British chart topper Ed Sheeran will release his next album this spring. When exactly and where will the journey go with it?
Ed SheeranIan West/PA Wire/dpa
When pop singers claim their new album is also their most personal, beware: the phrase has become a standard PR phrase on almost every record release. Apparently she caters to the public’s desire for authentic autobiography. Or what you might think.
In the case of the ballad boy next door, four-time Grammy winner Ed Sheeran, the claim can probably be believed. Because he has certainly been through a lot lately – as he also recorded in a (keyword: authenticity) handwritten, diary-like note that he photographed for his Twitter post. With this post he announced the new album on March 1st.
So what’s on Ed Sheeran’s mind? His pregnant wife was diagnosed with a tumor in early 2022, which could only be treated after the pregnancy. Just a few weeks later, his best friend Jamal Edwards died of a heart attack caused by a mix of alcohol and cocaine. On top of that, Ed Sheeran was on trial for plagiarism allegations. That music is a form of therapy might be a cliché, too, but for all the turmoil in Ed Sheeran’s life, I guess it’s fair to believe it this time. Lyrically, trauma, sparks of hope and catharsis are to be expected.
And how will it all sound? If you want to know, you should probably listen to the two Taylor Swift albums “Folklore” and “Evermore” (both 2020) first. Why? It was Taylor Swift who personally introduced Ed Sheeran to her co-producer of these two acoustically reduced albums. It’s Aaron Dessner, the melancholic indie rocker from The National. He has now also produced Ed Sheeran’s new album.
Incidentally, it will be released on May 5, 2023 by the Warner record company, where Ed Sheeran is under contract. It bears the typographically stylized title “–” (pronounced: “Subtract”), i.e. minus. And it should, according to Sheeran, seal the end of his so-called mathematical albums. We are talking about his records “+” (2011), “x” (2014), “÷” (2017) and “=” (2021). So, in the truest sense of the word, higher mathematics is no longer to be expected.