Radiant, romantic, and deeply human, Olivia Dean’s sophomore album ‘The Art of Loving’ is a luminous, breathtaking masterpiece – an instant classic full of heart and soul that celebrates love in all its beautiful chaos and grace, capturing what it means to fall, hard and fast, with cinematic warmth and unfiltered honesty.

Stream: “So Easy (To Fall In Love)” – Olivia Dean

Olivia Dean returns in full bloom on The Art of Loving – a breathtakingly beautiful collection of songs that feels, to me, like an instant classic.

Dean’s voice is a thing of warmth and wonder – every breath she takes sends shivers down the spine, filled with a glistening golden glow. She has a way of finding word combinations that feel timeless and ingenious at once; everything she sings sounds effortless, yet deeply intentional.

Take “So Easy (To Fall in Love),” one of the album’s most irresistible moments: “There’s no need to hide if you’re into me, ’cause I’m into you quite intimately, and maybe one night could turn into three, well, I’m down to see.” It’s playful and coquettish, witty and sincere all together – the kind of lyric that instantly invites a smile, the kind of melody that lingers long after it ends. Dean makes us feel the rush, the thrill, the joy of falling head over heels in real time – her emotive delivery equal parts sweet charm and seductive curiosity, full of tiny turns of phrase that turn the head – and the heart – upside down. She captures that fragile, hopeful moment before love becomes real, when everything still feels light, possible, and beautifully uncertain.

The way I do my hair, the way I make you laugh
The way we like to share, a walk in Central Park
I could be fresh air,
might be the girl of your dreams
There’s no need to hide if you’re into me
‘Cause I’m into you quite intimately
And maybe one night could turn into three
Well, I’m down to see

‘Cause I make it so easy to fall in love
So come give me a call, and we’ll fall into us
I’m the perfect mix of Saturday night
and the rest of your life
Anyone with a heart would agree
It’s so easy to fall in love with me

Released October 4, 2025 via Island Records, Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving is a bold, enchanting, emotionally charged masterpiece. Arriving just two years after her critically acclaimed debut album Messy, her sophomore effort finds the multi-BRIT Award and Mercury Prize nominee embracing love in all its tender, tangled, transformative forms.

Where Messy explored vulnerability through self-discovery and reflection, The Art of Loving turns its gaze outward – toward connection, intimacy, and the slow, deliberate work of care. Musically, it’s rich with warmth and texture: A lush blend of soul, pop, and subtle orchestral grandeur that feels at once timeless and alive. Each song glows with Dean’s signature sincerity – her voice the thread that binds it all together, a vibrant vessel of both heart and heat, carrying us gently through the ever-shifting shades of what it means to love and be loved.

Every moment of The Art of Loving feels perfectly curated, meaningful, and moving,

beginning with its 40-second title track – a lush, intimate prologue that sets the tone for all that follows. “It’s the art of loving, it’s the art of loving / It wasn’t all for nothing, yeah, you taught me something / ‘Gotta throw some paint,’ that’s what bell would say / Something lost and something gained in the art of loving.” Dean sings hot on the mic, her voice framed by soft piano, layered harmonies, and strings that bloom like sunlight through stained glass.

Dean began teasing The Art of Loving this past spring with a song full of understated charm – brimming with ease and light, shimmer and soul – and it remains a highlight to this day. One of the album’s most effortlessly radiant moments comes in lead single “Nice to Each Other,” a song that glows with warmth and grounded joy. There’s an ease to it – light and lilting, suave and smoldering – the kind of song that settles into your bones without asking too much from you. Dean’s voice is magnetic as she sings over pulsing bass and dreamy guitars, capturing the magic of being present with someone – whether it’s a friend, a lover, or someone somewhere in between:

Here we are, back again
Fightin’ what’s in front of me
There’s so much to unpack again
But if I come to Italy

We could be nice to each other
Nice to each other
Wrong for each other,
right for each other
And rise to each other
Rise to each other…

“‘Nice to Each Other’ is a song about the push and pull of exploring your independence in dating,” Dean explains. “It’s about enjoying someone in the present and allowing it to be both light and meaningful. I think this song and video represents a playfulness in me that I’m excited for people to see.” That sense of playful honesty pulses through every line of the track, especially in its chorus: “‘Cause you know, I’ve done all the classic stuff and it never works, you know it. So can we say we’ll never say the classic stuff? Just show it now and know it.” It’s a simple, radical rejection of pressure, of expectations, of tired dating scripts – an invitation to try something simpler and more honest instead. For a track about not needing the answers, “Nice to Each Other” feels utterly profound and beautifully, breathtakingly powerful – a perfect encapsulation of the album’s balance between light and depth, ease and intention.

Dean’s other pre-release singles “Lady Lady” and “Man I Need” remain radiant standouts – spirited, soulful, and filled with heart – but they just scratch the surface. Each of the album’s twelve tracks deepens the album’s portrait of love and all its contradictions: The yearning and confusion of “Close Up,” a grooving ballad-turned-anthem whose dramatic chorus aches, “‘Cause you don’t make it easy, now I’m all close up…”; the cinematic intimacy of “Let Alone the One You Love,” a tender reckoning with conditional love and self-worth, where Dean refuses to shrink herself for someone else; the nostalgic grace of “A Couple Minutes”; the slow, glowing tenderness and resolve of “I’ve Seen It.”

“Baby Steps” is a spellbinding, softly smoldering gem that radiates both warmth and ache. Built on buoyant rhythms and an easy, lilting groove, it’s one of Dean’s most triumphant songs – an earnest celebration of progress, patience, and the slow return to self after heartbreak. There’s something magnetic about the way she sings “ba ba ba baby steps” – part mantra, part shrug, part smile – as if reminding herself that healing doesn’t have to be graceful to be real. Her voice feels close enough to touch, rich with that mix of vulnerability and poise that makes every Olivia Dean song feel like a confidant speaking right to you:

It’s funny in the rear view
You’re closer than you are
In truth, we’re worlds apart
I’m used to being near you
When I’m down at ten percent
And you’d plug me straight back in

Now there’s no one to text when the plane lands
Or to call when it’s taking off
Right, left, baby steps
I’ll be my own pair of safe hands
It’s not the end, it’s the making of
Right, left, for now
I’m taking ba-ba-ba-baby steps

It’s playful and self-assured all at once – a reminder that love’s lessons don’t always come wrapped in sorrow. Sometimes they arrive in movement, in motion, in the simple act of choosing to keep going. Dean’s delivery here is especially striking, sung hot on the mic with a quiet intensity that brims with conviction and care. “Baby Steps” shines as a moment of renewal within The Art of Loving – proof that even after loss, love finds new ways to begin again.

What’s remarkable about The Art of Loving is how it honors both the growing pains and the golden moments — the stumbles and the breakthroughs that shape us and our love stories.

Dean’s songwriting doesn’t just chronicle romance; it traces the way we rebuild ourselves in its aftermath, step by step, song by song. Elegantly soulful and unapologetically raw all at once, Dean captures the small, human rhythms of love with the precision of someone who’s lived every word she sings – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. It’s not about perfection; it’s about presence — the quiet grace of showing up, again and again, no matter how uncertain the ground feels.

Together, these songs form a vivid mosaic of modern love – imperfect, intoxicating, and alive with the push and pull between holding on and letting go. Produced with longtime collaborator Zach Nahome, The Art of Loving feels like the work of an artist in full command of her craft, unafraid to bare her soul in pursuit of something true.

“I don’t think this is a cynical thing to say but I don’t think love is just magic that happens to you,” Dean shares. “I think you’ve got to put the time in; it’s a craft, it’s like playing an instrument or any other skill… I’m a romantic, hopelessly hopelessly. And I suppose I’m trying to just bring a little bit of love, and loving, back into your life.”

The Art of Loving doesn’t sugarcoat love, but it doesn’t hold back in capturing how magical it is, either.

It’s vale la pena, as the Spanish saying goes – worth the pain. And that’s perhaps the greatest lesson Olivia Dean could teach us in this moment: That love, in all its mess and majesty, is something we learn, practice, and live – an ever-evolving art form that asks only that we keep showing up.

Dean herself sings it best in the final lines of album closer “I’ve Seen It”:

The more you look, the more you find
It’s all around you all the time
Catches your eye, you blink and then it’s gone
Brings out the worst, brings out the best
I know it’s somewhere in my chest
I guess it’s been inside me all along

It’s a stunning revelation and the perfect closing statement – love not as something to chase or control, but something innate, woven into the very fabric of our humanity, an intrinsic part of who we are. In recognizing that tender truth, Dean brings her album full circle, turning her search for love outward and inward all at once.

Graceful, grounded, and quietly transcendent, The Art of Loving cements Olivia Dean as one of her generation’s defining voices – a modern classicist crafting soul-pop for the heart and the human spirit alike.

Her music radiates humanity; every lyric, every breath, feels lived-in and true. With this record, Dean not only refines her sound but deepens her purpose, reminding us that to love is to be alive, and to be alive is to keep trying, failing, and trying again.

What’s more human than love? In embracing its chaos and its grace, Olivia Dean has become a truly singular and standout presence – a bright, beating heart in contemporary music.

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:: stream/purchase The Art of Loving here ::

:: connect with Olivia Dean here ::

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Stream: “Man I Need” – Olivia Dean

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 © Lola Mansell

The Art of Loving

an album by Olivia Dean