Personally I quite enjoy his music. Well maybe not his more recent stuff but everything up to ÷ I love. His songs are harmless, have good uses of instruments and Ed himself doesn’t use autotune at all, which in today’s music environment is quite the talent. He even doesn’t use it, or mimes, when doing live concerts which is impressive for an artist
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I don’t think people hate him, he’s always seemed like a nice bloke.
He’s just absolutely everywhere and, like Coldplay before, has become synomymous with over-saturation of the market and some particularly bland music. Humans naturally have a limited attention span and the constant exposure to him starts to irritate people.
It’s annoying to hear him 5 times a day
I quite enjoy mashed potato, I don’t want to be forced to eat it every day though.
He’s everywhere. Everywhere keeps trying to make me listen to him. It took 2 years of listening to the Fall for 2 hours a day everyday* to stop Spotify from recommending him to me every fucking day.
(* considerable hyperbole has been used in this sentence for dramatic effect)
I love his music personally. I think it’s just because every workforce in the UK seems to listen to the same radio station and he’s played every 5 songs and he’s a reminder of work.
I used to be on a few festival pages and people on them despised him. I came to the conclusion that it’s solely for the reason that he’s successful.
The same crowd would go to a festival, watch a singer songwriter who absolutely mastered a loop pedal, wrote some pretty decent songs and absolutely rave about him. Ed Sheeran has done that, but because he’s made it, everyone thinks he is shite. It’s very weird logic, but hey ho.
Game of thrones
People don’t have him, his music is just extremely generic and bland
UK based subreddits seem to hate most things that are mainstream/popular. Nando’s, Love island, Ed sheeran… you’re apparently a brainless sheep if you like any of them.
Just because he’s fucking *everywhere*
Also autotune does not equal bad.
My only experience of Ed Sheeran was mistaking him for Mick Hucknall at a motorway service station. I was following a man with should length ginger hair to the checkout, he briefly stopped to grab a share bag size packet of Minstrels. I noticed people pointing at him and being a fan of Simply Red assumed it was Mick Hucknall, on the way to the till he managed to catch his shin on the edge of a shelf. Quick as a flash I said “You’re certainly holding back the tears Mick”, he turned around with a look of disgust on his face and I quickly realised that it wasn’t Mick Hucknall. I offered to pay for his bag of Minstrels but he declined and walked off.
I have no strong views about Ed Sheeran either way. He has some nice songs – I would be happy to listen to any set that he was playing. I wouldn’t go out of my way to attend his gigs though.
I don’t know his different album names/phases but there was one where it felt like he was just writing by numbers with the express intention of churning out wedding/funeral standards that would generate cash for years (Thinking Out Loud, Supermarket Flowers, etc)
However in contrast to you I actually liked the last album better. Bit more interesting and dropped the schmalz. Bad Habits is catchy
I don’t hate him, I just wish he’d make up his mind whether he’s a posh rapper or a posh country singer.
He’s a genuinely nice guy (ended up chatting to him once at an event, so it’s not some front he puts on for show), but his music doesn’t appeal to me. That coupled with being bombarded by his music on both radio and my friends’ playlists at house parties has made me groan whenever I hear his stuff.
Bland and average music is not a problem in itself but when it occupies a disproportionate amount of cultural real estate it becomes offensive.
Your expectations for ‘talent’ seem to be incredibly low. How do you think musicians became popular before autotune was invented?
> or **mimes**, when doing live concerts which is impressive for an artist
Jesus Christ, are you actually joking?
‘Not miming’ is *not* impressive unless a performer is also dancing, doing acrobatics, or shooting fireworks out their bumhole at the same time.
In the case of Sheeran, being able to sing live is a basic expectation for someone who is essentially paid to stand still while singing and playing guitar.
There are popular musicians who have been performing for over 50+ years who are *still* singing live and don’t feel the need to mime at their live concerts.
I think you need to go to more concerts.
It’s the overkill for me, that time he had his entire track listing from his album in the top 40 and radio one played them all All DAY LONG, made me want to be deaf for the day. Never got past that…..
I dont think people hate him but more that they are absolutely mystified at how gigantic he is.
Like I dont think I have ever heard an Ed Sheeran song and known it was an Ed Sheeran song. His music is so bland and innofensive it goes in one ear and out the other.
But, hey, similar with Dan Brown, I wish I was mediocre enough to have CDs rattling around in the footwell of half the family cars in the world, so fair play to him.
I don’t dislike him, he seems like a nice lad and his music is pretty good but not necessarily something I’d seek out. I don’t listen to the radio so I don’t really hear him much, but I think what rankles some people is that we all know or knew some lad just like him who wrote songs with an acoustic guitar and was very good and that’s not to say they’re ten a penny, far from it – it’s that there’s a great number of very talented skillful and emotive musicians playing in pubs and clubs up and down the country who never get anywhere near the recognition and notoriety attributed to Ed Sheeran despite him doing basically exactly the same thing, and in some cases he’s not even as good as some of the unknown artists I’ve seen. It feels unfair and I think maybe it’s the same for others but for me it needles a sense of injustice that he’s lauded as some kind of genius when, despite being clearly a very talented and well meaning chap, he’s not so different and unique to deserve the sense that these other lesser known artists should be eclipsed.
That’s how it is for me at least.
You don’t become his sort of popular without being tiresome, bland and mediocre. Understandably people with less popular taste find his music insufferable. It’s really not complicated.
I find him to be incredibly bland musically and lyrically, then he got so overplayed which made it worse.
That and he was a tool when I met him, but that was years after disliking his music.
I don’t hate him but I do not like his music at all, even though I happily accept others do. He is very bland and inoffensive, which is fine for those who like that, however it does mean he is overplayed to hell. Also, he writes catchy pop songs but the media make it out like he is a musical genius the likes we have never seen. This is despite the fact that there are plenty of wannabes who could fill that niche if he died.
I wouldn’t say he’s my cup of tea but he does have a few songs that I genuinely enjoy. He is overplayed all the time though, which could get annoying. But I can’t agree with people when they say he is shit or can’t sing.
Piles of artists don’t use autotune (at least not in an obvious way), sing live, play instruments etc so that is hardly something to boast about. I think “quite enjoy” and “harmless” sum it up really. How huge he is despite being… OK can just nag at people a bit. Like why is he there? See also – Coldplay, Nickleback and so on. If he was doing the UK toilet circuit or third from bottom in a medium sized music festival no one would give him a second thought either way. An air of smugness about him doesn’t help.
I don’t feel passion in his music. Seems like he has a working formula for making hits and he uses it to death. Following his recent plagiarism case it has become apparent to me that he mostly lifts melodies and riffs from older songs and rehashes them into an Ed Sheeran hit using his formula. For me his music lacks the emotion and artistic creativity of groups/artists like Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Bob Seger, Tool, Nirvana, The Cranberries, James Taylor, Radiohead… Just to mention a few. But saying that, I dont “hate” the guy. Just don’t dig his music.
I’m so out of touch that it was long after he became ubiquitous that I heard his music. I was honestly shocked at how utterly bland I found it. I’m not judging anyone who likes it (clearly lots of people do) but it’s not for me. And he seems like a decent guy. Maybe people choose to hate him because he’s so popular and/or non-edgy?
I absolutely hate the shape of you. Terrible lyrics and absolutely no variation in the song. It sounds like a ringtone. Funny thing is, until that plagiarism case, I didn’t know it was him that sung it. I still don’t know any of his other songs.
My hatred really comes from the fact that he’s a really really wooden actor but seems to get frequently cast in TV shows and films. He makes the cast of Hollyoaks look like Oscar winners
Without being that guy, his No5 collaborations project was incredible. A bunch of mainly up-and-coming artists that Ed was obviously a fan of and all of them smashed it. One of my favourite EPs ever.
The No6 project was remarkable for the fact it took most of the biggest names in music and managed to make every song the audio equivalent of wallpaper paste. Absolutely staggering to get Eminem, Skrillex & Justin Bieber on an album and make all 3 songs equally bland?
And that’s the problem with Ed Sheeran overall IMO. He’s a brilliant musician who has decided to make boring cookie-cutter music for 12 year olds and their mums. If that’s what he wants to do then more power to him but it doesn’t stop his music being dull, over-produced pap that is forced on people. Radio ft JME is painfully ironic now, sadly
Ed Sheeran’s music is for people who don’t like music that much
I think you nailed it in your discription of him…’harmless’
Personally I’d use the phrase ‘wet’ and overplayed
I think that Ed Sheeran is so unoffensive it’s almost offensive. That on top of being overplayed and him seeming a bit ungenuine with his village he built himself that he won’t let other people in and him trying to act like he’s some kinda roadman when really he’s someone that would give your nan a foot massage.
His songs are not harmless. They are sentimental drivel. And not using autotune isn’t a talent. It’s a requirement.
It’s easier to moan about something, especially when he is in Tue charts a lot and those same people get even more sick of it.
Fact is, is he’s hugely popular and puts on a great show. I’m not a fan personally of his music but can see why other do.
His first album, maybe half of the second one, was great.
Genuinely innovative, a master on that loop pedal, a 21st century one-man band.
Then he realised his most popular songs were the three chord ballads. And that most of his fanbase didn’t buy albums anyway. So that’s all he wrote ever again.
He’s a beige-monger of Coldplay-esque proportions.
It’s like someone managed to weaponize being inoffensive and bland.
He’s a nice guy and makes nice music. But the people who love him don’t love music.
I don’t think it’s that deep he’s just an easy punchline for many jokes
I don’t like what I hear when I hear him.
I don’t think I need a reason for this, any more than I need a reason for not wanting to listen to (say) Shirley Bassey, Madonna, George Ezra, or Adele.
I quite like his music – but as with all artists in moderation.
I like him. And I don’t give a monkeys what anyone says about how that means I can’t like proper music. People just like to slate things they don’t personally like to feel superior somehow. I don’t like Celine Dion, but if you do, more power to you.
I listen to what suits my mood, everything from Metallica to ABBA, Fleetwood Mac to Neds Atomic Dustbin. I’ll give anything a listen once, if I don’t like it, I don’t listen again, but I don’t slate it.
I used to be a big fan, thought some of his music was bland pop but there are some real gems off particularly his first 2 albums, but then it just got very samey and now he’s so big that he can play whatever he wants and still get airtime.
Anything mainstream and popular is usually hated by the sneery “trendy” people, ABBA and The Carpenters were both sneered at at the time, time will judge Ed kindly.
At the end of the day he’s a very versatile singer songwriter who can make killer pop songs or beautiful sincere ballads all day long, I think another part of the hatred comes from the fact he doesn’t behave like a major star, if he was aloof and a bit of a wanker he’d be seen a “Cool”, the sneery set(most Redditors) don’t like nice people.
He’s the modern version of Phil Collins. Had a lot of hits, very popular, was basically everywhere. Then one day everyone realized they were a bit sick of him.
Plot twist: this post was written by Ed on a throwaway account.
As others have said I think it was just over exposure. Having that awful scene in Game of Thrones seemed to really exacerbate the problem as well.
I remember the first time I saw this
https://youtu.be/temYymFGSEc
being blown away by what this one kid with a loop pedal and a guitar could do in one take. There’s genuine talent in there, and I saw him live in a tiny venue in Norwich before he made it big, which was amazing.
Since then he’s become very beige, and as much as I don’t mind his music now, I don’t want to hear it as much as I do.
My ex-wife cheated on me with someone the spitting image of him. Irrational hatred since
I doubt anybody actually hates him. But many people who are music obsessives despair at an age when such bland “harmless” music is so successful. People hate the radio stations that offer a constant diet of such inanity and the music industry that supports it. Many would suggest that if ever an age needed music such as [Ghost Town](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2oXzrnti4) at No.1 in the charts (unique – what the fuck sounds like that song? with lines such as “government leaving the youth on the shelf” and “people getting angry”, it’s 2022. Instead we get Ed Sheeran – not his fault, I’m not saying he should be writing stuff like Ghost Town, good luck to him, but ffs what a dismal lack of any meaningful alternative, at least in terms of radio play and cultural importance.
Because all his songs sound the same and get played non stop on the radio.
I saw his Glastonbury set a few years back on the TV and he really knows how to work a crowd. I found it very impressive. Unfortunately, you can have too much of a good thing and I’m sick of hearing his music day in day out at work.