![]() ![]() “They just come and go,” Sheeran says, smiling. He gets a full verse in, melody and all, then pauses. There’s a lovely moment a little ways into Apple Music’s Songwriter documentary about Ed Sheeran in which Sheeran, jet-lagged and carrying a cup of tea, straggles out into a yard in Malibu at dawn, sits down at his laptop and begins writing a song about the moment right in front of him: the crisp air, the birdsong, the hot tea, the day ahead. But it was x that first hinted at an artist willing to test the limits of what people expected from him. The album’s amalgam of adventurous and innovative musicianship with crowd-pleasing reliability now feel synonymous with Sheeran’s music. Sheeran doesn’t abandon his duties as a swooning balladeer, of course: “Photograph” is an aching meditation on the realities of a long-distant relationship, “Tenerife Sea” is a sensuous ode to a lover and “Thinking Out Loud” remains Sheeran’s most romantic song, forever destined to soundtrack first dances at weddings. Elsewhere on x, he’s seduced by the allure of hedonism (“Bloodstream”) and forced to confront familial trauma-which he does with empowered sassiness (“Runaway”). Such subversion is repeated on “Don’t”, which finds Sheeran taking aim at an adulterous ex-flame, and “The Man”, which is Sheeran at his most bitter. ![]() Then he slides into a seductive falsetto for the chorus: “If you love me/Come on, get involved.” “I want you to be mine, lady/And to hold your body close,” Sheeran spits on the verse, sounding like a tequila-soaked playboy. Producer Pharrell Williams draws Sheeran away from his nice-guy persona, adding snapping beats, sonar-like electronics and a grooving rhythm guitar. But peel back Sheeran’s modest take on pop, and there’s a quietly experimental thread running through the record-best evidenced on the wanton lead single, “Sing”. That approachability is maintained on x, his 2014 follow-up. He was dressing for comfort as a result, he sometimes looked like he’d wandered onto stage by accident. Even when + began selling millions of copies, Sheeran was still showing up at gigs wearing a lumberjack shirt, loose-fitting jeans and chunky sneakers. ![]() Sheeran came across as the guy you saw perform at an open mic night, and felt compelled to buy a drink for afterwards-mainly because he was that guy. Sheeran, who cut his teeth sofa-surfing and playing gigs in pubs, was a relatable everyman: His tunes combined singer-songwriter melodies with slippery hip-hop rhythms, and his lyrics were imbued with recognisable references and down-to-earth imagery. Ed Sheeran’s 2011 debut album, +, introduced the world to an unassuming pop star. ![]()
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