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+ (album)
+ (Plus) is the debut studio album by the English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. It was released on 9 September 2011 by Asylum Records and Atlantic Records. The album is considered Sheeran's commercial breakthrough. He previously released five EPs independently. Jake Gosling and Sheeran produced the majority of the album, with additional production by American hip hop producer No I.D.
Media interest surrounding + was heightened by its two preceding singles—"The A Team" and "You Need Me, I Don't Need You"—which peaked at numbers three and four on the UK Singles Chart, respectively. "Lego House" was released on 11 November 2011 as the album's third single and matched the chart success of its predecessors, peaking at number five in the UK. Three additional singles—"Drunk", "Small Bump", and "Give Me Love"—were released throughout the following year, all charting within the top 25 of the UK Singles Chart. Worldwide, the album has sold more than 4 million copies.
The album was met with generally positive reviews from music critics. Upon release, + debuted atop of the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales exceeding 102,000 copies. The album performed well on the US Billboard 200, peaking at number five, selling 42,000 copies. The album was the highest debut for a British artist's first studio album in the US since Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream in 2009. + is the ninth best-selling album of the 2010s in the United Kingdom.
After completing school at age 16, Sheeran spent his student grant on rail tickets. Moving from place to place, he performed at open-mic nights across the United Kingdom, where he would sleep on his friends' sofas spending time self-releasing homemade EPs and albums. After spending four years performing in the British live scene, Sheeran met singer Jamie Foxx in Los Angeles, and Foxx liked Sheeran enough to "put [Sheeran] on the path to success".
In early 2010, Sheeran was having what he described as a "rough time" in the UK, and he spontaneously left for Los Angeles to spend a month "to see what could happen". After performing a gig in the city, he was approached by Foxx's contact, who produced open-mic nights endorsed by Foxx. She invited him to perform, which he agreed to, and after the performance he was contacted by Foxx's manager, who then asked him to perform on Foxx's radio show. After performing on the radio show, Foxx gave Sheeran his number offering studio time free of charge. Sheeran took the opportunity to record several tracks in the studio and attended several parties with Foxx, describing the time as "surreal". In addition, Sheeran's appearances on YouTube also garnered success when he uploaded a performance of track "You Need Me, I Don't Need You", which garnered over half a million views, making him "one of the most talked about UK acts".
Following this, Sheeran signed to Atlantic Records and was signed to Elton John's management team called Rocket, which Sheeran discussed, saying: "Elton walked in and said, 'Where's Ed Sheeran?' I was like, 'F-ing hell! He knows my name!' It's surreal, growing up listening to his music and now he is one of the people who sings my praises and helps my career and rings me up and actually has an interest in me". Sheeran started performing with the acoustic guitar aged 11 and his love for the instrument was what "got [him] into music and singing". His musical inspirations from an early age surfaced from The Beatles and Bob Dylan, but he noted Damien Rice as a larger influence on his music whom he met after an intimate performance in Dublin. Throughout the production of +, Sheeran knew "how [he] wanted every single song to sound", and because of this they only took around one day each to record, with the final product featuring "the same sound", which he described as an achievement.
"I'm always being introduced to new people that are really good. Being a songwriter myself, I love the way they put lyrics together. If you listen to Ghetts' flow, it's not necessarily like four-bar, four-bar, four-bar. He'll do a two and a half bar rhyme and then stop, and go into something else. And me as a songwriter, that sort of fascinated me, like how can you get away with that? That really interested me. I've started writing songs a bit more like that, lyrically."
+ is influenced by rapper Eminem, hip-hop inspired duo Nizlopi and recording artist Damien Rice. Sheeran performs throughout the record with a small acoustic guitar, with "no band" and "no beats". The Daily Telegraph found that the lyricism is based around subjects he cares about in his own life, performing with a "soft toned, flexible voice" with a hip-hop theme. The record features "chipper" beats with staccato guitar riffs throughout. It differs between genres, with tracks such as "Grade 8" showing R&B influences, garnering comparisons to Bruno Mars, while the album also features folk-hop inspired tracks such as "Drunk", a "self-pitying, doomed attempt to resurrect a lost relationship". Lyricism also derives from Sheeran's own "self-doubt" heard in tracks such as "Wake Me Up" and "Kiss Me", which has been compared to musician Van Morrison. The record also visits a "darker side" on tracks such as "The City", which depicts homeless street-life and features Sheeran beat-boxing. The album concludes with the track "Give Me Love" and the Scottish folk song "The Parting Glass" as a bonus track.
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+ (album)
+ (Plus) is the debut studio album by the English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. It was released on 9 September 2011 by Asylum Records and Atlantic Records. The album is considered Sheeran's commercial breakthrough. He previously released five EPs independently. Jake Gosling and Sheeran produced the majority of the album, with additional production by American hip hop producer No I.D.
Media interest surrounding + was heightened by its two preceding singles—"The A Team" and "You Need Me, I Don't Need You"—which peaked at numbers three and four on the UK Singles Chart, respectively. "Lego House" was released on 11 November 2011 as the album's third single and matched the chart success of its predecessors, peaking at number five in the UK. Three additional singles—"Drunk", "Small Bump", and "Give Me Love"—were released throughout the following year, all charting within the top 25 of the UK Singles Chart. Worldwide, the album has sold more than 4 million copies.
The album was met with generally positive reviews from music critics. Upon release, + debuted atop of the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales exceeding 102,000 copies. The album performed well on the US Billboard 200, peaking at number five, selling 42,000 copies. The album was the highest debut for a British artist's first studio album in the US since Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream in 2009. + is the ninth best-selling album of the 2010s in the United Kingdom.
After completing school at age 16, Sheeran spent his student grant on rail tickets. Moving from place to place, he performed at open-mic nights across the United Kingdom, where he would sleep on his friends' sofas spending time self-releasing homemade EPs and albums. After spending four years performing in the British live scene, Sheeran met singer Jamie Foxx in Los Angeles, and Foxx liked Sheeran enough to "put [Sheeran] on the path to success".
In early 2010, Sheeran was having what he described as a "rough time" in the UK, and he spontaneously left for Los Angeles to spend a month "to see what could happen". After performing a gig in the city, he was approached by Foxx's contact, who produced open-mic nights endorsed by Foxx. She invited him to perform, which he agreed to, and after the performance he was contacted by Foxx's manager, who then asked him to perform on Foxx's radio show. After performing on the radio show, Foxx gave Sheeran his number offering studio time free of charge. Sheeran took the opportunity to record several tracks in the studio and attended several parties with Foxx, describing the time as "surreal". In addition, Sheeran's appearances on YouTube also garnered success when he uploaded a performance of track "You Need Me, I Don't Need You", which garnered over half a million views, making him "one of the most talked about UK acts".
Following this, Sheeran signed to Atlantic Records and was signed to Elton John's management team called Rocket, which Sheeran discussed, saying: "Elton walked in and said, 'Where's Ed Sheeran?' I was like, 'F-ing hell! He knows my name!' It's surreal, growing up listening to his music and now he is one of the people who sings my praises and helps my career and rings me up and actually has an interest in me". Sheeran started performing with the acoustic guitar aged 11 and his love for the instrument was what "got [him] into music and singing". His musical inspirations from an early age surfaced from The Beatles and Bob Dylan, but he noted Damien Rice as a larger influence on his music whom he met after an intimate performance in Dublin. Throughout the production of +, Sheeran knew "how [he] wanted every single song to sound", and because of this they only took around one day each to record, with the final product featuring "the same sound", which he described as an achievement.
"I'm always being introduced to new people that are really good. Being a songwriter myself, I love the way they put lyrics together. If you listen to Ghetts' flow, it's not necessarily like four-bar, four-bar, four-bar. He'll do a two and a half bar rhyme and then stop, and go into something else. And me as a songwriter, that sort of fascinated me, like how can you get away with that? That really interested me. I've started writing songs a bit more like that, lyrically."
+ is influenced by rapper Eminem, hip-hop inspired duo Nizlopi and recording artist Damien Rice. Sheeran performs throughout the record with a small acoustic guitar, with "no band" and "no beats". The Daily Telegraph found that the lyricism is based around subjects he cares about in his own life, performing with a "soft toned, flexible voice" with a hip-hop theme. The record features "chipper" beats with staccato guitar riffs throughout. It differs between genres, with tracks such as "Grade 8" showing R&B influences, garnering comparisons to Bruno Mars, while the album also features folk-hop inspired tracks such as "Drunk", a "self-pitying, doomed attempt to resurrect a lost relationship". Lyricism also derives from Sheeran's own "self-doubt" heard in tracks such as "Wake Me Up" and "Kiss Me", which has been compared to musician Van Morrison. The record also visits a "darker side" on tracks such as "The City", which depicts homeless street-life and features Sheeran beat-boxing. The album concludes with the track "Give Me Love" and the Scottish folk song "The Parting Glass" as a bonus track.