I don’t get Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran recently took up the top 16 spots in the UK charts with his recently released album, ‘÷’. An album name so pretentious, it doesn’t even have its own symbol on a keyboard. You literally have to Google “how to do a divide symbol on a computer” to find it. It follows his other album, “x”, pronounced “Multiply”, apparently.  Firstly, who is coming up with these names? And, secondly, does this mean we’ve only got another two more albums to bare?

And yet, this week it’s been impossible to go on social media without seeing someone Tweeting “actually crying at Happier. Such a talented artist”. Yeah, well, I should bloody hope he’s talented given he’s worth $60 million. I can’t go on Facebook anymore without seeing countless screenshots of them listening to Castle on the Hill on Spotify with a love heart. Even Val from Bake off is obsessed with him.

However, to me, Ed Sheeran is the personification of everything that’s wrong with the music industry. He might be able to write songs, but what about the thousands of other people out there who can also write songs, but didn’t have the wealthy, connected family in the music industry? He’s just another product of the cultural elite, his parents being big names within the art industry and his brother a composer.

He doesn’t have “the voice of an angel”. He has a monotonous, nasal tone. There’s something about him that reminds me of your best mates younger brother who always comes and sits with you with a daft grin and sings to you in a weird voice thinking it’s funny, when actually, it just isn’t. And what’s with that fake “street” voice that he does? Why does he try and rap? You grew up in Suffolk. Why are you trying to pretend that you grew up in a council house in Lewisham? He even hangs out with Princess Beatrice and James Blunt. Come on, Ed, who are you trying to kid?

Ed is just so street

He wrote A-Team having visited a homeless shelter briefly and chatted to some of the people there. It would have so much more meaning and relevance had it been written by someone who actually has been in that situation, and has seen it properly first hand, rather than by some middle-class ginger lad profiteering out of it.

Ed isn’t “cool”. With scruffy clothes, a dreadful haircut and a bit of bum fluff on his chin, he doesn’t look like a guy who takes after his appearance; he just looks lazy. If he turned up at the X Factor auditions wearing the clothes he wore to perform at the Brits in 2012, that green, ill-fitting t-shirt and with back combed hair, I can guarantee it would be a no from Simon.

What are you wearing, Ed?

He doesn’t look professional, and he certainly doesn’t seem it either, openly bragging about how he smashed Bieber’s face in whilst drunkenly playing golf. He’s just an immature lad who needs to get a grip on reality. And his friendship with Taylor Swift is also bizarre. The geeky kid who’s made friends with the popular ‘goody-two-shoes’ Head Girl and follows her around like one of her pet cats. I can imagine the scene now, him rubbing her feet after a hard day of singing, before they both get their guitars out and “jam together” (and no, that’s not a euphemism).

He’s the kind of guy you meet whilst inter-railing in Berlin. You meet him in the hostel where he’s gently strumming his guitar, before he launches into a cringe-worthy rendition of Photograph and dedicates it to “the one who got away”. Everyone looks at each other trying not to catch eye contact, whilst his face congeals with the pain of losing a loved one and giving them a photograph to remember his face by. Pass me a bucket while I chunder.