Ed Sheeran Releases Third Studio Album, 'Divide'!

It’s finally here!

Ed Sheeran has released his highly anticipated album, Divide.

Divide is the follow up to Ed’s Grammy winning X or Multiply album from 2014 and features the hit singles, ‘Shape of You’ and ‘Castle on the Hill’.

In an interview with our entertainment reporter Devo Brown, Ed revealed that ‘Castle on the Hill’ holds special meaning for him, “this is a love song dedicated to my hometown and my hometown friends, we have zero in common apart from our love for each other and our love for our hometown so I wrote a song about me growing up.”

The music video was shot in his hometown of Suffolk and even featured kids from the small town, “They did actually cast people in the video that I knew, and we casted kids from the high school who were 15,16 in the video, so all the kids live in the town and went to the same high school I went to.”

‘Shape of You’ has been a smash hit but nearly wasn’t on the album. Ed revealed in an interview with BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show that the song was originally written for Rihanna, “I was singing some of the lyrics and was like Rihanna is not going to sing these words so kept it to myself.”

Prior to the release of Divide, Ed released an acoustic cover of ‘How Would You Feel (Paean)’ which he says is his girlfriend [Cherry Seaborn] favourite song,

“I was like, this is the one time I could release a song and it could be played on the radio when it’s five minutes. I think when the album is out, people will just go for the singles. So the song isn’t a single, but I want to put it out because I want loads of people to hear it.”

He added, “I said to my girlfriend [Cherry Seaborn], ‘What’s your favorite song on the album?’ and she said, ‘You forgot this existed and I’ve got it in my email because I’m the only one you sent it to.’”

Earlier this week, Ed paid tribute to the UK channel, SBTV for “starting his career” by releasing another track from Divide, a song called ‘Eraser’. Tuesday marked 7 years since they uploaded Ed’s first video, ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’.

Ed started 2017 with a bang when he revealed that he had new music on the way  with this message on his Twitter,

https://twitter.com/edsheeran/status/815505331656806400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The ‘new music’ turned out to be ‘Shape of You’ and ‘Castle on the Hill’.

It was later that month that Ed revealed the title for the album (Divide) with this Twitter post; Divide follows a similar math pattern he’s had with previous projects; his 2011 debut album was + (‘plus’) and his 2014 album was, ‘x’ (‘multiply’).

https://twitter.com/edsheeran/status/815950803789717504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

So far for 2017, Ed has performed his new music on Saturday Night Live, BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge and of course music’s biggest night, the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.

Ed also debuted the remix to his song ‘Shape Of You’ featuring UK rapper Stormzy at this year’s BRIT awards.

By the way, if you decide to pick up a vinyl copy of Divide you’ll get a special note from the singer himself. Ed posted the following video to his Instagram that showed a special note he wrote to his fans.

The note reads, “Thanks so much for buying the album. You beautiful human! I’m writing this note on my kitchen table eating sausages with ketchup. They are awesome. Hope you like the album.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQyEEqlgKH_/?taken-by=teddysphotos&hl=en

Take a listen to Ed’s album Divide and let us know what your favourite song is!

Also, check out Ed’s breakdown of each track off of Divide HERE.