Review Summary: Same problems, different options.
I have to admit, I find it very...
interesting that Ed Sheeran's fifth studio album,
Subtract (I refuse to call it "-"), was released only a mere day after that whole Marvin Gaye / Ed Townsend copyright-lawsuit debacle was settled. I'm not even sure a full twenty-four hours had passed before Subtract was suddenly available for the masses to hear. I also find it very interesting that Ed Sheeran announced a series of mini-tours made to promote his newest album on April 28... a mere
three days after arriving at a Manhattan courthouse to testify in a copyright case that would supposedly make him drop out of the music biz altogether if he lost the case. Why announce a series of tours if you're currently in the middle of a lawsuit that will make you want to stop doing tours altogether if things go south?
Am I suggesting that perhaps this whole fiasco was a drawn-out publicity stunt, engineered and delayed until the last possible moment to build intrigue, attention, and fan loyalty towards Sheeran? Am I suggesting that maybe Sheeran's claim that he would quit making music if he lost the Townsend-Gaye case was maybe, juuuust maybe, a manufactured and patently false one, a claim that was said to rally his fans behind him and make
Subtract seem like even more of a momentous album release? Could I really be suggesting that maybe this was all just a bunch of white noise that was destined to never go anywhere at all?
...Not necessarily. It's possible there's a lot of context and nuance behind this entire ordeal that I could be missing. But even so, I find it
really, really *interesting* that Ed Sheeran decided to release this album the
moment he was done with his court date. Even if this budding conspiracy theory isn't true in the slightest (though I frankly have my doubts, this all happened
far too quickly), Ed Sheeran also made the choice to release an original music video for essentially every single song on
Subtract, turning this straightforward 14-song LP into a "visual album", something that doubtlessly hiked up the production time and costs for this record. There is a
lot riding on
Subtract. A lot of effort and time went into the promotion of this album, and it's a crying shame because
Subtract is f*cking boring and bland and milquetoast, as is Ed Sheeran tradition.
Given how stripped-back, moody, and contemplative
Subtract is trying to be, Ed Sheeran's fifth album is clearly supposed to be a more 'serious' venture. Acoustic guitars and pianos often take the place of synths and drum machines. The dirty, piss-yellow album cover is supposed to look stark and catch you off-guard. The lyrics (feebly) tackle themes of depression, dread, growing up, and melancholy. This is Ed Sheeran grabbing you by the lapels and demanding you take him seriously, but in a quiet and unassuming way that's more liable to put you to sleep than shake you to your core. As always, Sheeran's bland, cookie-cutter, edges-all-smoothed-out approach to writing & producing his music strips away all of the intended tension and meaning behind it. This is Goodwill background music poorly masquerading as
The Downward Spiral.
Subtract pretends to be daring while absolutely resisting the urge to take any risks whatsoever. "Life Goes On" is essentially "Thinking Out Loud" in a different key, retroactively hilarious given that Sheeran just got done with a court case about that very song. Likewise, "Colourblind" ho-hums along like the bastard child of "Can't Help Falling In Love" and, once more, Sheeran's own "Joker and the Queen". The corny, bleary-eyed "Vega" is remarkably bereft of any kind of forward momentum whatsoever, with Sheeran briefly tackling quick high notes and split-second falsetto passages before hurriedly leaping back down to his midsection and huddling around it like a safety net. "Eyes Closed" is a baffling break from the established sound of the album, feeling more like a forced, half-hearted dance-pop track that was tossed on last-minute just to give the slow-footed album a lead single to call its own. "Salt Water" tries so hard to be Coldplay's "Violet Hill" and completely misses the mark, "Curtains" is a neutered pop rock track that tries like it's deliberately trying to catch the attention of Harry Styles, and "No Strings" is a poor man's "Drops of Jupiter", and if you ever sink to the depths of becoming a poor man's
Train, then you have fallen into an abyss there is simply no climbing out of.
In many ways,
Subtract is one of Sheeran's worst and most insulting releases. Not simply because of all the questionable and suspicious context surrounding the album, but because the album is pretending to be something it's not. It wears the mask of a 'stripped-back' and 'mature' release without having any of the depth or empathy to actually occupy those emotional spaces. Sheeran's tackling of more downbeat and serious topics feels like half-hearted paddling in a thematic kiddie pool. And when it's not busy acting just a
wee bit pretentious and ostentatious, it's putting you to sleep with the exact same manufactured, tedious, paper-pusher beats, sounds, and passages that Sheeran's been hitting the masses with for years. He steals the valor and skin of more interesting albums and wears them as if it's his own. What few decent moments there are on this record are utterly drowned out by a tidal wave of narcolepsy-inducing muzak and white noise, noise that will only impress and emotionally move the most out-of-touch and banal brands of white people that keep insisting upon Sheeran's presence and brilliance.
