Descrizione
Ed Sheeran Limited Edition Yellow/White Vinyl
Label: Warner – 2023
Release date: 05.05.2023
Price for the Yellow Vinyl: 35.00 €
Price for the White Vinyl: 40.00 €
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Ed Sheeran has announced the release of his new album “-” (Subtract). It is released via Asylum/Atlantic and also marks the end of the “Mathematical” album era. This had started a good decade ago in 2011. Fittingly, Ed returns to his singer-songwriter roots on his new album. Written against a background of personal sadness and hope, we experience on “-” (Subtract) one of the world’s biggest stars as vulnerable and truthful as rarely before.
Says Ed, “I had ‘Subtract’ in the works for over a decade. It was going to be the perfect acoustic album, I wrote hundreds of songs and recorded them, guided by a clear vision of where I wanted the journey to go. Then, in early 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately my outlook on music and the arts.
Writing songs is like therapy for me. It helps me understand my feelings better. When I wrote these songs, I didn’t have any particular goal in mind, I just put down on paper what came tumbling out at that moment. And in a little over a week, I replaced more than a decade’s worth of work with my deepest, darkest thoughts.
Within a month, my pregnant wife learned she had a tumor that couldn’t be treated until after she gave birth. My best friend Jamal, who was like a brother to me, died suddenly. And I myself found myself in court defending my integrity and career as a songwriter. It was a spiral of fear, depression, and anxiety. It felt like I was drowning, like my head was just so far underwater that when I looked up I could see the surface but couldn’t gasp for air.
As an artist, I saw only one way for me to credibly release a work in this situation: it had to show, unadulterated, where I am right now and how I need to express myself at this point in my life. And that’s exactly what this album does. It opens the trapdoor to my soul. For the first time, I’m not trying to make an album that people like, I’m just putting out something that’s honest and shows where I’m at in my adult life.
This is the diary entry of what happened last February and my way of making sense of it all. This is ‘Subtract.
Ed Sheeran’s love affair with being a singer-songwriter began when he first learned “Layla” by Eric Clapton on guitar at the age of 12. His father John’s favorite artists – Damien Rice, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan – were practically on continuous loop in Ed’s childhood home. Unsurprisingly, it’s always been clear to Ed that all roads must eventually lead to the album “-“. Even after the songs and the writing process took on a whole new meaning and direction following a series of drastic events in Ed’s world in 2022, one thing remained unaffected: his strong desire to make an album anchored in his love of singer/songwriter compositions. Now, as Ed is about to release “-“, his most personal work to date reminds us why he is one of the best songwriters of his generation, an artist who can translate his own experiences into songs that provide comfort and a sense of belonging.
On “-” we witness an Ed Sheeran who calls on the full range of his abilities, who pushes himself to new heights and, as a consequence, presents the most profound songwriting of his career. At his side as co-songwriter and producer: Aaron Dessner (The National). The two were introduced to each other by their mutual friend Taylor Swift, got to work last February and wrote over 30 songs in the following four weeks. The end result was an album whose 14 tracks are seamlessly connected thanks to excellent production and range from stripped-back, folk-tinged soundscapes to lusher arrangements with full band/orchestra accompaniment.
Ed Sheeran first made a splash on the UK music scene in 2011 when he released his debut album “+.” It was followed by “x”, “÷”, “No.6 Collaborations Project”, “=” and along with it the rise to an artist who made history. Today, Ed Sheeran looks back on a catalog that makes him one of the greatest musical success stories the 21st century has produced.
