Review Summary: Gingermania is running wild
It’s been an odd week here in the UK. The entire population seems to be in the grip of some terrifying stupor entirely connected to the release of Ed Sheeran’s third studio album, called ÷. The singer songwriter is everywhere, infecting every radio station and TV talk show, while even having time for an appearance on the overtly hateful LadBible Facebook page. Wherever you look, people are transfixed. The top 16 tracks on Spotify in the UK are the 16 tracks from the deluxe edition of this album in the exact right order. Resale websites are charging up to £12,000 for tickets to see the guy in concert. Workplace productivity is (probably) crashing through the floor.
All the signs point towards this being an incredible piece of work, or they would if popularity and artistic merit had anything to do with each other in pop music. At the very least though, you’d think that ÷ must have a few catchy tunes or memorable moments given how ubiquitous it is. That’s pretty much the line from the UK music press anyway, which has dished out middling reviews and offered meek platitudes among faint praise (The Daily Express gave it 5 stars, which is a bigger indictment of ÷ than anything else in this review). This is all quite puzzling because this album is absolutely and irredeemably terrible, and everyone this side of the Atlantic is weirdly scared to say so. So, I will.
First of all, we have to address Ed Sheeran’s rapping on this album, if it can even be called that. He began experimenting with this on his previous effort, styled x, and here he’s doubled down without success. He just can’t come close to pulling it off and it’s embarrassing. Ed seems a nice guy but he is to spitting bars what Ozzy Osbourne is to sobriety. The very first track, ‘Eraser’ starts off in this rap/spoken word style and it’s thoroughly laughable. It’s also one of the better songs here.
Single ‘Castle on the Hill’ wouldn’t have been terrible if Sheeran hadn’t given the production reigns to someone who thinks that a 20-year-old car radio with badly damaged wiring is the sort of thing anyone wants to be reminded of on a chorus. ‘Perfect’ might not actually be a song but a ruthless and world record breaking effort at the new game of musical cliché bingo. Then there’s ‘How Would You Feel’ which doesn’t so much fail to capture the attention as actively succeed in diverting it.
There’s worse to come. Closing out the standard issue album is ‘Supermarket Flowers’ which contains the lyric ‘you were an angel in the shape of my mum’ and a whole bunch of hallelujahs, all delivered woefully. Apparently, the song is about the death of his grandmother and I don’t want to slate it, but it’s just hard to listen to and not in a good way. On the plus side, as everyone in the country apparently loves this album, they by definition love cringing involuntarily for extended periods, so Britain can look forward to gold in the newly created 200 metres cringe at Tokyo 2020.
Stunningly, the absolute low point of ÷ is none of these piss-weak efforts. The worst song here by far is an absolute tour de force in everything that makes Ed Sheeran abysmal. ‘Galway Girl’ is the song in question, and although we’re only in early March it’s the worst song of 2017 unless Nickelback release a single called ‘We like to torture puppies with screwdrivers’. It starts out with some more of Sheeran's awful white boy ‘rapping’ before doing an about face into a chorus about an Irish girl masked in some vaguely Celtic instrumentation so forgettable it becomes unforgettable. Somewhere, Shane MacGowan is turning in his grave and he’s technically still alive. The record label, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, tried to talk Edward O’Sheeran out of recording the song but he convinced them with the following watertight argument: "There’s 400 million people in the world who say they’re Irish, even if they’re not Irish. You meet them in America all the time: ‘I’m a quarter Irish and I’m from Donegal.’ And those type of people are going to ***ing love it." If you’ve defended Sheeran this far, it might be time to change your plea because ‘Galway Girl’ is just unforgivable in every respect.
Hating something just because it’s popular is dumb. It’s not the reason why I hate this so much. Seeing Frank Turner live in a sold-out arena was one of my favourite musical experiences. Father John Misty’s recent appearance on Saturday Night Live made me smile. I love it when deserving musicians work bloody hard and make it big. What I hate is how cynically this LP has been put together, aiming songs at various demographics like Sheeran is a politician who badly needs to keep his seat in parliament. I will admit that he has a good voice, enough ability to pull his manipulative ideas off and that ranting on the internet about his immense success is as futile as ranting at the waves for endlessly crashing onto the shore. But, if the Oxford dictionary ever needs a new definition of the phrase ‘the tyranny of the majority’ they could just put a photo of this album cover next to its total sales figure, and so I do think it’s worth saying that this album totally ***ing sucks if only because nobody else seems prepared to do it.
÷ isn’t awful because it’s popular. It’s awful because it’s awful. And the many millions of people who will buy and stream it doesn’t change that.
