By Aimee Bulger
Staff Writer
World-class singer Ed Sheeran has released his seventh studio album titled “Autumn Variations.” The four-time Grammy-winning artist is constantly highly anticipated, as his songs tend to top charts and remain classics not only in the eyes of fans, but throughout the world.
The album starts out with “Magical,” a slow paced love song that outlines a basic, but peaceful, sounding love story. This pace continues with “England,” an ode to Sheeran’s home country.
The pace picks up with “Amazing” in beat, however the lyrics contrast this upbeat sounding song. Lyrics such as “Yeah, wish I could feel amazing, But this is all that I can feel today” offer listeners a relatable sense of reality and commonality between themselves and the singer.
This peaceful sound accompanied by less than positive lyrics continues in “Plastic Bag,” that follows a similar motif of “Amazing,” with a slightly more hopeful outlook, while still remaining sad and relatable. The lyrics provide the despair of grief and sadness faced by the singer, while also finding hope in the light of a quote, “saturday night” that “Amazing” details.
The next song up, “Blue,” is another ballad of sadness and beautiful lyrics. However, this is quickly reversed with the following song, “American Town,” another pretty love song involving a specific location, a relatively common theme found in Sheeran’s past works.
The common theme of the album, as it progresses, continues to be a sad state of depression followed up by some lyrics of hope. The song “That’s On Me” furthers this theme with lyrics such as “Why the hell am I still here? This is not the end of our lives, This is just a bump in the ride, I know that it will be alright.” Sheeran continuously outlines his state of sadness that he resided in when writing this album, but expressed a hope in the sight of a light at the end of the tunnel.
Sheeran has always been known for his talent in writing love songs, and this album is no different. Sprinkled in between the despair and self-loathing floats the beautiful lyrics full of love that gave Sheeran his fame. “Midnight” is a perfect example of this talent.
Deeper into the album, Sheeran gives the listeners “Punchline,” another ballad filled with depressing lyrics. However, what sets this song apart is the artful build up of the background music and vocals, making the delivery of the lyrics hit with a painful punch.
Closing the album with “When Will I Be Alright,” “The Day I Was Born” and “Head > Heels” displays the range of Sheeran’s talents while also remaining true to the core of the album and his typical ideals. The sadness in “When Will I Be Alright,” followed by the impact of “The Day I Was Born” allows for the album to be tied up in a nice, love-song bow with “Head > Heels.”
Overall, the album is beautifully written with powerful lyrics of both despair and love, perfect for the autumn weather that it was titled after.
