Ed Sheeran is outta there at Atlantic Records in the US. He’s overall gone from Warner Music where he was signed in the UK.
But Sheeran’s big sales are in the US, and Atlantic Records has not done much for him in a long time. The writing was on the wall. The new Atlantic has invested big time in Hillary Duff, and had little interest in Sheeran, once their biggest artist.
Sheeran, who recently shaved his head — always a sign of change in a Lifetime movie — has plenty of options. He could go to bff Taylor Swift’s label, Republic Records, or to the new set up called 26.2 Records at Sony Music run by his former Atlantic friends Max Lousada and Julie Greenwalk.
For a while now, Sheeran’s music has been released on his own Gingerbread Man label and licensed to Warner. But that’s no excuse for the new Atlantic team doing just about nothing for his releases.
If Sheeran goes to Universal, it would be ironic since that’s the empire of Sir Lucian Grainge. Grainge’s son, Elliot, runs Atlantic.
The decline of Sheeran’s sales is notable because he’s just 35, and has the potential for more hits easily.
His career has changed though, especially with the current problems in live shows. He was selling out stadiums and arenas at his height, but has lately wanted to pull back to smaller venues.
Still, Ed has sold the equivalent of 643,000 albums so far in 2026 which isn’t bad considering he doesn’t have a current radio hit. But his catalog will stay at Warner Music for the time being.
But the fact that in the US the Atlantic people couldn’t promote Sheeran or make him stay says a lot. But they do have Hillary Duff, Don Toliver, Alex Warren, and, in all seriousness, Bruno Mars, who is left over from the prior administration.
“I met Ed Howard from Asylum records at a show in Notting Hill when I was 18 and I ended up crashing at his and his now wife’s house. Whilst there I played him a bunch of music, and just chatted about life and what I wanted to do. I honestly didn’t know at the time he worked at a record label, I thought he was just someone cool who was letting me crash on his sofa. But the next day I found out who he was, and we started chatting. He came to so many of those small gigs, with Ben Cook who ran Asylum at the time. All the tiny tiny pub gigs no one came to, they came to. So when ‘No.5 collaborations’ [Sheeran’s independently released debut EP] came out, and I was offered a deal, I signed instantly. I love those guys so much.
“Over the last 15 years, I’ve put out so much music and had so much success with that company. We’ve built something amazing together and enjoyed such life changing stuff happening to us. My life is hugely different now to what it was when I was a teenager, and I’ve been feeling in my gut for a long time that a lot of things in my professional life need to change. I am, underneath it all, a singer songwriter who plays pub gigs. And I’ve sorta morphed into this pop star who plays stadiums over 15 years, it’s a super amazing thing to have happened but also a lot to get your head around.
“I decided to leave Asylum / Warner last month. I leave the company with SO much love and gratitude for everything we have achieved together. This isn’t a ‘disgruntled artist leaves record label’ type situation. This is a boy who started as a teenager on the company with different priorities, to the father of 2 man who exists now, who feels like he needs a shift and change in the way he does things professionally. I love Ed Howard forever, I love Asylum forever, and the door is always open for the future. Thank you everyone across Warner worldwide who has worked on my projects over the last 15 years, it’s been an incredible journey. Excited to see where the next 15 years takes me. Loads of love to everyone x.”
