Ed Sheeran

About Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran went from busking on the streets of London to becoming one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, which sounds like the setup to a feel-good movie but actually happened. The Suffolk-born singer-songwriter spent years playing tiny venues and sleeping on couches before his independently released EPs caught attention around 2010. He was doing the whole loop pedal thing before everyone and their cousin had one, building entire songs live with just his voice and acoustic guitar.

His 2011 debut album, Plus, made it clear he wasn't going away. The Atlantis-penned "The A Team" became an unlikely hit, a somber song about addiction that somehow connected with radio programmers. Suddenly this ginger guy with an acoustic guitar was everywhere. The album also featured "Lego House," which showed off his knack for turning simple metaphors into earworms that lodged in your brain for weeks.

Multiply dropped in 2014 and turned him from successful to inescapable. "Thinking Out Loud" did numbers that don't make sense, winning a Grammy for Song of the Year and becoming one of those wedding first-dance songs that will outlive us all. "Photograph" had a similar trajectory. The album sold millions, and Sheeran started playing stadium shows, which felt weird for a guy who built his reputation in 200-capacity rooms.

Then came Divide in 2017, which might have been peak Sheeran saturation. "Shape of You" topped charts in something like 34 countries and became the most-streamed song on Spotify at the time. "Castle on the Hill" dropped the same day, a more nostalgic, Bruce Springsteen-influenced track that showed he could do more than bedroom ballads. "Perfect" became another wedding staple, later getting a Beyoncé remix because why not.

He took a break after Divide's tour cycle, deleting his social media and stepping back in a way that felt almost quaint for someone at that level. When he returned with Equals in 2021, "Bad Habits" and "Shivers" showed he'd leaned harder into pop production, working with people like Fred Again and Johnny McDaid. The songs were slicker, more dance-influenced, though still unmistakably him.

His 2023 album Subtract was a hard left turn, stripped back and dealing with heavy stuff like loss and grief following the death of his friend and the health struggles of his wife. It felt like he was reminding people he could still do vulnerable and raw, not just arena-sized hooks.

Sheeran's now at a point where he's sold over 150 million records and can basically do whatever he wants. He collaborates with everyone from Taylor Swift to Eminem, still tours relentlessly, and somehow maintains this everyman persona despite being absurdly famous. Whether you find him endearing or overplayed probably depends on how many weddings you've been to lately.

Ed's shows are weirdly intimate even in massive venues. He'll loop-build songs live and people go quiet to watch it happen. The crowd knows every word to everything. There's singing along but not moshing. Mostly just people standing there recognizing themselves in the songs.

Known for Shape of You, Thinking Out Loud, Perfect, Castle on the Hill, Shivers

See Ed Sheeran Live