Mr. Ed Sheeran, the music man we Irish folk like to claim as one of our own. Ed followed the rite of passage for many Irish musicians busking on the streets of Galway at the age of 14. Honestly, the British have stolen enough of our celebrities so why can’t we take one of theirs? I mean they even tried to take Conor McGregor (seriously BBC he’s a walking tricolour).
Photography by Laura McKenna - Ed performing in secret Whelans Gig in 2015
Rising from the world of no media, Ed Sheeran returned from the Stone Age on New Year's Eve announcing on Snapchat the release of his two new singles taken from his third album ‘Divided’. The internet went into meltdown. Deprived of Ed for an entire year, people began to question the reasons for his disappearance. Some thought it was just a ploy to create a hype for the release of his next album.
Although for a man who previously sold over 10 million copies of his second album ‘Multiply’ I don’t think he needed to promote himself.
However, the evolution of Ed is an interesting one. Listening to the first single that catapulted him to fame ‘The A Team’ and his latest single ‘Castle on The Hill’ not much has changed. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the hypnotising vocals produced by the blaze haired songwriter, but there hasn’t been a huge development in his music. In both singles, the main melody is on guitar, there’s a strong beat throughout and there’s a similar style of singing. While the chord progressions in ‘Castle on The Hill’ are a bit more intricate, both songs centre around the chords G, D and A. You can argue that his beatbox style of singing is a development but we can see this on his first album in ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’.
Advertisement
The songs on Sheeran’s two albums are quite similar in style and despite this, people are still mesmerised by him. He never suffered the same criticising words from the public that Mumford and Sons did when they released their second album. People complained that the songs were the same as their first album, that they never changed in style. If the new singles are anything to go by, Ed’s third album will have a similar style to the previous ones. So why are people still invested in his music?
Ed Sheeran’s unique style of singing and beatboxing, mixing various genres of acoustic pop, folk and hip-hop has attracted thousands. Fans have become attracted to his down to earth personality and have invested in his music as a whole new genre. Therefore there’s no need for him to create a huge diversity in his music because his music is a style only he has created. (sounds like I’ve just solved a mathematical theorem)
For a man who started his career without a record label to becoming a music icon selling out stadiums to sing to thousands, he’s come a long way for a busking songwriter from Ireland… I mean England!
