FEATURE:
Perfect Imperfections
PHOTO CREDIT: Press
who I discovered back in 2021. I wrote about the phenomenal Olivia Dean back then. She released the brilliant E.P., Growth, that year. Since then, she has put out some truly incredible music and continued to build her fanbase. I am going to drop in as much music as I can. One reason why I am coming back to her is that her debut album, Messy, came out in June. That has been nominated for a Mercury Prize. Dean spoke with NME and discussed how it feels having her debut shortlisted. She also co-wrote the England Women’s World Cup anthem, Call Me a Lioness. You can follow Olivia Dean and connect on social media. She is a tremendous live performer so, if you get a chance to go and see her play, then please do. The London-born artist – who is quite hard to pin in terms of genre; giving her music that fluidity, yet it is full of identity and definition - was named Amazon Music's 2021 breakthrough artist of the year. Dean grew up in Walthamstow and took musical theatre lessons. She was also a member of a gospel choir from a young age. She then attended the BRIT School. Citing influences such as Ms. Lauryn Hill, Amy Winehouse, Carole King, and The Supremes, here is someone who loves classic and iconic voices, but she very much has her own vibe and sound. You do feel that Olivia Dean can ascend the same sort of heights as Amy Winehouse and headline a festival like Glastonbury – which is something that she already has set in her sights.
There has been a lot of attention and excitement around Messy. One of the best debut albums of the year, I have been looking at interviews where she discussed her album, in addition to her upbringing and music tips. Ones to Watch spoke with her earlier in the year. If you do not already know Olivia Dean or her music, then do spend some time getting acquainted with one of our best young artists:
“What is Messy all about?
Messy is an album about learning to fall in love again, the fear that comes with it, and finding independence within that still. It’s about being grateful for where you came from and accepting life’s imperfections.
How’d you settle on the album cover art; it's so dynamic and unconventional.
Funny story! We actually did a whole shoot with a completely different concept but I didn’t feel like any of the images represented the feeling of the record. I kept coming back to this image from a shoot I’d done a while ago with an amazing photographer Petros. I love how it felt blurred and candid, I knew the album just needed to be an image of my face. Me at 24! So we went back to this image and I’m so glad. I love this cover. I love the purple too. It’s a very powerful and comforting colour for me.
Any collaborations when writing the record? Who produced the album?
I worked with some amazing songwriters on this album. I’m not someone who is afraid of collaboration but I can only write good things with people I trust and know very well. Matt Hales produced and co-wrote a lot of the album with me. We wrote "Slowly" together on my last project Growth and that is one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written. I wrote "The Hardest Part" and "Dive" with Bastian Langebaek and Max Wolfgang. they are brilliant and we have so much fun working together, those songs have been so important in shaping the whole record.
PHOTO CREDIT: Petros
How do you feel your sound has evolved or changed since your first single?
I feel like this is the most refined my sound has been. I wasn’t worried about the album’s genre too much, as maybe I have been in the past. I think I sound free!
Can we expect more of this style in the future? Or is this just a step into further evolution?
I think anything is possible for me sound-wise in the future. There really are no rules with music, so I hope my next album will just be a reflection of what I’m enjoying during that chapter of my life. I never want to be in a box, musically.
Besides this excellent album, what else should we be on the lookout for?
Gigs and lots of them! I want to tour this album as far and wide as possible and bring the music to all the humans that want to hear it.
What's inspiring you right now outside of music?
Knitting, yoga, cooking and cycling are my favourite things to do outside of music. All require your full attention and are very therapeutic activities for me.
Food best paired when listening to Messy?
Good question! I think a roast dinner and a pint of red stripe. With Mac and cheese on the side. The Caribbean way!
Who are your Ones To Watch?
I’m really bad at listening to new music. I’m quite an old soul. But I’m loving Billie Marten’s new album and King Krule’s too!”.
The debut album was a long time coming. Prior to its release, Dean has built this incredible and loyal fanbase with her E.P.s. 2019’s Ok Love You Bye was followed by What Am I Gonna Do On Sundays?. Then came 2021’s Growth. I will get to a couple of reviews for the stunning Messy. I want to bring in a recent interview from NME. Naming Dean as one of the most emotionally astute – yet underrated – artists around, it is interesting discovering more about her acclaimed debut album:
“Making an album has been something I’ve been working towards, and had an idea of what it would be like, for my whole life,” says Dean. “I’ve known I wanted to be a singer since I was eight.”
The London-born artist grew up on a eclectic diet of music that her parents played in the house, with Sam Cooke, Steely Dan and Destiny’s Child all making an appearance. Attending the prestigious BRIT School (alumni includes Adele and Amy Winehouse) for four years, Dean started writing her own songs at 16. It was then she realised that she didn’t love the musical theatre she was doing the way her peers loved it, instead choosing to pivot into making her own material and teaching herself guitar and piano. She bagged a manager the following year, and later signed to EMI.
For ‘Messy’, Dean teamed up with musician and producer Matt Hales, who she knew would be the perfect co-pilot for the record after they worked together on ‘Growth’ track ‘Slowly’. The early days of creating the album saw some reservations. “I felt so bogged down by what I was supposed to make, whether that be because of the way that I look,” she explains. “I really struggled with that for a while thinking it needs to be this really, like, ‘urban cool’ thing, but wondering, ‘Is that me? Or do I just love singer-songwriter indie music, can I make that? But I also like Motown?” She sums it up frankly: “I was like: ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to make”.
There was also the conflict of having released a project called ‘Growth’ prior to ‘Messy’, with Dean initially thinking that her debut album would therefore have to see her “have reached a conclusion and be like, ‘I’ve grown and now I’m…’” she says, extending the delivery of her final word. “Then I realised I’m still growing. I don’t know who I am sometimes, I’m a bit of a mess. That’s why ‘Messy’ is just the perfect title because it’s about accepting imperfection and finding the beauty in it,” she says.
For Dean, the name ‘Messy’ also feels sonically fitting “because it’s just that”. It’s an album that places Dean among peers like RAYE or Holly Humberstone, artists who aren’t guided by traditional genre constraints and are unafraid to share their own vulnerabilities. “I don’t think that anyone is supposed to make any kind of music, you should just make what sounds good to you,” Dean says. “It took me a while to figure that out; but once I did, it was just clear and fun. And the album was just a joy to make.”
She also received advice from pal Loyle Carner, whose track ‘Homerton’ she featured on last year. “I’ve had a couple conversations with him and [British producer and artist] Kwes who was making the record [Carner’s 2022 album ‘Hugo’] while I was making mine, and I definitely learned to just make exactly what you want to make,” Dean says. “They said, ‘You know what you want to do, just listen to yourself’. It sounds cliche, but it’s really easy to forget sometimes.”
Inspired by the likes of Bill Withers, Mac Miller‘s ‘Swimming’, Alice Phoebe Lou and Clairo, ‘Messy’ follows suit from Dean’s previous projects. Her gorgeous vocals, delivering the heart-on-her-sleeve lyrics that fans have come to love, are run over varied indie-pop sounds, all with a soulful edge.
The ethereal ‘UFO’ fuses a Nick Drake-style guitar with vocoded vocals with honest couplets: “I can’t hold your hand / With my fingers crossed”. ‘Danger’ boasts elements of rock and bossa nova, while ‘Ladies Room’ – a celebration of the girl’s bathroom, where “you go in there and share stuff, it’s so alive” – is unadulterated “pure joy”, says Dean”.
The final interview I am bringing in is from Rolling Stone. Interviewing her on 30th June (the day Messy came out), Olivia Dean said how she liked imperfections – some might say that her music is perfect. Here is a very authentic and relatable artist:
“Speaking to Rolling Stone UK while on a residential writing trip with fellow BRIT School graduate Rachel Chinouriri, Dean definitely has plenty to celebrate. In May, she completed her biggest-ever tour of the UK and Europe, playing to more than 10,000 fans in total. The week before, she was announced as one of the headliners of Somerset House’s Summer Series, with her show going on to be the first to sell out. Most excitingly, just 24 hours before we speak, she announced her long-awaited debut album, Messy, which arrives today (June 30).
Written and recorded with Lianne La Havas-collaborator Matt Hales, the 12-track collection looks set to cement the south London-based star’s reputation as one of the UK’s brightest young voices — not to mention surprise a few people with the scope of her vision. Informed by influences as diverse as Clairo, Carole King and Mac Miller, the songwriting on display extends from the pared-back piano balladry of ‘Everybody’s Crazy’ to the more maximalist, Motown shimmer of ‘Dive’, via the tender, steel pan-dappled grooves of ‘Carmen’.
Dean baulks at the idea that the album’s variety could be viewed in any way as a talking point. “I really struggle with the idea [that] I’m supposed to make one kind of music,” she shrugs. “For me, there are no rules. And at the end of the day, I’m gonna make what I want to make because I’m too stubborn to be told to make anything else.”
By her own admission, Dean has always been single-minded. Born and raised in Walthamstow, she knew she wanted to be a singer by the age of eight, after watching the success of her cousin — the rapper and actor Ashley Walters — from afar. Her parents further nurtured her love of music, introducing her to a broad range of artists, from Jill Scott to Joni Mitchell, enrolling her in musical theatre classes and tracking down a second-hand piano so she could start songwriting.
At 14, Dean won a place at The BRIT School, an achievement testament not just to her talent, but to the ambition and tenacity instilled in her by her mum, a lawyer and member of the Women’s Equality Party. “She was always like, ‘You can do whatever you want to do,’” Dean recalls proudly. “And I think that’s a really important message for a child. So I’ve always thought that if I want to do something and I just keep saying I’m going to do it, then I can just do it. I don’t know if that’s delusional, but I guess you have to be a bit delusional sometimes to get things done.”
During her first two years at BRIT, Dean studied musical theatre, before joining Rex Orange County, Black Midi and Raye on the music strand for the second half of her studies. At her final showcase, Dean was approached by her now-manager, who put her forward to audition as a backing siner for Rudimental. She was amazed to get the job.
PHOTO CREDIT: Press
“The first show we did was at Sziget Festival in Budapest in front of around 16,000 people,” she recalls, still in disbelief. “Like, I had literally just come out of college and I was doing all these crazy shows and getting this invaluable performance experience. But I don’t think I have the skill of a backing singer, so that was never going to be my final destination.”
Following the tour, she was accepted to study popular music at Goldsmiths, but quit after three weeks, worried that analysing the technicalities of songwriting would cause her to second-guess her own creative instincts. “I think it was a good choice,” she says, adding with a laugh, “Even if I do still have to pay off my student loan.”
Dean remains in south London and continues to immerse herself in the local creative scene, attending jazz nights by Steam Down in Deptford as well as Raw Eggs, a monthly event with participants showcasing everything from film to stand-up comedy and clowning. Today, she lights up when discussing her love of live performance.
“I’m like a live music sponge, I think it’s just the best thing ever. To have everybody in the room, all coming from their separate lives, and then joining together in this crazy shared experience, singing, dancing, crying… It’s 100 per cent my favourite thing.”
Dean’s profile has grown exponentially over the past five years, with the release of EPs Ok Love You Bye (2019), What Am I Gonna Do on Sundays (2020) and Growth (2021). Indeed, when it came to writing Messy, Growth initially proved something of a millstone around Dean’s neck. “Starting this album, I was like, ‘Well, the last EP was called Growth, so this album needs to be about what I’ve grown into.’ And I was like, ‘I actually don’t know what that is?’ But once I removed the pressure of having to be at my destination it was OK. This album is me saying, ‘This is where I’m at now: kind of a mess but loving it.’”
Messy was written over a period of 18 months, and recorded in just two weeks in October 2022, at The Pool Recording Studio near Elephant and Castle. It was important to Dean to record in her hometown, so as to provide an accurate snapshot of her identity as an artist.
Authenticity has always been a watchword in Dean’s songwriting, which sees her relaying real stories in a conversational tone rather than couched in metaphors or symbolism. This preference for naturalism over abstraction extends to her musical approach too, as she explains.
“I get frustrated with music that feels overly saturated or autotuned or calculated. And when I wrote the song ‘Messy’, it became obvious to me that I really enjoy imperfection. I think it makes things more interesting”.
I will finish with a couple of reviews. Messy won a lot of praise when it was released. I think that it can sit alongside the best of the year. This is what NME noted when they spend time with a gorgeous and hugely memorable debut album - one from an artist who is going to have a very long future in the industry:
“Messy’ has the intoxicating promise of a summer’s evening. Olivia Dean’s debut album lives in a state of suspended animation, enthusiastic about what lies ahead while fully living in and absorbing the moment: she sings of romantic and familial relationships with a gentle touch, as though she’s contemplating her thoughts while standing beneath a beam of sunlight.
The matter of hope is central to ‘Messy’, a light, nimble and fresh-faced collection of sprawling soul-pop tunes that illustrate the importance of perseverance amid personal upheaval. In 2021, Dean, a 24-year-old songwriter from north London, finally caught her break with her ‘Growth’ EP. The five-track effort was a runaway success; after racking up streaming numbers in the millions, the BRIT School graduate would go on to perform at Glastonbury, tour with Loyle Carner and collaborate with soul superstar Leon Bridges.
What makes Dean markedly different from her peers, however, is that she has the confidence to occasionally dissect subjects that others swerve, all while appealing to a mainstream audience. Album standout ‘Carmen’ simultaneously works as a love letter to her Guyana-born grandmother, as well as shining a light on the hardship that was caused to those affected by the Windrush scandal. She continues to prove that there’s more to her writing than optimism; ‘Messy’ gives her space to examine her own frustrations: “Why can’t you be better for me?”, she pleads with an ex on ‘No Man’.
Elsewhere, the album is cozy and vibrant throughout, but really peaks when it gets fuller, weirder, and more unpredictable. Nearly everything revolves around Dean’s deep, tender voice, which skips and twirls through stories of love pursued and lost. ‘UFO’ sees her sing through a vocoder, and the effect is serene. Marching percussion adds texture to ‘Ladies Room’, while the title track’s spacey production is purposefully meandering, encouraging the listener to get lost in Dean’s stream of consciousness. “Never really known the right shape to be,” she sings, pondering the anxieties that accompany tentative new beginnings.
The fullness of Dean’s musical vision vibrates in these gorgeously crafted moments, making the stumbles feel like mere blips: notably, ‘Everybody’s Crazy’ relies too heavily on clichés surrounding how confusing it is to be alive. Dean may have not shed all of her growing pains, but ‘Messy’ ultimately does everything a debut should, uniting multiple stories with a clear, radiant voice”.
I will wrap this up with the review The Line of Best Fit wrote. I am a big fan of Olivia Dean. She is someone who is incredibly versatile. Her debut does feature some of musical influences, yet there is so much happening! You get to traverse so many interesting avenues and scenes. Such a rich singer and writer, Messy is an album that rewards repeated listens. I would recommend people go and hear the album and spend time in its presence. We are going to hear a lot more from Olivia Dean:
“Starting in music at just 17 years old, her career has seen her selling out the Jazz Café plus hometown shows in KOKO and The Roundhouse. Now, at 24, her debut album Messy is no exception to her upward trajectory, using creative artistry to scrapbook elements of love, life and everything in-between into a homegrown directory of soulful buoyancy.
Balancing a fine line between refined and authentic, the record is universally carefree, with atmospherics ranging from dreamy to dark, soulful to spine tingling. Title track “Messy” is a perfect outline of the entire body of work "It's ok if it's messy," Dean croons as glittering synths echo intermittently, whilst mouth trumpet mimes feature alongside a steady build up a of acoustic tropical serenity.
Following her words of wisdom, Olivia Dean’s self-proclaimed mess is a rally of to and fro. Varying from delirious encounters in pub bathrooms in “Ladies Room,” the freedom of falling in love in the euphoric “Dive,” to the risks of taking that plunge, showcased in the playfully wonderful “Danger,” with thoughts that can only be translated into the method of music.
On the deeply personal “Carmen,” Dean pays tribute to her Grandmother who boarded her first ever plane at the age of 18 to the UK, as part of the Windrush Generation. An outpouring of overwhelming gratitude, the track is effervescent with recordings of her grandma’s rich voice, steel pan drums and horns set against undercurrents of delicate bass guitar. The star of the show, however, vocalises itself through Olivia Dean’s poignant storytelling, as she sings "You transplanted a family tree, and a part of it grew into me."
Despite bringing a joyful vibrance to the vast majority of the record, Dean continues to validate that she is the master of versatility. "I’m not as strong as I appear / I’m way more anxious than I seem" she admits on “Everybody’s Crazy,” bearing resemblance to the early soulful ballads of 00’s Adele. Rich with enigmatic chord progressions tied stylishly together with elegant strings, “No Man” is a dark tale of abandonment that see’s Dean reflect on a man’s neglect, with a sound conveying a hybrid of Arctic Monkeys’ Humbug and Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
It’s one thing to transform your deepest thoughts, experience and feelings into fiercely beautiful lyrics, the next steps of creating a catalogue of songs with music and vocals is just as precarious. In spite of this, no matter how disorganised Olivia Dean proclaims this album to be, she doesn’t miss a beat – and instead generates a record with just about everything to deem itself ‘perfect’”.
I know that Olivia Dean will continue to bring us wonderful music for years to come. She has some gigs booked already, though I am sure there will be more added. After her Mercury nomination and the fact Messy has received a load of love, so many people will want to see her in the flesh. One of our brightest and most remarkable artists, Olivia Dean’s name should be…
ON everyone’s lips.