Ed Sheeran is the man with a plan. So organised is he, in fact, that he had a full album schedule mapped out before the release of his 2011 debut, + (Plus), comprising EPs, collaborative projects, live tours… even a hiatus to save himself from burnout. Yet even he couldn’t have envisaged the events taking place this week, as he prepares to release his latest work. Ahead of – (Subtract), the final instalment in his maths-titled collection, the British singer-songwriter has been spending his time in a New York courthouse, defending himself against a copyright claim for the second time in as many years.
In what will come as an enormous relief to the 33-year-old, the jury decided that he did not plagiarise Marvin Gaye’s 1973 hit “Let’s Get It On” for his 2014 single “Thinking Out Loud”. If you believe Sheeran’s recent Rolling Stone cover, the Gaye verdict (delivered mere hours before his album was scheduled to drop) was the only one he cared about – he claimed during the interview that he didn’t see the point in critics. Yet in the same interview, he guessed that Subtract would receive his best reviews to date.
