Ed Sheeran is releasing a second album of 2023 next Friday despite the fact that the first one flopped.
Minus, or Subtract, his sixth studio album didn’t sell very well even after he won his plagiarism case over the song “Thinking Out Loud.” The total was 361,000 copies with a little over half from streaming. Sheeran’s previous album sold around 2 million units.
Now he’s coming back with a new one called “Autumn Variations”. He told Billboard in August: “My dad and brother told me about a composer called Elgar, who composed “Enigma Variations,” where each of the 14 compositions were about a different one of his friends. This is what inspired me to make this album.”
Yes, he actually said that. This Elgar person he speaks of his Edward Elgar, famous British compose who wrote the Pomp and Circumstance marches that are heard around the world on a daily basis. Elgar is probably getting a good chuckle about all this wherever he is.
“Autumn Variations” is the first album of Sheeran’s on his own label, Gingerbread Man Records, distributed by Warner Music Group. Sheeran’s previous records were owned by Atlantic Records, which is also through WMG. But as he pointed out in an interview “Autumn Variations” will be the first album to which he owns the master recording.
So we’ll see how Sheeran does saluting Elgar, whose compositions are well out of copyright by now. How many of Sheeran’s songs will sound like Elgar’s? At least he can’t be sued this time around!
As to Elgar, Sheeran should have watched the movie, “Hillary and Jackie.”
