Ed Sheeran’s latest album ÷ (or ‘divide’) is now available on Spotify.
Since the release of Shape of You on January 6 th , the track has broken the previous record for the most streams in one week for a single track every single week since then. The track has been streamed more than 50m streams per week worldwide.
To add, upon the release of his two tracks, Shape of You and Castle on the Hill, Ed Sheeran immediately went to number 1 in 41 countries and held both the #1 and #2 spots in 28 markets. Seven weeks later, he continues to hold the top spot globally.
Truly, Ed Sheeran has now broken countless records and is currently the most-streamed artists on Spotify worldwide with over 44.8m monthly listeners. He also remains as most-streamed British artist on Spotify worldwide, with over 5 billion streams.
Ed Sheeran shares his inspiration for the tracks
On the Album “I’ve had the concept for ‘Divide’ since 2010. I wanted the whole album to feel a bit schizophrenic. My first sort of music that I got into that wasn’t from my parents was rap, metal, punk… I went one day listening to lowa, Slipknot and the next day listening to Damien Rice’s ‘O’, it was quite a switch.”
Shape of You “Shape Of You was actually the only song that I was like this isn’t me at all. It took Johnny and Steve (the guys I wrote it with) probably about a month or two to convince me that should even be on the album, and probably took them another month to convince me that it should be a single. Originally, instead of ‘my bedsheets’ it was meant to be ‘my T shirt smells of you’ or something like that, but I changed it to bedsheets so it could be androgynous.”
Eraser “Eraser was a song that was very therapeutic to write.” “Whilst swimming I had this idea that bit should be Eraser. I don’t know why but it just popped into my head and I was like “ah that’s a cool title for a song””
Galway Girl Galway is a city in Ireland where my cousin and uncle live and it’s a really beautiful place – it’s like cobbled streets, it’s quintessential Ireland. There’s already a Steve Earle song called Galway Girl and I was thinking of lots of different things’ Limerick Girl or Dublin Girl, Belfast Girl and none of it realy fit so I just went with Galway Girl …”
Happier “I’ve definitely got to a point in my life where I’m friends with all my ex-girlfriends now, like we’re all cool and it’s very much like I’m really happy that you’re happy and with someone that you love, and they are really happy that I’m happy and with someone and there’s a grown-up element to it.” “Happier was like that coming out I guess – me writing a grown-up song”
How Would You Feel “I really wanted it to sound like an old school Van Morrison Song.” “I played a really s***guitar solo on it trying to be John Mayer and then was like ah I have got John Mayer’s email, let me just email him see if he’ll play on it. So, I sent it off to him, kind of forget about it and then John Mayer sent it back with this f****** amazing solo on it and I was like ooh, wow, this sounds like a song now!”
GIST
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