Birthday Number 1s: 2019 - Beautiful People

Not Drake in 2019, but Ed Sheeran, it's

Beautiful People - Ed Sheeran ft Khalid

I feel, or have felt, somewhat the same way about Ed Sheeran as about Drake - a kind of mysterious fury at their stultifying music. But I think I always understood what made Ed Sheeran successful- that he was fiercely driven, personally endearing, that he appealed to those that support the underdog, that he had a natural ability to entertain and engage.

And, the truth is, I don't hate Ed Sheeran at all anymore. He was won me over.  Well, not the music (though I'll come back to that).

He did a great thing for everyone sticking up for the authorship of his songs when opportunistically sued twice. It's not entirely an exaggeration to say he saved songwriting and by definition pop music. He did it with smartness, common sense and good grace, at what was clearly a very trying time in his personal life.

Perhaps that sympathetic feeling has bled into the fact that I have listened to this song and ... quite liked it. Genuinely. Liked the hook and liked the sentiment. A little ginger kid from Suffolk who no longer believes his own hype and remembers who he is. I think it works and I think it's true.

I think this is the first time I've ever liked an Ed Sheeran song. I thought Sing was ok, quite neat, but most of everything else I heard had me reaching for the off button or the sick bucket. 

I listened to the extremely successful albums (x and ÷)  all the way through a couple of times and it reminded me of listening to James Blunt. Just a bit icky.

The albums of Ed Sheeran have become less successful but the singles are still going strong. I think he is a singles artist, really, and as a singles artist he might work out quite well.

Btw, this single was on the album ' No.6 Collaborations Project' which is an annoying title for an album, and the collaborator in this case is American sole singer Khalid, not to be confused with the previously discussed DJ Khaled.

The Number 1s in 2019 were dominated by Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran and Stormzy (sometimes the latter two together) as well as Lewis Capaldi for 7 weeks and that extremely odd Dance Monkey song by Tones and I.

I could also have written about Senorita by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, which hit Number 1 on 1st August and was very much the song of that summer - indeed, I was going to write about that one, but I thought I'd address the Sheeran behemoth instead. 

The main thing that happened in the first week of August, musically, was the suicide of David Berman, a few weeks after releasing Purple Mountains, which I now consider one of the greatest albums of all time. That album has about four songs that deserved to be Number 1 singles for several weeks but there we go, we'll have to do with the Ed Sheeran song that won me over.