I was at a friend's place once, brunch get together, and they had a pre-arranged playlist going on the speaker, which, great. This must have been late 2017, as I was already getting pretty sick of hearing "Shape of You" on the radio all the time, and here it was again over the speaker. I saunter over to take a look at what's upcoming and see the playlist is all Ed Sheeran songs. That's an interesting choice, I thought.
The oversaturation of Sheeran, from "Shape of You" to that episode of Game of Thrones, put a bad taste in my mouth about the guy. I recognize that's a little unfair. I have this friend/acquaintance who annoys me pretty often (don't worry, he's not on the blog... yet). Sometimes he does things that just seem like obviously off base. Like, why would you start the album rapping? Why do any rapping? Why are half of these lyrics brain dead? Why can't I understand half of what he's saying despite it all being English?
The real challenge is recognizing that it's a me-problem. All the "hii-YAs" and "oooh-waas" have their charm, ish. You can squint at some of these themes and see some universalities. Listening to tracks beyond the two or three mega provides a little pallet cleansing. But there he goes rapping again with the Irish song, which feels offensive, somehow. Sheeran can carry a certain pop melody and play his voice across a few different styles. He's certainly not going to enter my regular listening rotation, but I guess I'm less mad at the guy after a week, so there's that.
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