Ed Sheeran - 'Bad Habits' Single Review
Ed Sheeran is a singer/songwriter who began playing guitar at a young age and soon after started writing his own songs. When he was just a teenager, he moved to London to pursue his music, and his outpouring of creativity added up to hundreds of live shows. Drawing attention for his online performances, Sheeran hit No. 1 on the iTunes chart before he ever signed with a record label.
Ed Sheeran was born on February 17, 1991, in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom. When he was 11, Sheeran met singer-songwriter Damien Rice backstage at one of Rice's shows, and the young musician found added inspiration. As the story goes, Rice told Sheeran to write his own music, and Sheeran set out the next day to do just that. It wasn't long before Sheeran was recording CDs and selling them, and he soon put together his first official EP, 'The Orange Room'. With that accomplishment and his abiding ambition driving him, at only 14 years of age, Sheeran headed to London for the summer. Thinking he could find gigs in the big city, Sheeran left home with his guitar and a backpack full of clothes, and his musical career took flight. Once in London, Sheeran began to get busy recording and playing the local singer/songwriter circuit and quickly released two albums. He also began opening for more established acts, such as Nizlopi, the Noisettes and Jay Sean, and released another EP in 2009, a year that found him playing more than 300 live shows.
It wasn't until 2010 that Sheeran made the leap to the next level in his career, and it came via online media, a route Sheeran had learned to use with great effectiveness. When a video he posted online got the attention of Example, a rapper, Sheeran was asked to go on the road with him as his opening act. This led to an even larger online fan base and inspiration for many more songs, which ended up filling three new EPs, all in 2010.
In 2017, Sheeran was made a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his services to music and charity. A few weeks later, Sheeran announced that he had celebrated another momentous occasion by getting engaged to girlfriend Cherry Seaborn just before the new year. In August 2018, he revealed that the two had secretly gotten married since then, and in August 2020, the pair welcomed their first child, daughter Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran.
Ed Sheeran's first single of the year, Bad Habits, is an overall confession of the bad habits that once plagued a man who has now embraced fatherhood. It is hazy, enigmatic and infectious - I first heard it through TikTok as a teased sound, and ever since then it hasn't left my head. It's an earworm, and I am entirely for it. It's so catchy, and the video - which sees Sheeran as a vampire sporting a pink suit, glitzy eye makeup, fangs and pointed matte black fingernails is a little bit cringy, but brilliant nevertheless. It's fun and you immediately love it and the song which it comes with. As the first single of what is expected to be a fifth album and fourth solo album (Sheeran worked alongside artists like Cardi B and Justin Bieber in 2019 to release No. 6 Collaborations Project), it sets a precedent of wicked songs and cinematic videos, and I can't wait to hear what comes out next.