In “Toughest,” a bonus track, Sheeran sings, “The doctor said it’s cancer and a baby’s on the way.” That’s reportage: Sheeran’s wife, Cherry Seaborn, was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her arm while pregnant with their second child, Jupiter. (She got treatment after the child was born.) In February 2022, Sheeran’s close friend Jamal Edwards died at 31; he was a YouTube tastemaker, producer, entrepreneur and D.J. who gave Sheeran pivotal early recognition.
In 2022 and into this year, Sheeran also faced multiple lawsuits over accusations of plagiarism, since he tends to use chord progressions and structures that give his songs pop’s instant familiarity. At times, he has added songwriting credits as resemblances emerged, as he did in “Photograph” (citing “Amazing,” a hit by Matt Cardle, whose collaborators Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard sued in 2016) and “Shape of You” (which echoed TLC’s “No Scrubs.”) “I am just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy,” he said after prevailing in a case involving Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” last week. “I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake.”
Still, Sheeran also spent much of 2022 and 2023 as a touring superstar, headlining stadiums worldwide with his voice, guitars, keyboard and loop machine, getting tens of thousands of people singing along. Over the last decade, he has proved himself to be a consummate, driven 21st-century musician: gifted, career-minded and supremely adaptable yet easily recognizable, writing songs that revel in direct language and big feelings.
Sheeran has made himself the USB port of pop songwriting, connecting with virtually everything. He can reach back to the tunefulness of his Irish forebears, croon in an R&B falsetto, wax folky and introspective, pump up a rock anthem, deliver a perky pop chorus or flaunt the syncopated flow of a rapper. He has written or collaborated on folk-pop, hip-hop, grime, K-pop, R&B, Afrobeats, Latin pop, movie themes, reggaeton, electronic dance music and more — too prolific to be contained.
According to the documentary, Sheeran had a decade-plus master plan. His new album completes a five-album arc of arithmetic symbols, with “-” following “+” (2011), “x” (2014), “÷” (2017) and “=” (2021). Per its title, “-” was intended to be a stripped-down singer-songwriter album, though Sheeran has by no means renounced big pop choruses.
