Ugly is Beautiful is Oliver Tree’s debut album. The album deals with themes of being treated differently and not fitting in, while also exploring self-acceptance and seeing yourself as beautiful no matter your flaws. Tree had hinted at the album since December 2018, shortly after the release of “Hurt”, by singing unreleased songs at concerts.

Tree’s usage of the phrase “Ugly is Beautiful” stems from when he was going on a tour with the same name.

Tree confirmed the album along with the cover art on December 6th, 2019, the same date the first confirmed single on the album was released, “Cash Machine”.

On March 25th, Tree delayed the album, jokingly saying it was due to the COVID-19 pandemic and claiming that he hopes to release it in 5-10 years and is now going into retirement.

On March 28th, Sebastian Hackett, a sound engineer for Tree, said that Tree wanted to put in additional content for Ugly is Beautiful due to recent circumstances.

On April 3rd, it was found out that the song “Let Me Down” was leaked on Korean music streaming site Navar Music since April 1st. Reddit user u/aldidas soon uploaded the high quality, full version onto the r/olivertree subreddit.

On April 7th, Oliver Tree officially released “Let Me Down” on streaming services, and in the description of the YouTube video, jokingly claimed that he had canceled Ugly is Beautiful due to coronavirus.

On May 19th, 2020, an image was posted on Oliver Tree’s Instagram showing the official album art, shortly after a livestream showing Oliver “held hostage”. The post claimed that Oliver’s email had been hacked and that the official album artwork had been discovered, and that at 100,000 comments, the release date for the album would be announced. The post hit the 100,000 comment milestone in less than 20 minutes. The post was updated shortly after asking for 250,000 comments instead, then 500,000, and finally 1,000,000.

All of these goals were reached, leading to Oliver Tree continuously editing the caption of the post, counting down until the announcement of the release date. After reaching 0, another post was made, with a video akin to the livestream (featuring Oliver Tree being held hostage). This video stated that Ugly is Beautiful is being released June 12th, 2020.

Another goal was posted, asking for 2,000,000 comments in order to release a new song and video. On May 25, 2020, the post finally hit 2,000,000, and Oliver promised a new single and video to be released the following day. Shortly after the announcement, fans were able to discover that the single was “Bury Me Alive.” Fans were also able to pre-save the album to Apple Music and Spotify. Following the single and video’s release, new merchandise, as well as pre-orders for iTunes, Deezer, and Amazon Music, were released.

On June 8, 2020, less than 3 days before the album’s release, Oliver issued a statement that the album would once again be delayed to July 17, 2020, due to the #BlackLivesMatter protests.

There’s nobody who wanted “Ugly is Beautiful” to come out more than me, but now is not the right time. I know you guys worked hard for the date so I’m not going to make you work for it again…

On July 13th, 2020, Tree posted a snippet of an unreleased song. YouTube user, Harrison G, realized that when he uploaded it to YouTube, it got copyright claimed as “Jerk.”

On July 14th, 2020, 3 days before the album was supposed to release, Reddit user u/Enframed was able to find a leaked tracklist through the Google Play Store, with 2 unknown songs on it, “Me, Myself & I” and “1993.” The latter featuring Lil Ricky ZR3. With more digging, they were able to find Lil Ricky ZR3’s Instagram account, where it said they worked at “Alien Boy Films,” a film production company that seems to have been named after one of Tree’s most popular songs, Alien Boy.

On July 15th, somebody in the r/olivertree subreddit leaked the album early, somehow getting promo copies of the album.

On July 17th, Tree officially released Ugly Is Beautiful, to great fanfare, getting #3 on the iTunes chart in the first 24 hours.