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 recognizable references and down-to-earth imagery. It might be ‘Shivers.’ You might feel happy and write a love song that people can dance to, but it is actual life, it’s actual emotions.Ed Sheeran’s 2011 debut album, +, introduced the world to an unassuming pop star. “Music is what you’re going through at that time. It’s inspired songs whose intimacy brings us closer than we’ve ever been to one of the world’s biggest pop stars. “Aaron sent me seven instrumentals one day and I sent them all back in two and a half hours.” “I didn’t think anything: The first thing that came out, I wrote down, and then I moved on and moved on to the next one,” says Sheeran. Dessner passed musical ideas to Sheeran, who would build on them with a near-stream-of-consciousness spontaneity. If - marks a return to Sheeran’s acoustic singer-songwriter origins, it was made in a way that felt fresh. Pianos and guitar forge aching melodies, while background strings and electronics provide a gauze for Sheeran to embroider his reflections upon. Sheeran worked with The National’s Aaron Dessner on the recommendation of friend Taylor Swift (who collaborated with Dessner across her folklore, evermore, and Midnights albums), and they’ve conjured arrangements that are spare and delicate. I think it’s my most uncomfortable record.” It’s right, then, that the music never overwhelms or shrouds a singer at his most raw and vulnerable. I hate it when artists go, ‘It’s my most personal record yet,’ because I feel like each record I put out is super personal. “And I feel like this record is definitely the most human that I’ve been. “This is stuff that I’m still going through, I’m still processing,” he says. Sheeran’s explored his experiences with anxiety and depression in songs before, but rarely with such unshrinking openness. Let's listen to…’ There is a switch that you can flip you go into dad mode, like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it!’ ’Cause I don’t want my daughters ever feeling that I'm like that. And then waking up in the morning at six to your daughter being like, ‘Hey, let's eat porridge. “I’d cry myself to sleep after spending hours and hours at Jamal’s mural. “The thing about grieving or even anxiety about Cherry's health or feeling depressed, none of that matters with your kids,” he says. Piano ballad “No Strings” salutes the galvanizing strength of his love for Seaborn, and fatherhood brings light and warmth in on “Dusty,” where he recounts playing favorite albums for his young daughter. However, optimism and fortitude flood through as he looks to his family. On “Eyes Closed,” Sheeran’s isolated and unfastened by Edwards’ sudden passing, before “Sycamore” places us in a doctor’s waiting room as Sheeran and his pregnant wife Cherry Seaborn steel themselves for news about her tumor diagnosis. There are passages of arresting sadness here. It’s not a switch that you can just go, ‘Now I feel fine.’ It’s something that is constantly there and it’s either here or it’s here or it’s here.” “Everyone you ever speak to, they go, ‘I’m doing so much better now.’ And I don't believe them, because I don’t anyone at any point is just fixed. “I find this a lot when my friends are going through things,” he says. It’s not a simple outpouring, though these are songs that attempt to process events, the work of a songwriter who’s learned that trauma and anxiety are not obstacles to overcome and bury, but experiences that you absorb, live with, and, hopefully, draw strength from. I feel like, if I want to cry, I can cry.” I don’t want to, I don’t feel like I have to. I will never, ever, ever get over Jamal dying at 31. “‘Boat’ is about resilience: ‘I know that I’m never going to be all right, but whatever waves come, I’m going to remain floating.’ Your life can fit around grief. About 40 seconds into opening track “Boat,” he sings, “They say that all scars will heal but I know/Maybe I won’t/But the waves won't break my boat.” Written in the wake of-and during-deeply challenging times, - is “an album about grief and depression and stuff,” as Sheeran tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. It doesn’t take long for Ed Sheeran to reveal the heart of his sixth album.
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