Ed Sheeran is able to rewrite the principles, his personal, largely. After a streak of melancholic introspection and quiet reinvention, the worldwide pop icon is able to step out of the grayscale and into technicolor together with his newly introduced eighth studio album Play, out September 12 through Gingerbread Data/Atlantic.
To mark the album reveal, Ed Sheeran dropped “Outdated Cellphone,” a hazy, heart-tugging observe co-produced with Ilya Salmanzadeh and Blake Slatkin. It follows the sooner launch of “Azizam,” a dreamy lead single laced with Persian influences. Maintaining the nostalgia alive, he additionally launched @TeddysOldPhone on Instagram—an old-school photograph dump straight from his digital camera roll.
Whereas Sheeran’s discography typically traces a clear arc of affection, loss, and lyrical vulnerability, Play tosses the rulebook, favoring instinct over introspection and lovely chaos over management. The newest single “Outdated Cellphone” captures that tonal pivot so impeccably: it’s uncooked, lo-fi nostalgia coated in a shiny sheen, as if he’s sifting by his previous with each marvel and weariness.
However this isn’t simply sonic temper play, it’s a full blown position reversal. The polished pop heavyweight palms the mic to the wide-eyed explorer, channeling the textures of India and Persia, right into a sound that feels borderless and alive. “Azizam” (Persian for “my expensive”), which now has a model that includes Iranian singer Googoosh, and the upcoming album, is stitched along with world fragments: sweaty pub jams, rooftop bus gigs, and impromptu cowboy-hat karaoke periods.
“Play was an album that was made as a direct response to the darkest interval of my life,” Sheeran shares. “[And] popping out of all of that, I simply needed to create pleasure and technicolor, and discover cultures within the international locations I used to be touring.” The file, created throughout continents and closed out in Goa, India, pulses with freedom. “It’s an actual rollercoaster of feelings from begin to end. It encapsulates every thing that I really like about music, and the enjoyable in it, but in addition the place I’m in life as a human, a associate, a father,” says Ed.
His new motto? Enjoyable, or neglect it. “Going into this album marketing campaign, I mentioned to myself: “I simply need every thing I do to be enjoyable and playful”,” says Ed Sheeran. “That’s why we’re constructing pubs for people jams, doing gigs on open-top buses, and singing in pink cowboy hats on bars. The older I get, the extra I simply need to take pleasure in issues, and savor the moments which are mad and chaotic.”
And Play is strictly that: a vibrant detour from predictability, a file that dances with dysfunction and ditches the blueprint. With track titles like “Symmetry,” “A Little Extra,” and “The Vow,” the album guarantees an eclectic mixture of tender confessions and offbeat musings. It’s nonetheless Ed Sheeran, simply looser, louder, and letting the world take the lead.
Under is the total tracklist for Play:
- “Opening”
- “Sapphire”
- “Azizam”
- “Outdated Cellphone”
- “Symmetry”
- “Digicam”
- “In Different Phrases”
- “A Little Extra”
- “Slowly”
- “Don’t Look Down”
- “The Vow”
- “For At all times”
- “Heaven”
Pre-add/save Play now and stream ‘Outdated Cellphone’ on all platforms — don’t miss essentially the most playful Sheeran period but!
Inquisitive about what impressed this shift in path? Received ideas in regards to the upcoming EP or ‘Azizam’? We’re listening. Tag us on X @CelebMix and spill your take!
