Olivia Dean once believed that creating pop music was uncool before her 2025 mega-hit Man I Need.
The BRIT School alumna – who earlier this year took home the Grammy for Best New Artist – resisted the idea of crafting chart-focused tunes until she chose to loosen up and take a chance.
She told The Wall Street Journal: “I used to have kind of a thing about pop music, like wanting to make pop music is lame. Maybe this is a bit too far, babe?”
Man I Need broke records on all sides, rising to No. 1 across Pop, Adult Pop and Adult R’n’B radio—the first track by a woman since Adele’s Hello to achieve that feat.
In 2025, Olivia emerged as the sole female solo artist to have four singles in the Official Charts UK Top 10 simultaneously.
The neo-soul pop star also secured the first trio of UK Top 10 singles by a British female artist since Adele. Man I Need also landed as the highest-charting UK song on Spotify’s Global Charts that year.
She went on to add yet another milestone, thanks to Man I Need (#2), So Easy (To Fall in Love) (#6), Nice To Each Other (#8) and her Sam Fender collaboration Rein Me In (#10).
The latter spent 22 weeks at number one, becoming the longest running number-one single in UK music history.
Olivia made history as the first solo British female artist to claim the No. 1 single and album simultaneously – with Man I Need and The Art of Loving – since Adele in 2021.
The album also scored the biggest opening week for a British female artist since Adele’s 30.
Elsewhere, Olivia recalled a surreal encounter with Stevie Wonder at the Grammys.
She shared: “I met Stevie Wonder the night before [the ceremony] and shook his hand, and he was singing along to Man I Need.”
“I was just like, OK, that’s the only thing I need for the rest of my life. If I ever read a comment where someone’s like, ‘She’s rubbish,’ well, Stevie Wonder said that I wasn’t.”
