"Password Change": Olivia Dean
Production: Oli Bayston
Album: Okay Love You Bye EP
There is something intensely familiar about all of Olivia Dean's releases so far. This is not to say they lack originality - far from it, it is her casual conveyance of everyday life that makes her music fresh, understated, and extremely relatable.
The opening track of her debut EP encapsulates the commonplace. Her lyrics set the scene immediately - "I wanna talk but the football's on" - an unpretentious statement that establishes the song's themes without the needless, well-worn analogies that R&B singers seem to love (I'm looking at you Xavier Omär). Using the game to frame the misunderstandings shared between her and her boyfriend, along with football's encoded traits of emotionally stunted masculinity, Dean then plays with another household image, phones and passwords, to further explore ideas of guarding and intimacy.
It's a sweet, simple song, that only layers of wit and complexity can produce.