So, Yea… If You Haven’t Heard The Art of Loving Yet, You Hate Music | Olivia Dean’s Soulful Pop Era, Neo-Soul Glow-Up & The Soft-Power Soundtrack You’re Probably Sleeping On
- Jessica Ramirez
- 8 minutes ago
- 3 min read
If you haven’t heard The Art of Loving by Olivia Dean yet, what are you even doing? A deep dive into the soulful pop album of 2025—featuring “Man I Need,” “Nice to Each Other,” neo-soul vibes, emotional growth, and main-character energy. Olivia Dean’s warm, introspective R&B pop era explained.
Let’s just address the subject... If you haven’t pressed play on The Art of Loving by Olivia Dean yet, what exactly are you doing with your life? Organizing your spice rack? Rewatching that comfort show for the 14th time? Please. There is soulful pop waiting for you.
Olivia Dean — Britain’s quietly unstoppable singer-songwriter export — has returned with a sophomore album that feels like a warm hug, a gentle therapy session, and a soft-launch of your emotional maturity all at once. If her debut Messy was the beautifully chaotic diary of your twenties, The Art of Loving is the glow-up: emotionally intelligent, sonically polished, and just self-aware enough to hurt (in a good way).
The Sound: Neo-Soul Meets Sunday Morning Main Character Energy
We’re talking R&B-infused pop, neo-soul textures, jazzy undertones, and vocals that sound like they’ve been dipped in honey and self-reflection. It’s the kind of record that makes you stare out of a train window pretending you’re in a coming-of-age film.
Tracks like “Man I Need” deliver that classic Olivia Dean blend: groove-forward production, clean bass lines, and lyrics that feel pulled straight from your Notes app at 1:12 a.m. Meanwhile, “Nice to Each Other” is the emotionally articulate situationship anthem we didn’t know we required — mature, measured, and dangerously relatable.
And then there’s “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” — a title that sounds breezy until you realize she means it. Love is easy. Staying? Communicating? Choosing softness? That’s the art. See what she did there? Yes. It’s conceptual. Yes. I approve.
The Vibe: Comfort Core, But Elevated
Some listeners have called it “coffee shop-core.” And honestly? Fine. But make it premium coffee shop-core. This is oat-milk-flat-white-with-emotional-boundaries-core.
The production is lush without being cluttered. The songwriting is vulnerable without being overwrought. The hooks are catchy without begging for TikTok validation. It’s subtle confidence — and that’s harder to pull off than vocal acrobatics.
If you’re looking for hyper-pop chaos or EDM drop theatrics, this may not be your battlefield. But if you want, heartfelt lyricism, soulful vocals, cohesive album storytelling, grown-woman pop energy, you’re home.
In a streaming era unfortunately dominated by singles, The Art of Loving works as a full-body listening experience. It’s cohesive. It flows. It rewards patience. It respects your intelligence. And that’s perhaps Olivia Dean’s greatest strength... she trusts her audience to sit with emotion instead of scrolling past it. Thank you Olivia.
So, yea… if you haven’t heard it... correct that immediately. Light a candle. Take a walk. Text the person you “aren’t mad at.” Grow a little. Olivia Dean already did.
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References & Further Reading
Olivia Dean interviews discussing The Art of Loving era (NME, 2025).
Album review coverage in Pitchfork (2025).
Feature profile in The Guardian arts section (2025).
Rolling Stone UK spotlight on rising British soul artists (2025).
BBC Radio 1 interview segments promoting The Art of Loving.