4 hours ago, pavi said:

So incredibly ironic that in the end he made a political speech at his own show after all this drama. When HE does it, it’s fine, right??! f*** his hypocritical ass.

It’s crazy. He wants people with opposing views to be able to enjoy his concerts, but can’t back a “friend” when he gives his view? Opposing views are not to be messed with when it comes to politics. The only time “opposing views” should mean so little is when we disagree about which pizza toppings we like or our music tastes etc.. political opinions literally have an effect people’s lives.

SNL UK did a wonderful segment about this situation yesterday.

“Say what you want about Ed, but he’s always been a passionate advocate of causes that are allowed” 🥲

There's no need for him to apologise and I share his sentiments about his concerts being to unite people not divide them. If someone wants to boycott his concert on moral grounds that's up to them but I'm sure most of his fans couldn't care less about his lack of political views. I suspect he's gained a few fans from this publicity too. Given the choice between upsetting a few fans who decided to boycott your concert and upsetting the fans who would turn up regardless it's a no brainer really.

25 minutes ago, My Random Music said:

I suspect he's gained a few fans from this publicity too.

Some right-wing fascist nutjobs. Silver linings!

6 minutes ago, pavi said:

Some right-wing fascist nutjobs. Silver linings!

Of course you would jump to that conclusion when none of them have said anything about what view they pick

46 minutes ago, pavi said:

Some right-wing fascist nutjobs. Silver linings!

Let's say there's somebody who isn't familiar with his music but they're hearing all these news stories all of a sudden. They decide now's the time to familiarise themselves, they take a listen and like what they hear so they continue to listen to his music. By your logic that makes them a right-wing fascist nutjob.

Ed Sheeran acting like the victim after he was rightfully called out for what happened 🙄

18 minutes ago, My Random Music said:

Let's say there's somebody who isn't familiar with his music but they're hearing all these news stories all of a sudden. They decide now's the time to familiarise themselves, they take a listen and like what they hear so they continue to listen to his music. By your logic that makes them a right-wing fascist nutjob.

If you familiarised yourself with this topic (or read the thread at all because what I wrote was mentioned) properly instead of writing nonsense like this, a better dialogue could’ve probably been had but I’ll stop falling for the ragebait

I think what everyone on this thread is dancing around and so I am going to say outright is that the bottom line is this is a lie.

He doesn't 'want everyone to just enjoy the music'; he doesn't want Israelis and people who support Israel's actions to stop buying his music and paying for his concerts and his lifestyle.

That is why he hasn't made a stronger statement and that is why people are criticising him, because he is essentially admitting that despite already being fabulously wealthy and successful, he is not willing to jeopardise the chance to become even more so by making a political statement that might alienate potential customers.

1 hour ago, My Random Music said:

There's no need for him to apologise and I share his sentiments about his concerts being to unite people not divide them. If someone wants to boycott his concert on moral grounds that's up to them but I'm sure most of his fans couldn't care less about his lack of political views. I suspect he's gained a few fans from this publicity too. Given the choice between upsetting a few fans who decided to boycott your concert and upsetting the fans who would turn up regardless it's a no brainer really.

He has, Tommy Robinson and Boy George - glowing endorsements indeed!

It wasn't just a few fans, the prices for the tour falling dramatically suggests otherwise. He'll recover for sure but I think this has done him a lot more harm than good overall

Have read through the thread and there's a lot of good discussion and points from when I last waded in, but lots that absolutely miss the point spectacularly.

Ed Sheeran is an utterly damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and you only need to read this thread to understand why. By some people's logic on here we should be asking every influential figure what their stance is on political matters, societial issues and elections at every available opportunity. People clinging on to social media and signalling as if it is LIFE. I don't think it's healthy for us a society to lean in this way, nor at any point had Ed Sheeran come out himself and made any donations public (this was done through a third party).

I think blacksquare made some simialr points early about this whole debate seems to have waded in to what Ed Sheeran thinks and should or shouldn't do. The fact that people in this thread think Ed Sheeran is a Zionist etc. just wades in to exactly what he shared on his carefully crafted statement. The guy didn't want to become the face of a media spotlight and nor should he. Undoubtedly this week is likely to have been incredibly tough on him. Do people need to feel sorry for him? No. Again, so many recent examples (looking at Jason Arday) where there's been a complete pile on, when it's not fukken needed.

Did Ed Sheeran and his team make a poor decision? Yes. Can he do better? Yes. Humans make mistakes and Ed Sheeran is not the baddie here. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the beauty in all this is how people learn and make better decisions again in the event someone is lobbied to be taken off a music concert because of speech.

Sorry I can’t stop laughing at the suggestion people are only going to discover Ed’s music through all of this.

But no one is saying Ed is a zionist. Jupiter has it correct, Ed only cares about his own popularity and ticket sales. That’s all he’s ever really cared about this why he’s tried to present as apolitical.

It’s not that anyone thinks he wants to see a genocide, it’s more that he didn’t stick up for his friend for speaking out.

Ok, now that I slept with it, I can safely say that no amount of carefully scripted PR statements read off a teleprompter is going to convince me that Ed has said enough when it comes to Gaza...he has never meaningfully acknowledged the genocide and humanitarian catastrophe unfolding there.

Yes, last night’s he might have finally acknowledged that what is happening in Gaza is “catastrophic and unjustifiable,” but for me, words only go so far when they come after weeks of controversy and only once the pressure has become impossible to ignore!!!

One is reading a statement about the situation. The other is putting his money and his platform behind the people affected by it!!! At this point, actions speak a hell of a lot louder than a teleprompter!!!

It's a very simple situation to me. What do you value more, morals, or money? Ed Sheeran has shown through his actions that he values money.

For me personally I don't even mind that, what gets my back up is the dishonesty over it.

This really isn't about Ed Sheeran's music at all, I think everyone would be making the same comments criticising him if it was any other musician or "celebrity" that has the sort of platform he does. It's laughable to diminish a topic so serious to being about something so meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I get BuzzJack is a music forum at it's core but not everything comes back to being a fan/not being a fan of someone. It doesn't matter what Ed says now, the damage was irreversibly done as soon as he booted Macklemore from his tour, no amount of statements or promises can fix that, it just screams backtracking and trying to stop his career from plummeting even further. It's just an example of action speaking louder than words which is why Pink isn't getting as much backlash, it wasn't her that decided Macklemore couldn't finish the tour. I don't think anyone has even defended what she's said, fans or not.

I don't believe it was that hard for him. An artist of Ed's stature standing by Macklemore and making it clear that he is to continue as a show of solidarity for not necessarily Palestine, but just general freedom of speech would've been a powerful statement, he may have lost some of his venues but he's in a position where he can take that hit and find alternatives, while it would've doubtless still got negative coverage, it wouldn't have been blanket across the board and would've gained him a lot of new respect and would've shown that he had principles and that music takes precedence.

You can't tell me that would be worse than this pure corporate shill, fence-sitting that has tried to please everyone and literally pleased no one.

41 minutes ago, pavi said:

If you familiarised yourself with this topic (or read the thread at all because what I wrote was mentioned) properly instead of writing nonsense like this, a better dialogue could’ve probably been had but I’ll stop falling for the ragebait

I said he might have gained a few fans from this publicity and you're calling these hypothetical new fans right-wing fascist nutjobs.

41 minutes ago, J00prstar said:

I think what everyone on this thread is dancing around and so I am going to say outright is that the bottom line is this is a lie.

He doesn't 'want everyone to just enjoy the music'; he doesn't want Israelis and people who support Israel's actions to stop buying his music and paying for his concerts and his lifestyle.

That is why he hasn't made a stronger statement and that is why people are criticising him, because he is essentially admitting that despite already being fabulously wealthy and successful, he is not willing to jeopardise the chance to become even more so by making a political statement that might alienate potential customers.

Of course he doesn't want Israelis to stop buying his music, I'm sure a lot of musicians would happily sell their music to whoever is willing to buy it.

44 minutes ago, Chez Wombat said:

He has, Tommy Robinson and Boy George - glowing endorsements indeed!

It wasn't just a few fans, the prices for the tour falling dramatically suggests otherwise. He'll recover for sure but I think this has done him a lot more harm than good overall

Nothing wrong with gaining Boy George as a fan.

33 minutes ago, T Boy said:

Sorry I can’t stop laughing at the suggestion people are only going to discover Ed’s music through all of this.

It's quite easy these days to not be familiar with the music of a modern artist. Jeremy Clarkson said in his article that he's met Ed Sheeran but isn't familiar with his music.

Ed has been absolutely huge for 15 years. Everyone has heard and Ed Sheeran song even if they don’t know they have. And if they still don’t know they have, then it was appealing enough for them to delve further.

8 minutes ago, T Boy said:

Ed has been absolutely huge for 15 years. Everyone has heard and Ed Sheeran song even if they don’t know they have. And if they still don’t know they have, then it was appealing enough for them to delve further.

I first read appalling enough oop

19 minutes ago, My Random Music said:

Of course he doesn't want Israelis to stop buying his music, I'm sure a lot of musicians would happily sell their music to whoever is willing to buy it.

Well yes, exactly. He is putting customers first, even though he is already a multimillionaire with a net worth of over £300 million. He could never sell another thing in his life and still live beyond our wildest dreams. But that isn't enough.

Just because Ed "has been huge for 15 years" doesnt mean everyone is aware of his music

Heck its been shown just last month the longest number 1 of all time that a large proportion of the country is unaware of its existence