Olivia Dean forced herself to embrace chaos.
By nature, the 24-year-old Brit School graduate is a perfectionist. Her guiding principle: “If you don't love it, don't do it.”
As an aspiring musician, that approach paid off.
Her throwback pop-soul sound and pillowy, jazz-toned vocals were so compelling that she sold out a European tour, gained two million Spotify followers and became a Chanel ambassador before she'd even released an album.
Then, she started to worry she'd set the bar too high.
“When it came to my debut album, I put real pressure on myself for it to be brilliant,” she says.
“It was so crippling. I couldn't write anything unless it was perfect.
“It was only when I allowed myself to relax and be messy that I started making good things.”
Letting go became a theme of the album: letting go of expectations, of uncertainty, of youthful heartbreak. Dean stretched herself as a songwriter, putting a modern spin on Motown in Dive; and creating an atmosphere of alien disconnection on the heavily-vocodered UFO.
Released on the same weekend she made her Glastonbury debut, it went on to be nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Now, the 24-year-old has been named runner-up in BBC Radio 1's Sound Of 2024.
“It's bizarre to me,” she says. “When I try to process this year, I'm aware that I made an album that I love, but all the other stuff? I dreamt about being nominated for a Mercury Prize, I dreamt of being on the Sound Of poll.
“It's bizarre. It's bizarre. That's the only word.”
Born and raised in Highams Park, north-east London, Dean knew she wanted to be a singer from an early age.
From a distance, she'd watched her cousin – So Solid Crew rapper and actor Ashley Walters – top the charts; but it was another Londoner who really inspired her.
“People always try and say something cool when they talk about their first record – but I remember my Granny taking me to Woolworths to buy Leona Lewis's A Moment Like This on CD single,” she says.
“My head was really in that pop space, I was listening to Leona and JLS and loving it.”
— CutC by bbc.com
