As he points out on the opening track of Play, Ed Sheeran has now been around a long time. It’s 20 years since he self-released his debut album and 14 since he signed to a major label and set about becoming the most commercially successful British artist of his age: long enough that we’re now seeing the appearance of pop stars who claim him as a formative influence. (Singer-songwriter Myles Smith, who was just into his teens when Sheeran released his breakthrough album +, even plays one of those little acoustic guitars that have long been Sheeran’s trademark.) It’s certainly long enough that anyone with even a passing interest knows what to expect when Ed Sheeran releases a new album.
Sheeran’s success is based on a certain dependability: it doesn’t seem to matter who he works with – Pharrell Williams, Eric Clapton, Eminem, the National’s Aaron Dessner – the results always somehow sound exactly like Ed Sheeran. Whether you see that as evidence of a melodic signature so strong it rings out regardless of the musical setting or a failure of artistic imagination depends on whether you’re among those who contributed to his cumulative sales figures of 200m, or part of the vociferous cadre who view him as the embodiment of all that’s wrong with music. The latter camp gets a shout-out on Play’s prosaically titled opening track Opening, essentially an older, more battered counterpart to You Need Me, I Don’t Need You, the 2011 track that bullishly asserted his bona fides: “Not the pop star they say they prefer,” Sheeran raps.
