Ed Sheeran's 'Play' debuts with 12.7M streams on Spotify

September 13

2 hours ago, Idefix1999 said:

Subtract and Autumn Variations were slow and more acoustic songs, so I can understand that they weren't as commercially successfull, but didn't he say that with this new album series he was aiming for the GP and the charts again? Soundwise he is back with the same kind of songs he had on "=", but somehow it does not work out for him this time...

Or maybe people are just confusing it with Ava Max' latest album

^^^This

I love Ed’s music and have seen him in concert three times (before you come for me, my whole family loves him and I just bought tickets to my fifth Gaga concert yesterday). Subtract and Autumn Variations weren’t designed for mass appeal. Ed even said he made those albums for himself.

The last time he truly tried to mass market was with Equals. To be quite frank, I think the reason he hasn’t found as much success lately is he hasn’t had a hit ballad in so long. Some of his biggest songs are The A Team, Thinking Out Loud, I See Fire, Photograph, and Perfect. I think he has potential to do that with this album, specifically Camera, but he has to give more people a reason to listen.

To be perfectly fair, if we are all honest with ourselves, Gaga’s interest with the GP would have declined massively in the last ten years if it weren’t for her ballads. The only song most people know from Joanne is Million Reasons. Shallow & ARUTW are two of her biggest hits, and if we are being honest part of the reason Mayhem is getting so much attention is DWAS.