(Asylum)One of the world’s biggest pop stars only slightly tweaks the formula for an album that many will already have decided they either love or hate
![Ed Sheeran: = review – calculated, craven, corny … or brilliantly crafted?](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d59fbfedba40814ab1f6391ae2e6db6f7e79249b/0_192_3000_1800/master/3000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=5df0fa55f43d71b0a1f1ea8ed4daa02b)
Ed Sheeran’s new album contains a song called 2step. It features a pummelling sub-bass and the sound of the singer-songwriter rapping, this time at warp-speed. Amid the lyrical declarations of love for his wife, there’s a line that seems to address his plethora of critics: “Sometimes,” he says, “the words cut deep.”
Even if you’re inclined to the belief that pop stars – particularly those who have shifted 150m records in the space of 10 years or whose last tour was the highest-grossing in history – should take their lumps when it comes to criticism, you can see why it might rankle him. As soon as Sheeran arrived in the mainstream consciousness he became subject to a particular kind of opprobrium that goes beyond bad reviews, to a point where dislike becomes performative and the artist in question a kind of living shorthand for all that’s wrong with popular
music. A decade, four multi-platinum albums and umpteen hit singles later, he still is: no one seems to have come along to seize that particular position from him.