Ed Sheeran

=

He's not chasing trends, he's making music for people who have aged out of the clubs but have yet to wallow in nostalgia.

On the whole, where ÷ was a largely external record, with Sheeran acting as a sharp conduit for vivid stories, = is an internal record, with Sheeran —  gladly —  pivoting to face himself and his new life.

= is an album of foregone conclusions: everything from multi-platinum success to the accompanying backlash feels preordained. For all the negative words that might sometimes cut deep, you get the feeling Sheeran might have quietly come to an accommodation with things as they are.

= is an album of foregone conclusions: everything from multi-platinum success to the accompanying backlash feels preordained.

Much of = ditches the folk-pop of his first album for choruses meant to incite cell-phone-lit sing-alongs in baseball parks.

Unashamedly broad, it can lack detail and punch; yet ‘=’ has something about it that is difficult to shrug off, while being hard to truly relate to.

He’s clearly well aware that fans tend to fall for what sounds familiar, so he skilfully – surreptitiously, perhaps – weaves in the signatures of better songs ... When he’s not doing that, though ... he has a perfectly good pop album on his hands. Equation solved.

He’s the unglamorous everybloke who conquered the world and moved back to his home town, but settling down clearly doesn’t mean giving up on superstardom. Everything about the = sound is calculated to keep him on top for a long while yet.

On paper, clocking in at nearly forty-nine minutes, you would think that = is going to be this big experience; in reality, all its length will do is have people picking out a handful of their favourite songs from it, and the rest they will callously throw away.