Ed Sheeran’s New Record Is Going to Make You Cry and You’re Going to Like It.
Either Ed Sheeran had a really tough year, or he’s decided to make a concept album—and the concept is: S-A-D.
We can’t say he didn’t warn us, he did name the album Subtract, the latest addition to Sheeran’s discography which reads like an algebra lesson with debut Plus in 2011, Multiply in 2014, Divide in 2017, and collaborative album Equals in 2021.
Subtract is the right title for Sheeran’s latest effort as he takes us into the depths with subject matter covering the death of a close friend, suicide, and breakups. Subtract is a master class in melancholy. If sadness was the goal, Sheeran earns All-Conference accolades. Seriously, this record is sad, like really sad. Like if you need to make someone a playlist for their drive down to the Mayo Clinic for test results—just pop in Subtract and you’re good to go. They can listen to it on the way home too.
Ed Sheeran spent a lot of time on the English seaside in the Winter months recording Subtract. At times the record itself sounds like a landscape painting. You can see Sheeran’s brush strokes as he sings about waves, blades of grass, clouds, and the occasional ray of sunshine. Yes, it appears Sheeran has a double major on Subtract with just as much earth science as algebra. As Sheeran relishes in the base materials of salt water, embers, powder blue skies, snow covered leaves, and crashing waves throughout the record.
Or maybe Sheeran is just growing up. “End of Youth” seems to be the thesis of the album:
“Spend our youth with arms and hearts wide open. And then the dark gets in and that’s the end of youth.”
It would seem as the 32-year-old Sheeran says on opener “Boat” that age has started to harden his heart, “the more that I love, the less that I feel.”
While Subtract is bleak, it’s equally beautiful. And Subtract is not void of hope. From the opener “Boat” where Sheeran acknowledges no matter what life throws at him, “the waves won’t break my boat.” “Spark” speaks to the start of a relationship, and while Sheeran may now know better, he still hopes “that sparks fly” deciding to march ploddingly into love even though he’s already read the last page of the book.
Subtract is also a return for Sheeran to his days as a teenage busker playing music on the streets of London and Ireland. If Sheeran’s heart is closing as he ages, Subtract is a return to the open guitar case upon which he built his reputation. It’s quite profound the emotion Sheeran is able to extract here with a decidedly stripped-down approach to the production.
It goes without saying, Ed Sheeran is a special talent and we’re reminded of this throughout Subtract which is filled with so many different types of songs, it’s hard to keep track of how many gears this hitmaker has at his command. He can do bagpipes and warm Guinness on “The Hills of Aberfeldy” which sounds like it was written 100 years ago and could still be around 100 years from now. “No Strings” is an ode to love that can take a punch, with Sheeran drawing out the drama on the piano enough to make Ben Folds blush.
“Borderline” is an outlier, a song that’s nearly impossible to place. The falsetto required to pull off “Borderline” would make it a double black diamond karaoke track. “Borderline” will likely have Justin Vernon punching a wall someplace in Wisconsin, it’s a Taylor Swift cameo away from being the song of the summer.
The breakout hit on Subtract is certainly “Eyes Closed,” a song Sheeran wrote about the death of close friend Jamal Edwards who died last year from cardiac arrest due to alcohol and cocaine abuse. Sheeran takes his profound grief and wraps it up in a roll of Bubble Tape like a sorrow mummy equally at home on radio as at a celebration of life. Somehow “Eyes Closed” will be both the soundtrack of memorial service iMovies for years to come, and the song you turn up on the radio this summer. This is the magic of Edward Christopher Sheeran.
Along with Gwyneth Paltrow and Johnny Depp, Sheeran is also on the celebrity guest podium of Court TV this past year having won multiple copyright cases challenging some of his hit songs. If Sheeran did have a copyright infringement, it’s “Life Goes On” which sounds like the television version of its silver screen predecessor, “Thinking Out Loud.” In the end it doesn’t matter, because there’s enough tread on this retread to get you around the lake all summer. “Life Goes On” is Sheeran at his best, the sort of pop song that makes you want to poke out of the sunroof and put your necktie on your forehead while your best friend drives through town.
Sheeran does mix in a few well-checks on Subtract tossing us a lifejacket just as we’re “sinking like a stone.” “Dusty” is a groovy ode to vinyl that gets better with each listen. Generally, the upbeat tracks on Subtract are easily identified with more production value and after-market effects. “Curtains” also adds sunshine, some of Sheeran’s patented rap-singing, and a welcome but brief break from the exquisite pain Sheeran offers everywhere else.
“Subtract” is not without its misses. The weakest tracks tend to be when Sheeran is clearly trying to write a song instead of just singing about his life and experiences. Occasionally you can see Sheeran’s thesaurus in his pocket as he injects out of place syllables. “Vega” is a song that must have started with a Google search, never a good idea. Sheeran’s guitar seems to have been left on the stand for too much of the record as well. Perhaps this is to add to the overall melancholy, but it’s missed.
The exception to the overthought misses on Subtract would be “Colourblind,” which has more in common with an Elvis ballad or Righteous Brothers hit than anything you’ll find on today’s playlists. Equal parts music box and walk-down-the-aisle, “Colourblind” is a ballet of a ballad that if paired with a music video about love not seeing color, could have the woke mob fist pumping through the streets.
In the end, Subtract is addition through subtraction as Sheeran reminds us all that while sadness never feels good, it needs to be felt. More importantly, it sounds lovely.
