You may be yet to consider Ed Sheeran for the position of modern-day national bard but, on the face of it, he’s a strong contender. He’s got the relevance and clout – the 32-year-old is by many metrics the most popular artist in this country, and has been for the past decade – and he’s got the persona: his entire public identity might be summed up as “utterly unremarkable British bloke” (albeit one with atypically evangelical self-belief in his own troubadouring). To top it all off, Sheeran is back with his latest affectionate portrait of his homeland in the form of England, the second track on his seventh album, Autumn Variations.
There is, however, one small problem. England has to be one of the most mind-numbingly banal paeans poor old Blighty has ever been subject to. “I find this country of mine gets a bad reputation for being cold and grey,” croons Sheeran, an odd complaint considering he’s halfway through an overwhelmingly dreary catalogue of coastal sights: “broken glass and train lines”, the “pub with a flag that’s working flexible hours” (whatever that means) and “only one road sign, telling cars to slow down”.
The eye-watering obviousness doesn’t stop there. Of course it doesn’t: it’s Sheeran’s calling card. American Town – presumably about visiting his now-wife during her time living in New York – has the pair eating “Chinese food in small white boxes / Live the life we saw in Friends.” Autumn Variations is devoid of wit, although occasionally there is unintentional hilarity, as on the strained heartfelt ballad The Day I Was Born, which commemorates the tragedy of a man whose friends can’t be bothered to celebrate his January birthday. Worst of all, the album is littered with gibberish. “Saturday night is giving me a reason to rely on the strobe lights,” goes the refrain of Plastic Bag, about a disaffected man who lives for weekend partying. It’s enough to have you actively craving pop’s ChatGPT-abetted future.
There’s a reason these dashed-off lyrics – half-arsed even by Sheeran’s standards (many don’t rhyme, scan or even make basic sense) – grate so much: the musician’s dastardly melodic gifts mean they immediately begin circling your brain. Reuniting with the National’s Aaron Dessner – who also produced his previous album, May’s Subtract, this record sees Sheeran adopt some sophisticated sonic signifiers. There’s hushed, falsetto-fuelled 00s indie reminiscent of Bon Iver, and jerky glitched-up guitar fused with a Springsteenian sense of the epic on England. His trademark layman rapping is accompanied by a minimalist pop backdrop on That’s on Me, while Midnight turns punky electro syrupy with a rueful chorus. Yet despite this genre-hopping, most songs eventually end up in the same realm: that of a bland, plodding vaguely sentimental ballad boasting at least one instantly memorable hook.
Successful pop music is often about immediacy and simplicity, and Sheeran’s safe, artless stream-of-consciousness confections are evidently what the people want. The fact is that he is now an era-defining musician, and has earned his place alongside Bowie, Elton, George Michael, Morrissey and Elvis Costello in the pantheon of great British male solo artists. The difference between Sheeran and the others will be glaringly obvious to some, but completely irrelevant to others. For the former, Autumn Variations will be yet another occasion to despair at the colossal popularity of such proudly unimaginative, staunchly unoriginal and intellectually bereft music. Everyone else? Well, they’ll be far too busy just pressing repeat.
