Olivia Dean opened August with two milestones. The British singer played her first United States festival in front of 97,000 people at Lollapalooza in Chicago, just days after her collaboration with Sam Fender set a new UK chart record.
Dean is known in Britain for songs including "Man I Need" and "So Easy (To Fall In Love)." Internationally, her most talked-about track is "Rein Me In," a collaboration with British artist Sam Fender that has now broken a record standing since 1953.
A record 19 weeks at number one
According to the UK singles chart, which tracks the country's most popular songs, "Rein Me In" by Fender and Dean spent 19 non-consecutive weeks at number one. That total broke the record held by Frankie Laine's "I Believe," which topped the chart in 1953, making the Fender-Dean track the longest-running number one in the chart's history.
The song began as a track on Fender's album "People Watching," which won the Mercury Prize, before becoming a full collaboration in which Dean added what the source described as her own touch. Fender, who is from North Shields, wrote on social media that he was without words and thanked Dean and fans for turning the song into the phenomenon it has become, adding that they had broken the UK record and calling them legends. Fellow musician Lewis Capaldi, a friend of Fender's, celebrated the achievement online, and the tally could keep climbing.
A duet performance in Chicago
To mark the achievement, Dean had a surprise ready for her Lollapalooza set. The festival ran in Chicago from July 30 to August 2, with performers including Zara Larsson, Tate McRae and Sienna Spiro alongside Dean. Dean wrote on social media that she had spent the entire previous day crying as she tried to process how she had reached that point, and thanked fans for sharing their affection and her team for making it possible for her to perform.
During the performance, Dean brought Fender on stage to perform the song together. She shared the moment on her Instagram stories with a message for her collaborator, saying she could not be more proud to be part of the song and calling him a legend.
Fender on writing the song
The track has been viral since its release. Fender previously wrote on social media that he had written "Rein Me In" five years earlier and never expected it to become a single, let alone one this big. He said the label had originally only sent Dean one song, but he asked them to send the whole album so she could choose, and she picked "Rein Me In" and made it her own. He said he was proud of what the song had become and believed its double narrative gave it an appeal it did not have before, thanking both old and new fans for shaping the track.
