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“Nice To Each Other” by Olivia Dean is the perfect depiction of a “give and take” relationship. This is the first single released from her upcoming sophomore album, The Art Of Loving. It is both beautiful and painful in her efforts to describe wanting someone without losing oneself in them.
Give and Take
The outline of this song is based on several different contrasts. For instance, there is a contrast between meeting points. She asks her partner to “meet her on the mountaintop,” but then immediately says that she will be in the “shallow end.” In this relationship that Dean is describing to us, neither party seems to no for sure what they want. The only thing they do know is that they want to be together, but are unsure whether they are good for each other.
At the same time, this song also has this underlying theme of not wanting to be bogged down in the clichés of romance. So, by taking this risk of rejecting the traditional, Dean and her partner are risking not knowing if they are able to meet in the middle, and ultimately be “nice to each other.”
Building Foundations
I think that this music video is actually pretty ingenious. What we see is Dean in the middle of a film set with a completely blank background. There is absolutely nothing around her. What begins to happen is that the film crew starts putting set pieces into place. All the while, Dean is trying to act out her scenes without having any solid foundation to stand on, which doesn’t really work out. It goes through all the cliché scenes that you would see in a romance movie. There is a balcony set and a park bench set, and I think this is meant to reflect exactly what she hopes to avoid.
What I think Dean is trying to do here is show that, to an extent, without a solid foundation to base your relationship on, it is hard to act accordingly. You don’t know how to truly be around this person because you know nothing about them, just like Dean can’t properly act out these scenes, because she is not used to the set that is constantly changing around her. At the same time, I also think this is exactly what she wants. She wants to rush love in a sense.
Melodic Trance
My favorite part about this song has to be the voice that Olivia Dean has. She sounds both interested, but also disinterested, which, to me, adds this extra layer of tension in the relationship she is describing to us. The mellow beat that accompanies her on this song gives it this comforting feel, which is what love is supposed to be.
It Could Be Nice to Listen to More
The next thing on the horizon for Olivia Dean, as I said earlier, is the release of her next album, The Art Of Loving. She has multiple singles from the album out that are all worth listening to. When you get the chance, make sure to listen to more Olivia Dean!
