vitcai makinlie wadean
Emigdio Binet
= ("Equals") is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.[3][4] It was released on 29 October 2021 through Asylum and Atlantic Records.[5] The album was supported by five singles: "Bad Habits", "Shivers", "Overpass Graffiti", "The Joker and the Queen", and "2step". The song "Visiting Hours" was released as a promotional single.
Upon release, = received generally mixed reviews from music critics, who appreciated Sheeran's emerging sonic experimentation while criticising its production. The album reached number one in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The Christmas edition of the album was released on 3 December 2021, although it was removed later on. It contained a sole guest appearance from fellow English singer-songwriter Elton John on the song "Merry Christmas", while the standard edition does not have any guest appearances.
The tour edition of the album was released on 27 May 2022. It contains his two songs from the 2019 film Yesterday, "One Life" and "Penguins", and two new songs, "I Will Remember You" and "Welcome to the World". The reissue also contains the 2020 single "Afterglow", the single version of "The Joker and the Queen" featuring American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, the single version of "2step" featuring American rapper Lil Baby, a remix of "Bad Habits" featuring British rock band Bring Me the Horizon, and his collaboration with Nigerian singer Fireboy DML, "Peru". A second remix of "2step" is also included in the reissue in several countries.[6]
A French version of the album was released on 4 November 2022. This version contains "Peru", a remix of "2step" featuring Leto, "Bam Bam" by Camila Cabello featuring Sheeran, and a new single "Call on Me" by Vianney featuring Sheeran.[7] A limited edition includes a DVD of the FNAC Live 2021 concert.[8] The album sold 1.3 million copies worldwide in 2021, becoming the fifth best-selling album of that year.[9]
On 18 August 2021, Sheeran said there would be a "big announcement" the following day.[10] On 19 August, he announced the album and its release date of 29 October on his social media accounts.[11] He described the album as his "coming-of-age" record.[12] To him, the album was a "really personal record and one that means a lot to me", citing changes in his life, including marriage, the birth of his daughter and experienced losses.[13] The promotional single "Visiting Hours" was released alongside the announcement.[14]
In an interview with Capital FM on 27 June 2021, Sheeran also stated that he would like to see the songs he made for the film Yesterday appear on a repackaged version of the album before he goes on tour for the record.[15]
"Overpass Graffiti" was released alongside the album on 29 October 2021 as the third single.[20][21] "Overpass Graffiti" reached number 4 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100. Sheeran performed the song for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series on 26 October.[22]
A remix of "The Joker and the Queen" featuring Taylor Swift was released as the album's fourth single on 11 February 2022. "The Joker and the Queen" reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, becoming Sheeran's fourth chart-topping album in the United States. It opened with 118,000 album-equivalent units, of which 68,000 were pure sales.[37]
These songs define the whole album. This album describes two traumatic experiences that Ed Sheeran has faced in such a short time. Overall, it represents his vulnerability that he is not okay. He is still grieving, moving on and living past traumatic experiences. I really like that about this album, how he expresses his own problems through music.
"Our Ed" recently informed Rolling Stone (est. 1967) that music criticism is obsolete. His thoughts were published a few weeks before the release of his fifth album. This gave reviewers whose validity he had questioned plenty of time to over-sharpen their pencils. His comments may even have roused to review it those who would otherwise have ignored the drippy air-filler and stuck to writing about noise-rock bands with saxophones and names like Claw Pile.
Subtract is an introspective record which dwells on themes of death, depression, companionship and regret, at times sloping into self-pity. Sheeran can be commended for singing directly from the heart about all the recent events that have troubled him. Well, not quite all. It would have been interesting to hear him directly tackle the stresses caused by his successive plagiarism cases. Perhaps he could have cheekily defended himself over a recycled Bee Gees chord progression to really stick the finger up.
Pop star Ed Sheeran has been on a stage of a different sort this past week, defending himself in court against a claim of plagiarism. "I'm obviously very happy with the outcome of the case," he said in New York City on Thursday, "and it looks like I'm not going to have to retire from my day job after all."
"You are going to get this with every single pop song from now on," Sheeran stated, "unless it just stops, which I don't think it does, because it's a big money business to take things to court. But like, you can only get caught out if you've done something wrong. And I'm not. I have not done something wrong. I used four chords that are very common chords to use."
Interestingly, it was not the record the 32-year-old was planning to release. "I had to kind of get my head 'round scrapping ten years of work to replace it with, like, a month's worth of work," he said.
Right now in the waiting room, emotions running wild
Worried 'bout my lover and I'm worried 'bout a child
Part of me was always in denial
It's gonna take a little while
In our story, loving, lover
We are glorious
I pictured this month a little bit different, no one is ever ready
And when it unfolds, you get in a hole, oh, how can it be this heavy?
Everything changes, nothing's the same, except the truth is now you're gone
And life just goes on
At the same time, he was in the middle of an earlier copyright case, which he also won. "And then I went into this, like, really, really public high-profile court case where you're being sort of shouted at every day and called a liar and a thief and stuff. So, I'd written about, you know, the fear, or depression, or anxiety, or all of these things that had been encapsulated in that time, were what the songs ended up being about."
At Kings Theatre, in Brooklyn, N.Y., about an hour before taking the stage for the sold-out debut of his new album, Sheeran seemed decidedly relaxed. "I'm quite, like, comfortable in my skin," he said. "I know who I am and what I do."
"Yeah. But that's the human; you're talking to the artist right now. The artist who can stand on stage in front of 110,000 people in Melbourne is not the same person that has anxiety and insecurity and depression. And yeah, it's not the same person. You put on a cape, I guess, and go, I can entertain you, and this is good. But if I was that off-stage, all the time? It's horrible. You're just this egotistical maniac walking around!"
The British musician has been selling out stadiums on his "Mathematics" tour, which just started in the U.S. Part of what makes the artist Ed Sheeran so successful is that he is willing to expose that human side.
"Well, I know, because I keep it in check. I did, like, an hour-and-a-half worth of exercise this morning. And I'll be on stage for another two hours today. Like, I watch what I eat and I exercise a lot and I try to not binge as much."
He's open about that struggle, to a point. "I just don't want it to turn into, like, the poster boy for it, you know?" he said. "I think what is important about speaking about it is letting people know that it is not a problem that is just for one gender."
"Oddly, no one caring," Sheeran replied. "I guess I developed it from the age of, like, 15, playing in rooms where I was largely ignored. I don't know, if you went to a bar and there was a kid being like, Hey guys, this song is good, listen to this, you'd be, like, okay."
His songs are good, if selling 150 million albums is any measure. The single from his new album about his friend's death has topped charts, putting Sheeran in third for the most #1 hits in the U.K., just behind Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
We spend our youth with arms and hearts wide open
and then the dark gets in and that's the end of youth
I've been lost since the teens but pretend it's all alright
All my ups led to falls that led to trying to end my life
Just a boy at the start, they lent on like a man
You were meant to be my friend and not to take all that you can.
"Totally, yeah. Totally," he said. "But then, this is like, again, it's uncomfortable talking about these things on interviews because you don't necessarily want the whole world to know everything that is going on in your mind the entire time. But then, if you write songs about things, and you're then releasing the songs, you should be giving context to them."
"I mean, I used to care a lot," Sheeran replied, "because I spent my whole life trying to become successful. But you're not always going to be everything to everyone. Like, I've never really been, like, a critical darling. But I don't know. I think it's more challenging to write pop music than any other kind of music."
Critics' minds may change, but Sheeran is unwavering when it comes to the value of a good pop song. "Songwriting doesn't always have to be really, like, introspective and emotional," he said. "Sometimes something, like, can just be fun. Like, 'Shape of You' is just a fun song. No one listens to 'Shape of You' and thinks deep and hard about their life. They just, 'Oh, I quite like, I quite like that song. I quite like dancing to it.'"
c01484d022