Ed Sheeran scored his 14th UK #1 single last week to move joint third in the all time list alongside Cliff Richard & Westlife. An impressive tally by any standards and all within the space of 9 years. So let's see as of right now what this forum considers his best and worst.

 

Feel free to vote for just your fave and least fave or to post a full rank, comments always welcome.

1. I Don't Care (with Justin Bieber) - I'm 100% sure I'll be alone in this but I've rarely found a pop song so instantly catchy. Love me a Bieber feature too [fave]

2. Shape Of You - similar to the above, super catchy and never ever tired of it

3. Perfect - one of his best ballads for me, though let's ignore the Beyoncé version ever existed

4. Sausage Rolls For Everyone (with LadBaby & Elton John) - yes maaate, novelty done right

5. Merry Christmas (with Elton John) - very decent festive track, just missing some sausage rolls

6. Bad Habits - we're already at mid-level now, I do like the production on this but it does plod a bit

7. Shivers - not much separating this & Bad Habits, this strangely feels more overplayed to me though

8. Take Me Back To London (with Stormzy) - it's ok but don't think I've gone back to this once since 2019

9. Beautiful People (with Khalid) - again I left this one in 2019, and actually forgot this was even a #1

10. Eyes Closed - hard to rank as it's so new but it doesn't give me any grower vibes yet

11. Own It (With Stormzy & Burna Boy) - find this one super dull, definitely was so big due to the names involved

12. Sing - bleh, never liked it & hated the excessive use of falsetto - can you believe this was his first EVER #1?

13. River (with Eminem) - beyond forgettable, don't like either of their collabs

14. Thinking Out Loud - just no. One of my least favourite #1s ever and whilst I don't outright hate it as much now it's still an avoid at all costs [least fave]

Never realised how many of his number ones were non eventful ones.

 

The A Team , Lego House, I See Fire, Castle on the Hill are the songs I like from him.

Best Thinking Out Loud, worst Sausage Rolls for Everyone

1. Thinking Out Loud (it's cheesy and corny, but for some reason I absolutely love it)

2. Sing (shame this is relatively forgotten amongst his others these days)

3. Shivers (the best thing he's done in recent times, just doesn't get old)

4. Bad Habits

5. Merry Christmas

6. Eyes Closed

7. Beautiful People

8. Take Me Back to London

9. Own It

10. Shape of You

11. Sausage Rolls

12. I Don't Care

13. Perfect :puke2: :puke2: (genuinely offensive, sounds like a love letter written by a 5-year-old)

 

Everything from 7 and below is absolutely dreadful. I decided not to include 'River' as I still haven't heard it and have no intention of changing that.

Genuinely can't really pick a favourite, Castle in the Hill, I See Fire & Bloodstream would be clear ones if they got there. The rest of these blend into one. I guess if I were forced to, it would be this ranking but I'm not sure I'd put any of them on out of choice...

 

It's not even like they're that bad (apart from last place obvs) but just the same levels of mid x

 

01; Shape of You

02; Merry Christmas

03; Own It

04; Thinking Out Loud

05; Perfect

06; Shivers

-good/decent barrier-

07; I Don't Care

08; Beautiful People

09; Sing

10; Bad Habits

11; Take Me Back to London

12; Eyes Closed (Only heard once, but it sounded barely distinguishable from anything else he did)

13; River

-listenable barrier-

14; Sausage Rolls for Everyone

Best is I Don’t Care, I think it’s a good pop song.

 

I’ve ignored the sasuage roll song because it’s ridiculous but excluding that Perfect really annoys me and I can’t explain why

None of my favourite songs by him are here but...

 

1. Sing (probably won't get many top scores here but underrated imo)

2. Shape Of You

3. Shivers

4. Bad Habits

5. Own It

6. Take Me Back To London

7. Merry Christmas

8. River

9. Eyes Closed

10. Beautiful People

11. I Don't Care

12. Thinking Out Loud

13. LadBaby

14. Perfect :puke2: (LadBaby collab is a worse concept but I feel I have more hatred for this lol)

 

Have to agree with Rough-edges, any of those four would have easily topped this list for me as well as a few others.

A mixed bag. Lego House remains my favourite Ed song to date….

Best = 'Shivers'

Worst = 'Sausage Rolls For Everyone'

Best: Thinking Out Loud

Worst: Sausage Rolls for Everyone

 

9 of the 14 #1s occurring within the last 4 years… I didn’t take note until now that so many of them occurred so recently in his career.

 

Outside of his most recent #1 which I’ve not heard yet, it’s the No. 6 Collaborations Projects #1s that all feel very guilty of being non event #1s to me, as well as the singles he featured on with Eminem / Stormzy, and of course those Christmas themed #1s.

 

I Don't Care being an 8 week #1 & 4xPlatinum selling single makes it one of the mystifying smashes ever for me. Such an unremarkable song. Feels like they did the absolute bare minimum on that one, yet seemingly everyone lapped it up. :drama:

My least favourite by far is I Don't Care. I don't really like Beautiful People much either.

 

The favourite is hard to decide for me.

1. Merry Christmas (with Elton John)

2. Shivers

3. I Don't Care (with Justin Bieber)

4. River (with Eminem)

5. Beautiful People (with Khalid)

6. Sausage Rolls For Everyone (with LadBaby & Elton John)

7. Bad Habits

8. Eyes Closed

9. Thinking Out Loud

 

- big gap here!

 

10. Sing

11. Perfect

12. Take Me Back To London (with Stormzy)

13. Shape Of You

14. Own It (With Stormzy & Burna Boy)

1. Sing
2. Own It (With Stormzy & Burna Boy)
3. Bad Habits
4. Shape Of You
5. Merry Christmas (with Elton John)
6. Shivers
7. Thinking Out Loud
8. Take Me Back To London (with Stormzy)
9. Beautiful People (with Khalid)
10. Eyes Closed
11. River (with Eminem)
12. I Don't Care (with Justin Bieber)
13. Perfect
14. Sausage Rolls For Everyone (with LadBaby & Elton John)

1-2 Good

3-5 Decent

6-9 Ok

10-11 Meh

12-13 Bad

14 Terrible

 

1) Own It (With Stormzy & Burna Boy) | Thanks to Stormzy & Burna this song is actually good, it could have done without Ed though. Great verses and the prod is top notch 8/10

2) Sing | Pharrell production and writing makes this listenable, the raps are not great but the hook is catchy enough 5/10

3) Shape Of You | I don't like this song at all but it does beat the quality of the majority of things he has released due to the copying from "No Scrubs" 4/10

4) Merry Christmas (With Elton John) | Probably the only positive comment towards Ed that i will say is that this song works more as his song, Elton's vocals are so distorted and tampered with. Let the man sing like how he sounds! 4/10

5) Perfect | Really annoying song that is basically "Thinking Out Loud" Pt. 2 3/10

6) Shivers | Bland, Generic and Cheesy. If only "The Joker And The Queen" or "Visiting Hours" had got to no. 1 instead of this and "Bad Habits" 3/10

7) Beautiful People (With Khalid) | No. 6 Collaborations Project has to be his worst album for me and this is the best it gets. At least Khalid attempts to save the song, big up to him for trying. 3/10

8) Thinking Out Loud | Such a bad "Let's Get It On" rip-off. The track feels like it goes on forever and nothing really happens 2/10

9) Eyes Closed | Really, really, REALLY bland. The production is not great either. What convinced Fred Again to work with this man? 2/10

10) River (With Eminem) | While "Revival" is easily Eminem's worst album, I also think that "River" is his worst single. Terrible 2/10

11) Bad Habits | The horrors of this song make me want to destroy my radio, I HATE this song. The worst non-charity number one of the decade so far for me. I see that Bad habits is leading the poll right now. Remember, this is only my opinion. Don't take it personally. 1/10

12) Take Me Back To London (With Stormzy) | The OG version of this song is horrendous, even stormzy can't be bothered to save it, Ed's rapping is disgusting, a foreign 3 year old could rap better in English. 1/10

13) I Don't Care (With Justin Bieber) | I Can't be bothered listing all the reasons why i hate this song 0.5/10

14) Sausage Rolls For Everyone (With Elton John X Seedy Sausage Roll Millionaire) | Rocketman + Gingerbread Man + Seedy Sausage Roll Millionaire = Remeber that equation kids!!! :sick:/10

 

As you can see, I am a huuuuuuge fan of Ed and his music. he must have the most influential catalogue of all time. Who needs "Revolver" or "Abbey Road" when you have "+", "-", "X", "Divide" & "="!!! :)

 

 

What a terrible list of songs.

Thinking Out Loud is the only song i like from this list.

Shape Of You if 6 pints in!

Great

1. Thinking Out Loud - always thought this was a beauty and I can't say I ever really got bored of it.

2. Shivers - easily his best in recent years!

3. Shape Of You - another one that didn't tire on me despite overplay

4. Sing - takes me back to the days of Jameela (his first EVER #1 :jameela: ), still think I know verse 2 off by heart :lol:

5. Bad Habits - always liked, production is great

 

Good

6. I Don't Care (with Justin Bieber) - I think this is actually a lesser song than the sum of its parts, Ed and Bieber should be capable of something better, not that this is bad at all

7. Merry Christmas (with Elton John) - it ticks every box for a Christmas song really, solid track

8. Perfect - suffered more from overplay and it was never a top favourite from Divide but it's a lovely song regardless

 

Can take or leave

9. Eyes Closed - it's growing on me a bit but isn't one of his most memorable

10. Take Me Back To London (with Stormzy) - never hugely got into this but I don't dislike

11. Own It (With Stormzy & Burna Boy) - fine but bland

12. Beautiful People (with Khalid) - the definition of average

 

Don't really like

13. River (with Eminem) - massive meh, both of them on autopilot

 

Terrible

14. Sausage Rolls For Everyone (with LadBaby & Elton John) - I mean, it's obvious and I can't pretend I can see anything good in this.

OK if we’re ranking:

 

1 Thinking Out Loud

2 Shivers

3 Shape Of You

4 Own It

5 Sing

6 Bad Habits

7 Merry Christmas

 

Nothing bad to say about any of the above really - if those 7 were his #1 discography it would be a really good one

 

8 I Don’t Care - have a bit of a soft spot for this

9 Take Me Back To London - this is fine really

 

And then it takes a real dive

 

10 Perfect - I’d quite happily never hear this again, though it’s still a better song than the below

11 River

12 Beautiful People

13 Eyes Closed - putting this so low because I find it offensively bland - I just can’t see a single remotely original thing about it

14 Sausage rolls

9) Eyes Closed | Really, really, REALLY bland. The production is not great either. What convinced Fred Again to work with this man? 2/10

Brilliant

 

1. Thinking Out Loud - A classic ballad, one of the best modern classics of the 2010s

2. Shape Of You - I can completely see why this was so gigantic, it's a very strong pop song that ticks all the boxes - production, melody, chords, structure

3. Perfect - It sounds like something Boyzone or Westlife would have put out in 1999 (especially when those strings come in in the second verse) but I was always a boyband ballad fan so...

4. Merry Christmas (with Elton John) - I think this is one of my new favourite Christmas songs

 

Great

 

5. Shivers - Definitely his best single from = from me

6. Sing - Was a nice change up at the time, and very catchy

 

Good

 

7. Beautiful People (with Khalid) - My favourite No.1 from the Collaborations Project but none of them were amazing

8. Bad Habits - Decent, very catchy, I can see why it was huge but it's far from his best for me

 

Average

 

9. Eyes Closed - Quite a plain, Ed on autopilot kind of song musically

10. Take Me Back To London (with Stormzy) - the two Stormzy and Eminem songs sound SO dated already, but this is narrowly my favourite of the three

11. I Don't Care (with Justin Bieber) - Catchy but I've never been mad on this, video is funny though

 

Bland

 

12. River (with Eminem) - Tedious

13. Own It (With Stormzy & Burna Boy) - Tedious x2

 

Dire

 

14. Sausage Rolls For Everyone (with LadBaby & Elton John) - an abomination, tarnishes a great Christmas original for me

 

Many of his best songs didn't reach No.1 though - The A Team, You Need Me, I Don't Need You, Lego House, Castle On The Hill, Don't...

Edited April 6, 20232 yr by gooddelta