively. “You have to feel comfortable,” she says simply, and it is exactly this well -being that she needed to write songs that show deep inside her. Unlike the debut Messy, which was still characterized by a certain perfection, The Art of Loving presents an Olivia Dean who lets go, dares to dare and try new things. “I just got better with this album. The texts are more conscious, my attitude was different. I might not want to make a pop album, but have something with more up-tempo songs and just have a little more fun.”
And you hear that. While Messy often transported melancholic moods, The Art of Loving predominates ease that makes you want dancing. Nevertheless, there are songs that immerse yourself deeply into vulnerable emotional worlds. One of them is “Loud”, for Dean one of the most intimate moments of the plate. The song deals with the lasting impression that a person leaves and the sudden disappearance of this person who leaves only empty. “The vocal band we used was basically a live recording that I recorded with the string orchestra,” she says proudly. This raw emotionality of this session can be heard in every grade.
Between lightness and vulnerability
The counterpart is the track “So Easy to Fall in Love”. Instead of pain, he celebrates self -love. It serves almost as a hymn for self -worth and the courage to see himself as something special. “I think that if you see yourself as something special, it doesn’t make you a narcissist. I think it simply ensures that the right things come into your life and not things you think about being there.” This is also associated with your belief in the right timing: “I think the more you long for something and searches for it, the more you close to other things that could step into your life. And yes, if so, it will find you.”
These two poles, lightness and vulnerability, pull through the entire album. Many songs have a positive mood, but Dean emphasizes that she is particularly important to her. “It’s like an instinctive feeling: if a line in a song I wrote makes me cry, I think: Yes, these are the songs that interest me.” Superficial recordings, she says, would have no value for her. “It doesn’t help me publish something that doesn’t touch me.” Vulnerability, she explains, plays a central role for her. “You know how some people love this feeling in their stomach, this thrill, or maybe the feeling that they could die. It’s about. It’s the thrill.”
In terms of content, The Art of Loving supports two sources of inspiration – author Bell Hooks and the right exhibition “All About Love” by the artist Mickalene Thomas. Above all, the importance of female friendships, focused on for her: “Everything that I was looking for was either in myself or in my friendships. Friendship and romantic love are something that you have to work continuously. Love should be seen as a skill.” For Olivia Dean, it is only logical for Olivia Dean. “I’ve always been interested in love – I’m just a hopeless romantic,” she admits.
Music and love as a case study
The work process on the album almost had the character of a scientific case study. “I will research, I’ll write the songs, and at the end of the eight weeks in the house I will summarize what I discovered.” Exciting: The title The Art of Loving was already clear before the songs even existed. A concept that then gradually filled with life. In the end, the question remains how you can implement this “art of love” in everyday life. The musician has a clear advice for this: “I think it is a good start to just be at peace with herself. So without a partner. Your life is fulfilling and joyful, you have hobbies and friends and all these things. And then your partner can simply be this great additional piece.”
This is exactly what she wants to convey with her music. Your wish: that people feel warm after the first listening of The Art of Loving and that it arouses the desire to understand others better, to reflect on themselves and maybe also to perceive the people around them more consciously. For Olivia Dean, music is more than just a job: she is a life path, a mirror for feelings, an exercise in love and self -discovery, a space for vulnerability and joy at the same time.