Is this just me, or are there certain artists whose music it feels kind of strange to review?

Okay, well, I know it’s not just me. But I feel like there’s a small group of artists who, if you ask a music critic to review one of their albums, there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to feel strange for the reviewer to review the album.

And obviously I can’t speak for anyone but myself, so maybe this isn’t a good example, but one band who comes to mind is The Beatles. They’re one of the most critically acclaimed bands of all time, and one of the most famous bands of all time, whose music has become such a huge part of popular culture for so many decades that the idea of reviewing a Beatles album feels kind of strange, even though I’m probably going to review one of their albums eventually, whenever I get back to doing throwback reviews.

But just because a band/artist is super famous and has a huge fanbase doesn’t make it feel awkward to review their albums, does it? Taylor Swift’s music is a huge part of popular culture and she has a super large fanbase, and she’s one of the most famous celebrities in the world, and it didn’t feel strange for me reviewing Midnights last year—although I’ll admit the album has grown on me a bit, but that’s not the point.

I think the big difference is … well, it’s hard to explain, but The Beatles’ music has been around for way longer, and their critical reception in recent years has been really interesting, as they’re still often considered one of the greatest bands of all time, and because of that they’ve also often been considered one of the most overrated bands of all time. So, if someone is trying really hard to be ‘cool’, they could pretty much say whatever they want about The Beatles, and at the same time they’ll also have a controversial opinion—in other words, I think pretty much everyone has some sort of controversial opinion on The Beatles’ discography overall.

And while he wouldn’t be right near the top of the list for me of artists whose music it feels strange to review, Ed Sheeran is a name that comes to mind in that conversation, albeit in a different way than The Beatles. I mean, if I were just trying to be ‘cool’ I would say that all of Ed Sheeran’s albums suck, but at the same time it kind of feels like in the online music critic community, almost everyone likes some Ed Sheeran music.

I recently decided to listen to all of the Ed Sheeran albums I hadn’t listened to, and I’ve now heard all of Ed’s albums multiple times, and I can’t say his first few albums really did much for me, even though “The A Team” and “Castle on the Hill” are great songs. And then there was No.6 Collaborations Project, which in my opinion is his worst album, and a complete mess. It doesn’t even feel like a studio album, and it feels more like a bunch of random ideas tossed in a blender. And while = has its moments, I don’t think any of his first five albums are as good as –, his sixth studio album from earlier this year—it’s a very emotional album which has some excellent songs on it, and I was really excited to hear his seventh album, Autumn Variations, his second album of 2023.

And unfortunately, I think it’s a step down. And in a year full of disappointing albums for me, I guess we have another one to add to the list.

So, why didn’t this click for me? Well, the first thing I want to mention is the production, which in my opinion isn’t nearly as strong as the production on –. A lot of these songs have an oddly messy feeling to the production, such as “Magical” with the acoustic guitar timbre that, for whatever reason, just feels too sharp in the dreamy production, if that makes any sense.

Another example is the closing track, which has an annoying clicking beat that just feels really out of place to me. And “Plastic Bag” has an instrumental that at points sounds like a bunch of sounds just thrown together without them really fitting together well in my opinion, including the percussion that overpowers the mix.

I also think the vocal melodies—outside of a few moments which I’ll get to in a bit—are pretty uninteresting. There are songs here in which I like the ideas, but it just doesn’t really come together for me as a full song, like “Punchline”, a song which has some emotional lyrics and good production, and I do like this track, but the vocal melodies just don’t really grab me much.

And before I talk about the elements of this album that I really like, I do want to mention my least favourite track here, “The Day I Was Born”, which not only has similar production issues for me as a lot of this album, but it also just doesn’t really do anything for me compositionally or melodically. And also, I get that this is supposed to be a really emotional track about a lonely birthday, and about feeling alone in general, and I don’t want to be insensitive or anything, but something about the main line of the song being ‘nobody cares this is the day I was born’ just feels kind of cringey to me, almost like I’m listening to myself as a five year old, complaining, ‘But it’s my birthday! I should get everything I want!’ Again, I know that’s not the point of the song, but for some reason that’s all I can think of whenever I hear this.

Now, with all that being said, there are a few strong high points on this album, such as “England”. The guitars have some real firepower to them, and the snare adds a lot of punch. It’s also one of the few songs here where the vocal melodies really click for me. The bass sounds really good in the mix, really helping this feel a lot more anthemic and replayable. And I really like the lyrics that are celebrating Ed’s home country. I love the line, ‘I find this country of mine gets a bad reputation of bein’ cold and grey, but on the coast of the south to the east followed round, I find serenity I’ve never felt.’ I mean, it’s a simple song, but there’s a lot of really good imagery, and the instruments all come together to create a really powerful song.

Speaking of songs in which I really like the vocal melodies … well, “American Town” comes to mind. I mean, with its super catchy chorus, I get why it was released as a single … and I really hope it becomes a hit, because this song is great! The acoustic guitar sounds really good, I think it has some of the best vocals on the album, and I love that little guitar lick at the end of the chorus!

There’s also “Midnight”, a song which I think is mixed really well, and the vocal melodies are some of the better ones on the album in my opinion.

But overall, I just didn’t find much here that made me want to go back to the album. I mean, I can tell there was a lot of emotion put into this, but the album just isn’t really my cup of tea. And while there are a few moments that really clicked for me, none of the songs here are as great as the very best from – in my opinion, and the majority of this is just decent to me.

But as always, it’s just how I personally feel … and I still like this more than I don’t, so I’ll give it a 6/10.

I know I didn’t really say much about this, and my apologies for not really going into much detail at all here. I’ve got quite a few reviews I’m working on and I’ve been really busy recently with school. I considered just making this a mini review, but I’d already started writing this post and I decided to just make it a full review, just not a super long one.

There’s a part of me that feels like if I’m going to do full-length album reviews I should put a bit more effort into them than I do … but at the end of the day, I’m just some guy writing about my personal feelings on albums. I’m not trying to control anyone else’s feelings on the albums I review. And overall, I just didn’t really feel like putting a ton of effort into this review considering how many other reviews I have coming up. And part of that is probably because I work at a Starbucks, where I’ve constantly been hearing an Ed Sheeran playlist on the store’s speakers … and considering the fact that I also listened to a lot of Ed Sheeran in preparation for this review and listened to this album multiple times … eventually I guess I just reached a point where I got really tired of listening to Ed Sheeran’s music for the time being. But I still feel confident about my feelings on the album, I just didn’t put in the extra work I could have to make the review more detailed.

But take my review with a grain of salt, like any of my reviews. It’s all just how I personally feel.

And with that, thanks for reading!

Final Thoughts
Rating: 6/10
Favourite Tracks: “England”, “American Town”, “Midnight”
Least Favourite Tracks: “The Day I Was Born”