Sheeran has been working on his second album for a long time. And he hasn't been lazy about it. In an interview with Ryan Seacrest, he revealed that he has written over 120 songs for the new album, meaning that what we finally get to hear will be the cherry-picked few from a whole collection of new material. He has already played at least three of his new songs publicly, one recently at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and two for the first time at Madison Square Garden. All three of these are available on YouTube and are below. There's no guarantee that these songs will be on the new album since he recorded so many, but it's likely that they will since he performed them at the end of October 2013 - recently enough that there'd be some certainty. On top of this, the second album is being produced by legendary US producer Rick Rubin, who is now in his fourth decade of producing hit albums. In the 80s, Rubin started by working with artists such as LL Cool J, Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C., then adding acts like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, AC/DC and Mick Jagger in the 90s, and continuing to grow throughout the 2000s with Justin Timberlake, Jay Z and Linkin Park. In the past few years, he has produced albums by Adele, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Jake Bugg, Kanye West and Josh Groban. So Ed Sheeran is in good company here. Rubin has been described by Sheeran as "Good at energising people", saying that by the time Rubin came on board, Sheeran had already been working on the record for almost three years and felt like he was done, but Rubin "Got involved and brought it back to life". Rubin has joined producers Pharrell Williams and Jake Gosling (who produced his first album), leading Sheeran to say "I recorded it about three different times with three different people; Then I picked the best songs." "It's the work I'm most proud of". So we really will get the best of the best. The Tenerife Sea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2KljYjS670 New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXUckA492is Take It Back Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffoY-4EwJqM
I'm a British filmmaker (or, at least, trying to be) and about to graduate with a Film Studies degree. Most of the time I should spend working is actually on Netflix so I obviously have loads of life experience to share with you lovely people.
