I'm not a fan of Ed Sheeran anymore. His music is just grating to me now. But, I can see this era being big for him.

On 29/03/2025 at 20:14, Liam S said:

Unpopular opinion but Ed Sheeran might be exactly what the charts need right now

Unpopular opinion i very much enjoy his music regardless , always makes me chuckle how much buzzjack is so anti Ed , he can release another 50 albums for all I care and hope he still successful

17 hours ago, Steve201 said:

I’m not a fan of the new Gaga music, the new Jade song and the Teddy Swims music but I don’t feel the need to go in immediately to their threads and make the same opinions verging on derogatory personal comments about them every time.

I actually like all artists listed here 😅😅

Can't wait to hear the album 🙌

Ed's made some questionable career moves (the previous disowned album and the LadBaby thing being the biggest for me - but both were No.1s anyway ha) but when he's at the top of his game, there are few artists better for me.

The only album of his I didn't like as much was Autumn Variations, all of the others (including Subtract) have finished in my top five albums of their release years, however unfashionable that makes me. Clearly Azizam isn't reinventing the wheel but it sounds like a fun pop song with a very catchy hook, as is his forte. We've not even heard more than the chorus and it's been all I've had in my head for weeks.

I still think his singles chart career has a limited shelf life at the business end of things, not from anything he has done wrong but just because of a lot of his early audience moving on / probably more limited young Gen Z and Gen Alpha appeal / and the way the industry has gone in terms of hits now mostly being fuelled by TikTok. But he can still get new hits if they do go viral, I'm sure. I have noticed him trying to push Azizam hard to go viral with videos and the hearts in different cities thing, and virality is not generally something you can engineer but it's such a catchy track that I wouldn't be surprised to see it go viral anyway with or without his active push.

What does Gen Alpha mean GD? The opposite of Gen Z?

36 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

I still think his singles chart career has a limited shelf life at the business end of things, not from anything he has done wrong but just because of a lot of his early audience moving on / probably more limited young Gen Z and Gen Alpha appeal / and the way the industry has gone in terms of hits now mostly being fuelled by TikTok. But he can still get new hits if they do go viral, I'm sure. I have noticed him trying to push Azizam hard to go viral with videos and the hearts in different cities thing, and virality is not generally something you can engineer but it's such a catchy track that I wouldn't be surprised to see it go viral anyway with or without his active push.

I think you're sadly quite right with regards to TikTok working against him, but I'm optimistic that he's got a strong enough fanbase to weather all of that. Even if he can't get a #1 with this, he had #1 singles that spanned a period of 9 years (2014 to 2023) and that's a pretty good innings.

3 minutes ago, Steve201 said:

What does Gen Alpha mean GD? The opposite of Gen Z?

Basically anyone born after 2010.

1 hour ago, Hassaan said:

Basically anyone born after 2010.

Ah cheers, apologies for the ignorance!

1 hour ago, Steve201 said:

Ah cheers, apologies for the ignorance!

Tbf it's not really ignorance when only a small percentage of the population use these clearly new terms

That’s where Ed Sheeran has really fallen off the 15-25 age bracket. I’m sure it’s seen as his music being more for their parents. He needs to find a way to become playable for that group again

39 minutes ago, Liam S said:

That’s where Ed Sheeran has really fallen off the 15-25 age bracket. I’m sure it’s seen as his music being more for their parents. He needs to find a way to become playable for that group again

It's a tricky one because if I was him, I wouldn't drastically change his sound. You don't want to alienate the massive number of people who are already your fans to cater to those who are not.

I think anyone over 25 at least will have grown up with him - they'll have been teenagers when he was breaking out.

I think it's more if the song clicks, bad habits and shivers were less than 4 years ago and some of the biggest songs of since streaming,

Heck bad habits release week was touch and go if it would hit number 1 but then he did 10 weeks

Yeh it just broke 100k sales in a week and people were shocked he didn’t do 300-400k after the previous era 🤣

On 29/03/2025 at 14:46, Jessie Where said:

Should've called it "Skip"

But it's a four album series again so also needs 'Mute', 'Fast Forward' and 'Eject'

I think his singles career isn't *quite* done yet, but I don't think he's the "INSTANT DOUBLE-FIGURE WEEKS NUMBER 1!" guaranteed chart force anymore (and that's fine. Time's move on, the music industry is ever changing and nobody is at the peak of their career every time etc..) however, as his singles chart force diminishes, he'll stay just as strong or consistent as an album seller. The type of act to be guaranteed a number 1 album release even 20 years down the line kinda thing.

14 hours ago, dandy* said:

But it's a four album series again so also needs 'Mute', 'Fast Forward' and 'Eject'

he already announced Eject is the title of his post-humous, no joking :o

8 hours ago, Bjork said:

he already announced Eject is the title of his post-humous, no joking :o

And fast forward is in the next cycle, with play, pause, rewind and stop 🤣

On 31/03/2025 at 13:44, 777666jason said:

Tbf it's not really ignorance when only a small percentage of the population use these clearly new terms

Hmm? Generational labels are not new terms or lowly used/known about!

21 minutes ago, -Jay- said:

Hmm? Generational labels are not new terms or lowly used/known about!

Considering not a lot of people actually use them and the goal posts are moved regularly on what is and what isn't a certain gen I'd say a huge chunk of the populations does t know about them 🤔

2 hours ago, 777666jason said:

Considering not a lot of people actually use them and the goal posts are moved regularly on what is and what isn't a certain gen I'd say a huge chunk of the populations does t know about them 🤔

Quite honestly I see the terms Gen Z, Millennial and Boomer used pretty regularly so I don't agree with this! I've seen them used across my social media feeds as well as in news headlines (less so for "Boomer" which is used more as an insult ), so I think they're pretty well known and utilised.