Olivia Dean and The Art of Loving Yourself
Olivia Dean just won Best New Artist at the 2026 Grammys, largely off the strength of her second album, The Art of Loving. According to Pitchfork’s report on the ceremony, she used her acceptance speech to shout out her grandmother and called herself “a product of bravery.” That word, bravery, is a pretty good starting point for what the album is actually about. Yes, it’s a soul-pop record with lively vibes. But underneath the gloss, it’s a very gentle and honest guide to doing something scary in your 20s: trying to love people well without losing yourself.
The Art of Loving dropped in September 2025 as Dean’s second studio album, blending pop, R&B, and neo-soul. On the surface, the album can feel like a standard romantic pop setup. But Dean has said the album was inspired by Mickalene Thomas’s All About Love exhibition and bell hooks’ writings on love as an action, not just a feeling. So the album doesn’t center on one type of romance. Instead, it walks through different kinds of love (romantic, platonic, self) like a series of small lessons.
From the first few tracks, Dean treats love less like a random occurrence and more like a practice. The track “Nice to Each Other” sounds like the kind of song that would play over the end credits of a rom-com, but the message is quite practical: being in love doesn’t give you a free pass to be cruel when you’re tired or upset. The bar for a healthy relationship isn’t just “we stayed together,” but rather that “we were kind while we did it.” “Man I Need” flips the expected “pick-me” narrative into something closer to a checklist for herself. Dean names the kind of partner and relationship she actually wants instead of begging someone to change. And “Let Alone the One You Love” takes us through Dean’s art of letting go of a love without turning bitter.
In a Harper’s Bazaar interview titled “Olivia Dean Wants You to Love Yourself,” she admits self-love “didn’t come naturally”, that she had to unlearn imposter syndrome about her looks and her music, and actively decide to make her own mind “a nice place to live.” That work shows up all over the album. Dean also talked about questioning the whole idea that romantic love should sit at the center of your life. In that same interview, she says romantic love is not the most important thing to her, and that she loves her friends and family just as fiercely. When crowds yell lines like “I don’t want a boyfriend!”, it doesn’t come off as anti-love so much as a mentality reset. The album’s thesis is closer to this idea that learning to love someone else is inseparable from learning to like the person you are when you’re with them.
For people in their 20s, that feels weirdly radical. Most of us are juggling classes, jobs, and the infinite scroll of other people’s relationships on social media. Dating can feel like a mix of desperation and constant jokes about how doomed everything is. In this context, an album that says, actually, being nice to each other matters; you’re allowed to leave; you shouldn’t disappear inside someone else hits way harder than another song about toxic chaos. The production matches that with tracks that are soft, steady, and never in a rush. The entire album sounds like taking a deep breath in the middle of an overstimulating feed.
Zooming out, the timing of The Art of Loving also explains why it’s resonating so much. The album has topped charts at a moment when a lot of pop is built on breakup diss tracks and messy relationship drama—think Sabrina Carpenter and petty lyrics, or Olivia Rodrigo screaming through heartbreak. Pair that with a Grammy win, and it’s pretty clear that audiences are craving something a little different from their pop stars right now. In a pop culture that rewards extremes, people seem to crave emotional clarity. Instead of doubling down on chaos, Olivia Dean leans into mutual care, clear communication, and staying kind. She isn’t selling fantasies of fireworks or unhinged chaos; she’s selling the idea that healthy relationships can still be interesting art.
Listening to Olivia Dean didn’t magically fix any of my own patterns. I still overthink texts and conversations, still occasionally choose chaos over communication. But her music makes me ask myself whether I’m actually “being nice to each other” in an argument, whether I’m honoring my own boundaries, and whether I’m showing up for myself with the same care I want from a partner.
In the end, The Art of Loving doesn’t read like a guide to getting into relationships, but rather like a quiet manual for how to be a person inside one. Dean isn’t promising perfect love or a drama-free life. What she offers instead is something softer and more useful: twelve small reminders that love is less about picking the right person once and more about the way you choose, every day, to be kind, honest, and brave—with them and with yourself.