Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran grew up in Framlingham, a small market town in Suffolk, England — about as far from the music industry as you can get. He started busking at 14, sleeping on Tube seats when he couldn't afford a room in London. By 16 he was releasing self-funded EPs with a loop pedal and a guitar, playing hundreds of shows a year to whoever would listen.

His breakthrough came not from a record label but from a YouTube video. The A Team — written after visiting a homeless shelter in Cambridge — went viral before he'd even signed a deal. Atlantic Records came to him.

Plus (2011) debuted at number one in the UK and never really left the charts. The combination of acoustic warmth and confessional lyrics was something radio hadn't heard for years.

By the time Divide dropped in 2017, Ed had become one of the best-selling solo artists in history. Shape Of You and Castle On The Hill were released on the same day — both debuted in the UK top 2. Shape Of You went on to become one of the most-streamed songs ever on Spotify, with over 6 billion plays.

He has since released five more studio albums, each one a deliberate left turn from the last.

Plus (2011) established the template — acoustic guitar, loop pedal, confessional lyrics — but it was Multiply (2014) that proved he could scale it to arenas. Thinking Out Loud won the Grammy for Song of the Year. Photograph became a wedding staple overnight.

The man who'd been sleeping rough in London was suddenly writing songs played at a million first dances.

Divide (2017) broke records almost out of spite. Fastest-selling UK album at release. First artist to debut two songs simultaneously at number one and two in the UK.

Galway Girl turned into a live sing-along that still brings 80,000 people to their feet. Supermarket Flowers — written about his grandmother — is one of the most quietly devastating songs in his catalog.

The No.6 Collaborations Project (2019) was the pivot nobody expected. Instead of another acoustic album, Ed assembled a guest-heavy collection that ran from Eminem and 50 Cent (Remember The Name) to Bruno Mars and Chris Stapleton (Blow) to Justin Bieber (I Don't Care).

It showed he could move between genres without losing his identity.

Subtract (2023) was his most personal record. Written during a period when his wife Cherry had cancer and his best friend Jamal Edwards died suddenly — both in the same week. Produced entirely by Aaron Dessner (The National), it's sparse, piano-led, and doesn't try to cheer you up.

Eyes Closed became an unlikely hit precisely because it didn't pretend.

Ed Sheeran is the kind of artist who makes other songwriters uncomfortable — not because he's technically flashy, but because he writes things they wish they'd written first. The loop pedal trick he built his career on is now a fixture of every open mic night in the world. The confessional acoustic approach he popularised has influenced a generation of pop writers.

His record is genuinely absurd on paper: 150M+ albums sold, multiple Grammys, biggest-selling tour in UK history, the most-streamed song on Spotify for years. And he did most of it without a conventional music industry machine behind him — by connecting directly with listeners who recognised themselves in his songs.

What makes his catalog hold up is the specificity. He doesn't write about love in general — he writes about the exact feeling of lying awake next to someone who doesn't know you love them (Lego House), or the particular sadness of watching a friend disappear into addiction (The A Team). That precision is what separates him from a thousand other acoustic guitarists.