British singer-songwriter Olivia Dean debuted on Saturday Night Live by performing two songs from her second studio album, The Art of Loving, which came out in September.
Dean, who was just nominated for Best New Artist at next year’s Grammys, led off with “Man I Need.”
The song “is about knowing how you deserve to be loved and not being afraid to ask for it,” Dean said in statement upon its release earlier this year. “It’s forward, sexy, fun! It’s made for dancing!”
Dean wrote “Man I Need” with Zach Nahome and Tobias Jesso Jr., the winner of the 2023 Grammy for Songwriter of the Year. He is nominated for that award again this year.
Dean’s second performance was of “Let Alone the One You Love,” the sixth track off her latest album.
“We made most of this album in a studio we built in a house in East London,” the 26-year-old wrote on Instagram teasing it. “For 8 weeks we lived in the house of loving! I brought my piano from home and all my favourite people and tried to create things that felt like warmth. Here you have a piece of my heart!”
The Art of Loving has been widely praised.
“Dean’s star power is radiant and fueled by more than just charisma. She grooves in perfect time with an expertly assembled band, navigating through blaring trumpets, trombones, and saxophones with a delicate attention to detail and synchronicity,” Rolling Stone‘s Larisha Paul wrote in a review of the follow-up to 2023’s Messy.
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On Friday, Dean announced dates for her 14-city The Art of Loving tour, which begins next July in San Francisco, California. She’ll work her way to the east coast before wrapping up in Austin, Texas in late August.
In the last few weeks, Dean was the opener on Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour. Before that, she opened for Sam Fender’s People Watching tour, having previously collaborated with Fender on the single “Rein Me In.”
