NME’s latest star of The Cover, Flowerovlove, has created an exclusive playlist to accompany the story’s launch – check it out below.
The rising British pop star is on this week’s (April 13) edition of The Cover, a manifestation of NME’s commitment to supporting emerging talent across the globe on a weekly basis. Every week, a rising artist will feature on The Cover – you can read Flowerovlove’s profile here, written by Crystal Bell and featuring photography by Emily White.
Alongside her The Cover story, Flowerovlove has curated an exclusive playlist, titled ‘My Ears Adore’. The selection includes cuts from pop and R&B stars across generations, including Donna Summer, Jeff Buckley, Solange and more. Listen to the full playlist on Spotify below and on Apple Music.
In her The Cover story, Flowerovlove speaks about capturing what it feels like to inhabit the lovergirl archetype right now. For a generation raised online, emotional vulnerability can feel both deeply desired and deeply uncool. Her music lives in that uncomfortable space of wanting to seem untouched yet also needing to be loved. “Everyone wants to be the cool girl. But I don’t think I’ve ever been that,” she says. “Love is the most beautiful thing we have. It’s universal. Everyone understands it.”
She laughs often throughout the conversation, sometimes interrupting herself mid-thought or groaning when she realises how earnest she sounds. But beneath the jokes, there is a seriousness to the way she thinks about emotion. She wants to be the kind of artist who says the embarrassing thing out loud. “I think people are scared of caring too much,” she muses. “Everyone wants to seem chill, but deep down, most people want love. They want someone to care about them.”
That emotional intensity is what makes Flowerovlove stand out in a generation more interested in detachment than devotion. On recent single ‘Casual Lady’, she captures one of the defining contradictions of modern dating: wanting to feel deeply while also wanting to seem untouched by those feelings. She wrote the song during a West Hollywood studio session where it emerged in real time from a conversation about how she is not “casual” by nature. “I was just like, I don’t do casual. But then I am also, like, a baddie.”
Read Flowerovlove’s full Cover story here and find out who else has been on The Cover here.
Every year, NME produces 50 Cover stories, showcasing the future of music via in-depth profiles and exclusive photoshoots. Check out our coffee table book NME The Cover 2024-2025, which features the likes of Kneecap, Lola Young, Amaarae, LE SSERAFIM, Oklou and many more.