Ed Sheeran Is Older, Wiser, and Still Quite Bland
He may have beaten a plagiarism case, but his melancholy new album struggles to find original meaning.
Updated at 12:12 p.m. ET on May 9, 2023.
In an era when pop stars market themselves as one-of-a-kind superheroes, Ed Sheeran writes humble, catchy songs that don’t really call attention to who made them. He sings with the relatable raspiness of someone you might encounter in a pub; his lyrics celebrate normie romance, the kind that blooms outside a castle on a hill, rather than inside of one. His album titles—, , , , and now (call it )—even suggest computation rather than art. Now that artificial intelligence can imitate and , it raises
