Like an Alien
Olivia Devine walks through abandoned Hollywood streets in an astronaut suit, fantasizing about killing her peers, feeling like she’s from another planet. It sounds conceptual when you describe it, but it’s the literal emotional shape of her experience—present and completely alienated at once, watching your age group move forward while you’re watching from outside. She made it into a short film to go with her Peer Pressure mixtape.
Her real name is Olivia, but a porn star claimed it already, so she’s L Devine. British, from Whitley Bay, recently dropped tracks like Peer Pressure
and Nervous
that don’t bother disguising what they’re about: the confusion and loneliness of being twenty-one and completely out of place. Most pop artists perform alienation. She just shows it.
She caught radio attention early—Zane Lowe and BBC Radio 1—and you can see why. There’s something rare about an artist who doesn’t hide behind production or persona. She’s just thinking out loud about what it feels like to grow up displaced from yourself. If you’re in that same headspace—and most people are at some point—you recognize it immediately. The music’s already working.