Olivia Dean: Just Who We Need
If you were on Instagram in late-summer 2025, it didn’t take long to hear the retro-inspired, yet fresh, new sound from British pop/neo-soul singer, Olivia Dean. After hearing mere snippets, it was a must for me to start delving into Dean’s previous work and current promotional material to learn more about, and hear more from, this artist who exudes an authentic love for what she does. Here are just a few performances from Dean that prove she is exactly who we need in music, now, into 2026, and beyond.
Dive In
Appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2024, Dean and her band deliver a jazzier version of the track, “Dive,” from her 2023 debut album, Messy. Dean’s vocal showcases a maturity well beyond her years. Even how she performs is polished, particularly for someone so young; take note of how she gracefully uses her hands to sell some of the lyrics (“I’m a tidal wave of question marks, and you’re just surfing”; “Maybe it’s the magic in the wine”). And through her playful moves at the mic stand, and overall aura, she reminds you that she’s “feeling beautified.” Let this performance of “Dive” wash over you.
Spot(ify) On
The phrase, “breakout hit” definitely applies to Dean’s “Man I Need,” the catchy single that almost seems to be the audio equivalent of a strut. The flirty track captures the early stages of romantic interest, when one is wondering, and wanting to discover more, about the other. In the clip below, Dean and the guys perform at the Spotify Music Studios’ Live Room in Los Angeles, for an intimate performance, filled, in part, with Dean delivering the joy and excitement that comes with new love.
Nice and Easy (Listening)
With “Nice to Each Other,” there’s something about this song, perhaps it’s the pacing, the bass line, and/or the start of its second verse (“Meet me on the mountaintop/I’ll be in the shallow end”) that evoke a smooth Fleetwood Mac feel. In the below concert clip, Dean (channeling a bit of windblown, late ’70s-era Diana Ross and a tambourine-playing Stevie Nicks) performed the single at the Shepherds Bush Empire venue in London, to a crowd of fans singing along to every lyric, months before her second album, The Art of Loving, was released, solidifying that Dean’s popularity was rising quickly.
Safe to say: Dean is music’s newest superstar. (She really should just start picking out her GRAMMY-night dress.) Hope you enjoyed this sampling of clips that demonstrates Dean’s refreshing, and rare, ability to sound just as great live as she does on recordings. The Art of Loving is out now, and be sure to check out Dean’s newest single, and video for, the Bacharach/Warwick-inspired, “So Easy (To Fall In Love),” where she plays a modern-day cupid. To extend the Bacharach/Warwick connection: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” as well as the sweet sound of 2025’s best new artist, Olivia Dean.
Jenny Lewis Follows Her Bliss on “Austin City Limits”
With news of Jenny Lewis reuniting with her former band, Rilo Kiley for a North American tour, after a 17-year break, this got me to thinking about Lewis’ most-recent solo album, Joy’All, and her 2023 appearance on PBS’ “Austin City Limits” (ACL). Lewis was on the iconic music program to promote the album, which reflects her life during, and after, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the 30-minute airing, she and her band (Megan Coleman, Drums; Nicole Lawrence, Guitar; Jess Nolan, Keyboards and Vocals; Ryan Madora, Bass and Vocals) performed six songs. They opened with the title track, which despite the unsettling picture the opening verse paints confirms in the chorus Lewis’ shift to find the silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. (Yes, that was a Rilo Kiley reference in there.)
The poetic, picturesque, “Heads Gonna Roll,” from her 2019 album, On the Line, was next on the set list, followed by a pair of songs, “Cherry Baby” and “Psychos,” with a theme that fits right into Lewis’ lyrical wheelhouse: relationship disconnect. The last two performances, the empowering ode to singlehood, canine companionship, and life’s simple pleasures, “Puppy and a Truck” (“I ain’t got no kids/I ain’t got no roots/I’m an orphan/Catch me if you can/I’m lacing up my boots”) and the stream-of-consciousness, “Love Feel,” serve as the antidotes to the aforementioned angst.
As is customary after an artist’s televised performance, ACL includes interview footage, where Lewis summarized her perspective: “The older you get, you realize that with the good stuff you have to take all the other stuff as well, and it’s just the balance of the joy and the suffering… I just write through all of the things, the good times and the difficult times. You just write to all of it.”
Check out the performance of “Psychos,” where Lewis makes additional references to balance (“Jesus Christ and the devil/Yin and Yang”; “When you are up and down”; “Is it the ego, the id? Hello, goodbye”), as well as the cyclical nature of life (“It’s a merry-go-round”), that lyric now even more profound as Lewis embarks on that 24-date Rilo Kiley reunion tour. She’s taking her own advice: “Follow your joy’all.”
Well Played: A Review of Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well
When you dive into Kacey Musgraves’ lovely folk-country album, Deeper Well, you’ll likely discover the singer/songwriter secure, but searching. After love (captured on the masterpiece that is 2018’s Golden Hour) and loss (poured out on 2021’s star-crossed) come self-healing, (personal and professional) lessons learned, even a few unanswered questions, all reflected on 14 sonically soothing, acoustic-centered tracks, with Musgraves’ angelic voice at the heart (of the woods).
Here, Musgraves is at her earthiest. Throughout the album, she and her writing team have incorporated references to the natural world and its inhabitants, the seasons and the afterlife: With the opener, “Cardinal,” the scarlet-red bird is seen as a messenger “from the other side” (an expression Musgraves also adds to “Dinner with Friends”). She also asks: “Are you just watching and waiting for spring?” With “Too Good to be True,” Musgraves musters the courage to open herself up to that foreshadowed new beginning (“Summer’s gone, but you’re still here/For both of us, it’s been a year”), yet subsequently on “Moving Out,” cohabitation comes with challenges. She sings metaphorically, “That big tree in the front yard lost a limb,” and uses the season of autumn to signify the decay of that relationship, evidenced by the following track, “Giver/Taker” and its opening line: “Sundown and I’m lonely in this house.”
But it’s the title track, as well as “Sway” that document her quest for centeredness amid all the changes that life can bring “without a warning,” words expressed on “Too Good to be True” and similarly on “Cardinal.” Musgraves never pretends to have it all figured out; in fact, on “The Architect,” she paints a series of scenarios to convey a balance of curiosity and confusion about creation, and life on the planet, leading, once again, to confirm Musgraves’ knack for relatability through lyrical construction. By album’s end, “Nothing to be Scared of” finds her dipping her toes in the relationship waters once again. And if life and love ever get murky again, Musgraves now knows she can always go back to the well.
Photo 1: “Cardinal” music video, directed by Scott Cudmore; Photo 2 and 3: “My Saturn Has Returned” promo for Deeper Well (cinematographer: Mika Matinazad).