1 album on the Billboard 200 and a behemoth hit in "Thinking Out Loud," which won Sheeran his first two GRAMMYs in 2016 (including the coveted Song Of The Year). Multiply proved to be an even bigger hit than its predecessor, earning Sheeran his first No. That's the difference: it's artist of the times or artist of…a career." It's whether I can be a career artist for the rest of my life or I had a very big album back in 2011. This time around's a lot more of a stressful experience. "Everyone's watching this time, whereas the first time I could make a lot of mistakes and it didn't matter too much 'cause I was learning. "I think this particular moment after such a successful first album, it's literally a make or break situation," he said in his 2014 documentary Nine Days and Nights with Ed Sheeran. New collaborators on the album included the likes of Rick Rubin, Benny Blanco and Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid and Pharrell Williams, with the latter coaxing a more hip-hop-influenced blue-eyed soul edge out of Sheeran's songwriting on lead single "Sing."īut even with the framework of A-listers around him, Sheeran still saw himself as a regular guy from the British countryside - even if he now counted Taylor Swift as a close personal friend - and put the pressure on Multiply to prove he wasn't just a flash in the pan. When it came time to release his sophomore album, Multiply, in 2014, Sheeran's moonshot into the upper echelons of the music industry had clearly begat success and opportunity. However, it was ultimately a tale as old as the internet age - going viral on an urban music channel in London called SBTV - that catapulted Sheeran to a record deal, international fame and his first Song of the Year nomination for "The A Team." "The places I really stand out are the places that you'd never really expect to see a white, ginger, chubby singer/songwriter play: rap nights, soul nights, comedy nights," he explained years later to MTV. To make a name for himself in the London scene, a 17-year-old Ed worked tirelessly, sleeping on friends' (or sometimes even newfound fans') couches between gigs and adopting a strategy to stand out from the pack of fellow hopefuls.
Inspired to start writing music as a preteen after seeing Damien Rice perform a secret show in Dublin, Sheeran booked his first gig in London at 14 - the same year he bought the signature loop pedal that would come to define his live shows. Of course, like many a celebrated artist before him, the singer had toiled for years in the proverbial trenches to reach his big break.
0 kommentar(er)
