![]() I wanted something you could open with in a stadium that was huge, but, at the same time, tiny. I wanted to do that again, but I didn’t really want to rap this time. “I had ‘Eraser’ on ÷, which was me summing up the last few years and letting people know where I was. But you should listen the way it’s intended to be listened to at least once.” And as you do that, read Sheeran’s intimate track-by-track guide to the album here. Put songs on a playlist, put the album on shuffle-whatever you want. “I don’t care what you do after your first listen. “Please just listen to it once in order, that’s all I ask,” he says. And he has just one request before you press play. All tied together by bare-skinned songwriting, = is Sheeran’s most personal, moving record to date. There’s ’80s-inspired pop (the gargantuan “Bad Habits”), sad bangers (“Overpass Graffiti”), a cinematic piano ballad (“The Joker and the Queen”), and even a child’s lullaby, written for his daughter (“Sandman”). You’ll find tracks from that time here (“First Times,” “Love in Slow Motion”), but-with Sheeran restlessly writing and recording right up until its release-= is a typically eclectic record from an artist who has always delighted in confounding expectations. “It’s stuff that really has meant a lot to me.” The follow-up to 2017’s all-conquering ÷ was originally conceived as an acoustic record, with Sheeran setting up in Nashville way back in 2018 to work. ![]() One of the most essential debuts of the 2010s, + established Sheeran’s ear for melody, as well as his knack for communicating with his audience-two traits that would power the singer-songwriter’s career in the years ahead.“The theme of the record is me turning 30, becoming a dad, losing a friend, trying to balance work and marriage,” Ed Sheeran tells Apple Music of his fourth full-length LP, =. There’s an earnest quality to these tracks, which tackle alcoholism, the music industry and lost loves-all of it imbued with a directness stemming from the simple combination of Sheeran and his acoustic guitar. But there’s no denying the fact that many have become staples of an era-after all, this is the album that delivered such hits as “The A Team”, “Drunk”, “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” and “Lego House”. ![]() In the scheme of Sheeran’s career, some of the tracks on + now feel a little insipid. Produced and written by Sheeran, with help from Jake Gosling-who’s also worked with the likes of One Direction and Lady Gaga-this is an album of simple but affecting pop music, one that wears its vernacular Britishness and youthfulness on its sleeve: A breakup song about Sheeran’s ex starting her undergraduate degree while he’s on the road is titled “U.N.I.”-a reference to “you and I”, of course, but also “uni”. So when Sheeran’s debut album, +, arrived in 2011-the same year he turned 20-it was perhaps not surprising that his voice was occasionally imbued with the flexible elasticity of rap delivery, his soft vocals often bouncing between a bounding quick pace and a slower, more deliberate troubadour style. 5 Collaborations Project, a collection that brought together Sheeran’s folk-adjacent acoustic pop with his love of rap, featuring some of the UK’s premier grime MCs (including Jme, Wiley and P Money). Those early releases notably included 2011’s No. ![]() After learning guitar from the age of 11, the British singer-songwriter independently put out five EPs, garnering him a sizeable and wide-ranging fanbase in the UK. Ed Sheeran’s appeal has always stemmed from the authenticity his music exudes.
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