Ed Sheeran - No 6: Collaborations Project

The Guardian 60

(Atlantic)

Despite notions of cool dying out in a blaze of post-irony, Ed Sheeran remains obsessed with his perceived status as an outsider. On his fourth album, a belated follow-up to his pre-fame EP featuring a who’s who of modern pop, he’s the loner at glitzy showbiz parties (Justin Bieber duet I Don’t Care); the everyman megastar desperate to go back to the UK “for a packet of crisps with my pint” (Take Me Back to London featuring Stormzy) and, on the woeful Remember the Name, the home counties rap fan trying to hold his own with Eminem and 50 Cent: “Yeah, I was born a misfit,” he “spits”, “grew up 10 miles from the town of Ipswich”.

It’s when he’s not acting the “misfit” that the album works best, however. The breezy, Cardi B-assisted South of the Border recalls the pop finesse of Shape of You, while the Ella Mai duet Put It All on Me transforms tour loneliness into something sweetly affecting. Antisocial, meanwhile, is a shape-shifting Travis Scott banger good enough to withstand Sheeran’s presence.