Sheeran is still on symbols kick in 5th album

This was supposed to be a shopping list of albums to gift your friends with this Christmas. Anything about music makes a welcome present. And I mean anything, from rock T-shirts to albums and concert tickets and what I believe are most welcome these days, vinyl LPs.

Besides, we have reached the end of the year and it is during this last quarter when all the big stars come out with their new releases. Everybody with goods to sell takes advantage of this happy time when extra money is going around and people are not reluctant to part with their cash. Music stars are no different.

So because it is the time for giving, we now have available, the best sounds ready to be gift-wrapped and placed under the tree or sent online with an e-card, made up of some of the best music ever heard.

Think Taylor Swift’s Red, her new, older version, which comes with an explicit edition; Adele as a heart broken sophisticate in 30, now a certified million seller; Bruno Mars and Anderson. Paak as a smooth as silk R&B duo as Silk Sonic in An Evening with Silk Sonic; the surprise pairing of Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga in the Cole Porter showcase, Love for Sale; why, even the Scandinavian hit factory ABBA has released a new album, Voyage, after almost 40 years.

There are also gorgeous soundtracks from motion pictures like West Side Story, Encanto and Tick, Tick… Boom! And would you believe, all those enchanting Christmas albums recently released from Kelly Clarkson, Darren Criss, Kristin Chenoweth, Dan + Shay and there is even one by Steve Perry.

All of the aforementioned are very good choices and musts for all music lovers. I want them all. But then I listened to = or Equals by Ed Sheeran and unexpectedly, I saw the scales tip heavily in his favor.

Sheeran is still on a symbols kick in this his fifth and first studio release after four years and which is the fourth of his symbols series. He has already done + (Plus), × (Multiply) and ÷ (Divide) and now he has = (Equals). I do not know how the symbols relate to the songs but I do admit, wondering how, makes the albums interesting.

Note also that Sheeran as not yet used – (Minus). Seeing how – denotes being less, he might never, as the music in the album so titled might seem lesser than the others. But then knowing how creative this guy is, he might just find a way to do so.

But whatever the symbol, it is a fact that Sheeran’s eloquence as a songwriter has grown marvelously these past years. = has some of the best melodies he has composed and his gift for coming up with the simplest but most affecting lyrics is in evidence throughout.

I thought = would be a lark, as playful as the single Bad Habits, whose video has Sheeran as a pink suited vampire flying around city streets. I was wrong. The album is his most varied collection ever. This is an exploration of his depth as an artist unlike any he has done before. It is fun but intimate, sad but also happy and in a dramatic way, quite romantic.

Sheeran has a lullaby, Sandman, “You were loved before you had arrived;” an elegy, “I wish that heaven had visiting hours so I could just swing by and ask your advice;”acceptance of reality, “You know, I’ve never been afraid of death, but now I wanna see the things that haven’t happened yet.”

But it is with the love songs where is most compelling and so romantic. With his usual guitar-based arrangements backgrounded by gorgeous strings Sheeran sings, “And I know you could fall for a thousand kings/ and hearts that could give you a diamond ring/ when I fold you see the best in me/ The joker and the queen” in The Joker and the Queen.

He does the same with First Times, a song about memories. “Ain’t it funny how the simplest things in life can make a man? Little moments that pass us by/ oh, but I remember… I can’t wait to make a million more first times.”

Ed Sheeran today is a happy man and he is telling this to the world through his music in =. And he does it so beautifully.