Skip to main content

ALBUM REVIEW: "divide" by Ed Sheeran

   I should preface this review by saying that I have always admired what Ed Sheeran has done from a distance; he manages to sit amongst the pop charts with often nothing but him and his guitar, and is a breath of fresh air in the over saturated pop landscape. I guess I kind of find myself cheering when guitar driven music or singer-songwriter tunes make it up into the pop charts. Having said this, however, I have never considered myself to be an Ed Sheeran fan; once I have actually listened to his music by itself I have never been overly blown away by anything particularly.
   Divide definitely isn't Ed's worst album (it far surpasses X for me in a lot of areas), but unfortunately for the most part is falls back in to the shortcomings I have found in his previous work.
   For me I think my biggest problem is that I assume (or maybe wish) I am listening to a singer-songwriter album, and so I approach listening to Sheeran's music in the same way I would say a Tallest Man On Earth record or a Sun Kil Moon record. This leaves me wanting in a plethora of ways, because divide is essentially a pop album under the guise of folk music. There are moments on divide where Sheeran sheds this guise almost entirely - lead single "Shape Of You" is the best and most successful example of this - and it is then that his music seems to me to be the most complete and cohesive. There are other moments when he is completely buried in the singer-songwriter moniker, and these songs are equally as fully realised and complete in their sound ("Castle on the Hill" sounds like a more polished, sanitary Tallest Man On Earth track). But on divide Sheeran branches out into sonic landscapes somewhere in between these two worlds, most notably his increased use of rapping and hip hop influences. Whenever this begins to happen it pulls me right out of the track, and he seems to have decided to venture further into this side of his music on this record, pulling me further away.
   Lyrically, divide was like reading through a young teenage girl's Tumblr feed; there seemed to be a lack of any substance or weight to any of the things Sheeran is singing about, which is a shame because the lyrics were one of my favourite things about +. Every so often he sings (or raps) a particularly bad line that makes me seriously wonder how it got through the creative process unedited. The song "How Would You Feel" is the peak of everything cringeworthy, as is "Hearts Don't Break Around Here".
   I do think that Ed's music is at its best when he has decided whether he wants to be a singer songwriter or a pop star; either way he has the musical ability to write and perform some great tunes. But unfortunately for me too much of this album felt like it was lost in a kind of middle ground that doesn't really work for me.
   I can understand and appreciate what so many people obviously love about his music, but I have never quite cared for it nearly as much as everyone else, and divide doesn't do much to change that for me. Having said that, if you likely already are a fan of Ed and his music, I'm sure you'll love this album which is more or less more of the same sound he has honed over the years and brought to stadiums around the world.

   Favourite Songs: Castle On The Hill, Shape Of You, Happier and What Do I Know

    Least Favourite Songs: Dive, Perfect, Hearts Don't Break Around Here and How Would You Feel

   Rating: meh

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Response To 'Christian' Views On Secular Music

Is there such thing as music that Christians shouldn’t listen to? Should we be dismissive of music with either explicit language or sexual, violent or substance oriented themes? Should anyone even be telling anyone else what they can and can’t listen to? These are questions that are thrown around a lot in Christian circles, and given what I do here on this blog and how that overlaps with my job working for the church, I thought I would share my thoughts on this topic. I’ll say this at the outset so that we’re on the same page – I think any attempt to dictate what people should and shouldn’t listen to is stupid and disrespectful on a fundamental level. I’ll go into detail about why I think that later on, but for now here are some thoughts I have on some of the “Christian” opinions I come across pretty regularly. The first and most ludicrous thing that seems to follow me around is the idea that because I listen to underground genres, particularly on the heavy metal
2 comments
Read more

1 YEAR LATER: "22, A Million" by Bon Iver

   Bon Iver's third studio album turns 1 in about a week (where did that year go?), so I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about how my impressions of the album have changed - or how they haven't - over the last 12 months. When this album was released I was more excited than I think I ever have been to hear a new album. For Emma, Forever Ago is one of my all time favourites, and I love his self-titled second album too, so I had huge expectations for this album, but was also wary that expectations might ruin my experience of the music. This was particularly the case for 22, A Million , because it is unlike anything else Justin Vernon has released. There have been hints at this more processed, electronic direction previously, like the song "Woods" on the Blood Bank EP and occasional flourishes on Bon Iver , but 22, A Million is a drastic departure from the Bon Iver sound we had grown accustomed to at this point in time. Or at least, that's what I thought
Post a Comment
Read more

Should Brand New be in my top 20? (CONTENT WARNING: sexual abuse)

    For those who read both top 20 albums lists that I did - one here on thatmusicnerd and one over at Kill Your Stereo - you will have noticed, I'm sure, that one had The Ongoing Concept's album Places at number 1, and the other had Brand New's Science Fiction at the top. Full disclosure, I initially had Brand New at the top of just the one list, but the readership of Kill Your Stereo reacted very strongly against the allegations of sexual misconduct against Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey and so I removed it entirely. In fact, none of the  KYS contributors' top 20 lists featured Science Fiction at all. Of course I was happy to follow the general consensus in regards to whether or not an artist accused of such things should be promoted by a music publication, but I still stand by my opinion that Science Fiction was the best album of 2017 and as such it was number 1 on my thatmusicnerd top 20 list.    2017 has been a pretty crazy year in terms of the fairly b
Post a Comment
Read more