The music that made me: ‘Multiply’ by Ed Sheeran

Not for one second did I ever think I’d be mustering up the words that the music of a certain (and I am keen to point out, alleged) Ipswich Town fan has “made me”. Even the thought of such a headline is making me cringe. Yet, having given it a minute’s thought, it all makes complete sense.

Ed Sheeran is practically inescapable in the present day. Whenever I turn on the radio, not that I do very often, it is the like of Sheeran’s trademark cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers music that dominates the airtime. And whenever I turn to my dodgy fire stick to satisfy my weekly Ipswich hate watch on Monday Night Football, there he is, if not being interviewed by Jamie Carragher sitting in the director’s box agonising over the stock market crashing in his portfolio.

Sheeran’s sophomore studio album, though, is an entirely different story.

The album came to define many of my formative life events

Released in Summer 2014, Multiply marked Sheeran’s emergence into superstardom in the United States as well as his native United Kingdom, the album bearing five singles and topping the album charts in both nations. The album’s lead single ‘Sing’, a collaboration with Pharrell Williams at the peak of his career, still riding the wave of his phenomenal success with ‘Happy’, proved to be Sheeran’s maiden number one in his home country.

On top of all these accolades, the album came to define many of my formative life events, even if I had no intention of doing so.

For instance, the year after its release, my five fellow Year Six leavers and I stood before the entire primary school and belted out a rendition of ‘Photograph’ as the highlight of our leavers’ assembly, accompanied, somewhat oddly, by a slideshow showcasing photographs of us and our time at the school. Even now, a decade later, I still can’t bear to listen to that song out of sheer embarrassment.

Or how about in year eight, when in technology class my once Sheeran-adoring best friend chose ‘Thinking out Loud’ as our backing track for our routine in the class Lego robotics dance competition. In fact, it was in this very same class that we learned of the release of Multiply’s successor, Divide. Unfortunately, our anticipation was not to be rewarded.

Even still, at its best Divide reassured us of Sheeran’s lyrical genius:

“Just re-remember life is more than fittin’ in your jeans. It’s love and understanding, positivity.”

‘One’ and ‘Tenerife Sea’ are two beautifully crafted love songs

It’s just a shame that for Sheeran superstardom came at a cost, that cost being the corporate sludgeification of his post-Multiply efforts. It’s songs like the two lead singles from Divide, ‘Shape of You’ and ‘Castle on the Hill’, that really illustrate this shift from modest, guitar-led numbers to manufactured, assembly-line sludge and nostalgia bait.

Perhaps it’s just me being bitter, since no Norfolk landmark has ever inspired a hit pop song. Although I suspect this is because no Norfolkian will ever rhapsodise about Beeston Bump or the Joyland snails in the same way Sheeran does about his titular Framlingham Castle.

Multiply came early enough in Sheeran’s career to avoid this. ‘One’ and ‘Tenerife Sea’ are two beautifully crafted love songs, ‘One’ more heartbreaking than the other, while the crescendo to ‘I’m a Mess’ will make you want to run through the seven circles of hell for him. And, with Sheeran’s fantastic phrasing, ‘Nina’ is probably the best song on the album.

I must have listened to Multiply in its entirety a hundred times within the first year of its release, my mum having purchased the CD that summer and it accompanying every car journey for a good time thereafter.

The album was played back to front as we traversed the length and breadth of Norfolk, and on occasion across the border into Suffolk, for my Sunday League fixtures, these journeys sometimes totalling two hours each way as is the nature of our infrastructural disconnect from civilisation in that part of the world.

Multiply is one of those rare albums in which each song brings something to the table, each worth a listen

But sometimes our journeys that summer would see us venture into the world of motorways and modernity. It would still take two hours on a good day from our house in rural North Norfolk to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where my dad was receiving palliative care following his traffic collision on his way to work the previous October, just a few minutes from home. My mum would make this journey every day, my two brothers and I a good few times a week ourselves, the album accompanying each and every visit.

I wouldn’t say that the album got me through this period of time, but it was certainly there for the duration of it.

Sentimental claptrap aside, Multiply is one of those rare albums in which each song brings something to the table, each worth a listen. And it sits in pretty good company, too, alongside such classics as Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’, Bob Seger’s Live Bullet, and Boston’s self-titled debut effort.

Literally as I’m writing this, I’ve realised these three albums were all released within a year of each other. What a time for music, especially given the state of the industry today. But if anyone has the talent to recapture any of the magic, for one good reason I’d want it to be my fellow East Anglian, the ginger one from south of the border.