Thursday 10 July 2014

Ed Sheeran - x Review [The Buona Vista Musician]

Ed Sheeran - x [Pop]

Most of my reviews are of metal albums - not a surprising thing, mind, since I would more readily listen to a metal record (and then be able to review it) than one from almost any other genre. However, there are times when, compelled by hearsay, hype or other strange self-created reasons, I bite my tongue, step out of my comfort zone and put myself through an entire album of music that I don't usually listen to. Sometimes the results are pleasant, and other times they aren't. This is one of those "other times".

I gave this album a shot mainly because people close to me have been riding the Ed Sheeran hype train really hard. This guy isn't like those other pop artists, they say, attempting to convince me that, assuming there are multiple types of pop artists, Ed Sheeran isn't of the type that I readily profess to dislike.

Sad to say, though, that this album has not given me any reason to afford Sheeran any more respect than I would most other pop artists (that is to say, not a lot of respect). In fact, I could quite easily break this down:

Vocals: My immense disdain for auto-tuned vocals and the reasons behind such disdain are all old hat by now; I won't go any further down that road than mentioning that this album contains fairly liberal use of pitch correction. That matter aside, the vocals are delivered alright (not fantastically, as many people would have you believe). The usual crooning and bluesy runs are there, best observed on tracks like "Don't". Sheeran tries to spice things up with rap-like vocals on "Runaway" and "The Man", which appears "creative" and "original", except it isn't, even in the context of pop music, given that other artists like Jason Mraz and Train  have used vocal stylings like these fairly frequently (and arguably more adeptly than Sheeran). Overall, the vocals aren't terrible, but neither are they amazing. "Bland" would be an appropriate word here - so much for Sheeran being some other kind of pop artist.

Lyrics: There isn't a whole lot going on here aside from the usual done-to-death drivel about puppy love and teenage rebellion. I fully understand that the primary target audience of pop artists like Sheeran is not seeking the musical equivalent of William Wordsworth (nor indeed should it); however, this gives Sheeran no reason to slap together all the cliches he found while listening to 2000s records and repackage them, as he appears to have done here.

Music: Musically speaking, the album plays largely to expectation; Sheeran made his name in the mainstream arena as an acoustic artist and, aside from a couple of tracks, does not deviate much from his tested formula. This creative decision was Sheeran's to make and is mine to critique: much like his 2011 album "+", there is again nothing noteworthy happening here, unless one considers strummed and occasionally-fingerpicked major and minor chords noteworthy. If Sheeran was trying to sound new and improved, it didn't come through; if he was content to make bank off his die-hard fans by simply regurgitating old ideas, then balls to him.

Overall: This album isn't quite the shit show that "+" was. "+" was so bad largely because its radio hits - "Lego House" and "Give Me Love" - were complete garbage. The song with arguably the most airtime on "x" is "Sing", which is a fairly annoying  song (especially because of the unnecessary howling in the choruses) but not quite "Lego House"-level bad. However, that by no means suggests that "x" is anything to write home about - on the contrary, it is bland, uninspiring and unoriginal (and, again, THERE IS SO MUCH AUTOTUNE) which, if you may, classifies it as just another run-of-the-mill pop record.

★☆☆☆☆


Ed Sheeran - x Review

Ed Sheeran - x ["Pop"]





I do not understand the hype for this album. Nothing that has been done here is new, nothing especially emotional. The usual garbage is here though; completely unmemorable vocal hooks, terrible, cheesy lyrics, repetitive rhythms (you get sick of the acoustic guitar barely three songs in) and plastic vocals that the masses seem to have no problem lapping up. How many of you actually listen to actual singers?

Dynamic range stands at 6, which is already quite bad before you factor in that most of the album is acoustic, which somehow means that it is brickwalled to death, a classic example of Rick Rubin's disgusting production. Not surprisingly, it's easy to see that most of the compression is in the vocals, his voice pierces through whatever 'instrumentation' exists on the album. Anybody who has managed to differentiate his songs should be applauded for having such a parochial view of music. Though he uses multiple guitar techniques, all of them seem to be taken straight from the textbook without any of his own personal input instrumentally, so I find it amusing that the album has been marketted as one with lush guitar playing. John Mayer looks like a shredder next to this album.

Speaking of Mayer, the themes on the album are so severely immature and plastic, it seems like an obvious attempt to cash in on Taylor Swift's redundant love songs. This man is the male version of Taylor Swift. Whether he refers to hormones as 'chemicals burning in my bloodstream' in 'Bloodstream' or when he literally talks about his first kiss under the lamp post of sixth street (I am assuming it's his first kiss, for his sake) in 'Nina', there is no way a person of normal IQ can listen without cringing at such lame lyrics.

For vocals, I do have a distinct taste for how I like vocals to be delivered, as most people should, so I will try to stay clear of basing this for critique. However, I observe that Ed Sheeran has a rather monotonous approach to vocals, without anything in his arsenal besides crooning and his usual nasal singing. He tends to stay in the higher register, but never seems to go beyond this range. There is some obvious use of autotune here, but I will give it to him to be able to belt a decent tune from time to time. Ironically, a lot of this becomes obvious on the collaboration with Pharell Williams on 'Runaway'. I am not a fan of either artiste, but Williams does elevate the song here. The only other respite from the croons is the rap vocals on 'The Man'. His rap sounds pretty awkward. I will stop here.

All in all, nothing else stands out in this album. I can imagine a lot of people, who do not listen to much music in the first place, will probably make this album a lot more than it actually as, a male version of Taylor Swift's Red. Then again, even that album had hooks here and there. Pure bullshit.

☆☆☆☆☆ Steaming pile of shit