Math is over. Just a few days ago, Ed Sheeran completed his basic role tour. Entertaining shows were that sheeran showed his trick: to bring pub folk to the arena, in the style of a haircut refuser in normally cut jeans. Now a new era begins, Sheeran starts an album series with symbols of audiovisual player. It starts with Play, Rewind is ready and should follow soon. The Sheeran’s logic corresponds to the fact that there will also be Forward and Record. If his last albums were inconspicuous, he returns to great pop.
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The story: The past few years have been shit, a good friend died, his wife received a cancer diagnosis during pregnancy. The British say “Rock Bottom”: it couldn’t be deeper. Play is the soundtrack for the way up. The first song “Opening” provides the instructions for this, in the middle there is a rap part, first you consider who the feature guest could be to notice: This is Sheeran itself. After that, Play offers motivational radiopop with global influences. A little latin, Indian tablas, routine blue-eye-soul.
The melancholy moments get stuck. “Old Phone” discovers the cell phone as a nostalgie machine, “Camera” celebrates the snapshots of life, “in other Words” is the light of lights that Coldplay can no longer get. The Extended Play version offers 18 pieces in an hour at the streaming services, and in the last third, Sheeran dares to do something again. “Problems” is – really true – a piece between The National and Juanes. “War Games” time criticism in the pop sound of the nineties, “Regrets” a thoughtful rap story that Mike Skinner could no longer get better.
This review first appeared in the MusikExpress 11/2025.