Vol. 2: The Art of Loving by Olivia Dean
I have never been so in love with an album’s lyrical content that I did not pay much attention to the production of the album until much later. The Art of Loving by Olivia Dean did that for me, though. Dean has a relatable yet complex way of expressing love in all its iterations that completely consumed me. It is intimate yet universal, all-encompassing yet specific. This dichotomy also carries over into its wonderful music production elements, giving us as listeners plenty of ear candy. The Art of Loving takes us through stages of love while utilizing space and layering to create a synergy between the production and the lyrics. Close Up, Loud, and A Couple Minutes will be examined further to explain this.
Close Up
Olivia Dean and her team of producers play with mix depth and sound layers. The producers on this song are Dean, Zach Nahome, John Ryan, Julian Bunetta, Matt Zara, Bastian Langebæk, and Wolfgang Zimmerman. The song starts with just piano, but the texture soon thickens, like a gumbo stewed low and slow. String pads and low-end support slip into this stew. By the pre-chorus, drums and bass add to deepen the depth of flavor, and by the time we reach the chorus, we are enveloped in the sound. Muted guitar melodies, flutter-like guitar picking, punctuated horn lines farther back in the mix, soft guitar strums all acting as splashes of broth as we bring this gumbo to a boil. Then it simmers down as we enter verse two— a hallmark of classic R&B songs.
The mix depth and placement are something very reminiscent of the Motown Sound. When I hear this song, I am reminded of Smoky Robinson and the Miracles’ version of My Girl. The horns and strings both add texture to the songs in similar fashions. There’s even a low and distorted organ sound that comes up a few times throughout this song, but is especially noticeable at times where Dean’s lyrics reflect that same distortion and uncertainty. Around 1:15 in the second verse, this sound enters the mix as she sings, “You’re treating me like I’m one of the rest / I feel stupid for wearing that dress / Yeah, I guess I saw something you didn’t.” From what she describes in the lyrics, she is with a lover after time apart, but the rendezvous is flooded with ambiguity and perhaps even disregard. This lovely example of text painting is due to the lyrics working with the layers of the song in a compelling way.
Loud
Loud is a masterclass in how to fill up a song without a full rhythm section. It was produced and arranged by Olivia Dean, Rosie Danvers, Tommy Danvers, Zach Nahome, Bastian Langebæk, and Wolfgang Zimmerman. The hard panning of the guitar picking, almost all the way left in this song, took me by surprise initially. Yet the way layers are placed in the mix gives the song depth. All the layers come to a climax in the second chorus, one of my favorite voices being the electric bass from 2:22 until 2:35. I am an absolute sucker for anyone who can make the bass sing. I believe that in another life I must have been a bass player because, outside of saxophone, it is the instrument I am drawn to most.
This song is almost exclusively string instruments, and for each line, melody, and instrument to have its own distinct space in the mix is no small feat to accomplish with such similar-sounding instruments. And to know that the take on the album is the final take she sang in the room with the string players makes it that much more impressive. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that recording session.
I would be remiss if I did not stress the beautiful examples of text painting in this song. The first one appears at 1:08 when Dean sings, “The silence is so loud.” All the layers pause in silence as she sings “loud” and the subsequent few beats after that. Furthermore, at 2:35, the texture changes drastically as she sings, “Here I am, two hands at the piano / The one I let you play.” The texture becomes— you guessed it— two-hand piano playing and voice. Not only is this a callback to when it was “four hands at the piano,” to show the difference before and after this person left Dean’s life, but the rhyme scheme of this outro is also the same as the one Dean crafted in the opening lines of the song. The intentionality Olivia Dean puts into each second of her album is an act of devotion and love that I try to embody in my own creative endeavors.
A Couple Minutes
The producers on A Couple Minutes are Dean, James Hawkins, Nahome, Louis Ragland, and Michael Stafford. I can tell the producers of The Art of Loving take influences from classic R&B of the 1970s. The melodic bass line, the backbeat, the role of the guitar— it all stems from that “Motown Sound.” And the producers rarely waste space on this record. The reverb on Olivia Dean’s voice has such a full yet succinct tail to it. The reverb itself is used as a layer and tool of production within this song and many others on the album.
Dean’s lyrics are really able to breathe and shine because of the production of A Couple Minutes. The bass, guitar, and drums often all play this walk-up to the IV chord together. It builds continuity and something steady so that listeners are drawn to the message being conveyed in Dean’s introspective lyrics. “Love’s never wasted when it’s shared,” is a line of the chorus that sticks out to me. Even if love has come and gone, it was never for nothing; we learn so much from loving if we take the time to acknowledge it.
I’ve Seen It
This album is clearly an act of devotion. Inspired by Bell Hooks’ All About Love, Olivia Dean spoke on themes of love in all its capacities. That love seeped into every chord, every lyric. And she has seen it— the effects of love and intentionality on a global stage. Dean won Best New Artist at the Grammys and Album of the Year at the Brit Awards for the Art of Loving. And more than anything, it seems she has experienced love at a deeper level because of this project. And as artists, as living beings, that is the pinnacle of our existence. “The more you look, the more you find it’s all around you all the time.” These are some of the last lyrics of the project. Olivia Dean reminds us that love is everywhere if we look. The same can be said for the intentional production of The Art of Loving.
What melodies and text painting stood out to you on this project? Let me know in the comments!