Niceness between one another is as simple as it is rare. Olivia Dean gets to grips with this fundamental brilliantly on The Art of Loving, an album which obsesses over the reasons we need to come together, and why we seemingly never can. An incredible voice and a sincerity in those acoustic grooves, that’s all you need. Dean writes well, sings better, and has a fundamental understanding of how little reasonable people can now understand about the world around them. What can we do when the culture we know and love is falling apart? When the world is steadily reducing itself into a gruesome spot, it’s hard to consider what the art of loving really is. Honesty is what The Art of Loving asks for. Many of the songs here are deeper than just fatigue and fear of veiled jabs, but Dean asks an important, simple question that listeners may be avoiding.
What is it about love and respect that’s so hard to hold onto? Dean’s opening, title track and follow-up, Nice to Each Other, depends on the warring pair at the heart of the relationship, but its true strength lies in how that message can be adapted. What does it mean to be nice to one another, irrespective of a relationship which may form? Inevitabilities of empowerment and relationship breakdowns are Trojan horses to smuggle in contemporary, quality commentaries on the darker spots of the world. Close Up has a magnificent message to it, backed by the cool, jazz-adjacent tone Dean has mastered. A contemporary force with a love for brass and lounge music qualities is easy to come by, but what few can provide is a new perspective. Dean provides that again and again across The Art of Loving. Wonderfully confident work, but also given enough breathing room to expand into those laid-back thrills.
So Easy to Fall in Love is a real highlight, the perfect storm of instrumental bliss and vocal brilliance. Pair it with those same qualities but the inverse message on follow-up song on Let Alone the One You Love, and the tenderness of The Art of Loving is clear. A well-balanced, easy-listening album with a tough collection of messages. Delivery is everything for this. Sharp instrumental breaks pair neatly with a hell of a voice, it’s not just that which separates Dean from the rest, though. Sincerity is paired with inevitable conclusions, and it does come across as wonderful for the most part. A need for independence is what strikes through, inevitably, but definitively. Something In-Between gets to the core of that desire, that message of self-confidence in a world which does not often allow for it. These are the moments which define the genre, and Dean too, but she brings a brilliance to it like few others.
The Art of Loving is honest. That’s all an album with love on the mind and in the heart needs to be. The rest works itself out, or at least, that’s the case for a listener. Dean works hard to get these notes of love over the line, and for most of these songs, it means a sincerity which few have in their music. Hearing that offered on the blues-like tone set in the last moments of the album, across A Couple Minutes and I’ve Seen It particularly, is blissful. That latter song is an admission of how much has been written of love, and how little of it sounds truthful. We’re surrounded by faux renditions of love in song, in the books we read, and the films we watched. It’s difficult to put the heart in art, but Dean doesn’t struggle. The Art of Loving is a sincere piece that’ll have you expecting more from those in the same genre.
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As simple as this: Ask Olivia Dean to sing any song you want and she will turn it into pure platinum. Its all about the uniqueness of her voice , her perfect pitch. And I can tell you, who she was in her previous life, too! Then, you’ll understand.