Edward Christopher Sheeran

About Edward Christopher Sheeran

According to wikipedia

Edward Christopher Sheeran MBE  is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. In early 2011, Sheeran independently released the extended play, No. 5 Collaborations Project. After signing with Asylum Records, his debut album, + (pronounced "plus"), was released in September 2011 and topped the UK Albums Chart. It contained his first hit single "The A Team". In 2012, Sheeran won the Brit Awards for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act.

Sheeran's second studio album, × (pronounced "multiply"), was released in June 2014. It was named the second-best-selling album worldwide of 2015. In the same year, × won Album of the Year at the 2015 Brit Awards, and he received the Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. A single from ×, "Thinking Out Loud", earned him the 2016 Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance. Sheeran's third album, ÷ (pronounced "divide"), was released in March 2017, and was the best-selling album worldwide of 2017. The first two singles from the album, "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill", broke records in a number of countries by debuting in the top two positions of the charts. He also became the first artist to have two songs debut in the US top 10 in the same week. By March 2017, Sheeran had accumulated ten top 10 singles from ÷ on the UK Singles Chart, breaking the record for most top 10 UK singles from one album. His fourth single from ÷, "Perfect", reached number one in the US, Australia and the UK, where it became the Christmas number one in 2017. The world’s best-selling artist of 2017, he was named the Global Recording Artist of the Year. Released in 2019, his fourth studio album No.6 Collaborations Project debuted at number one in most major markets, and spawned three UK number one singles, "I Don't Care", "Beautiful People" and "Take Me Back to London".

Sheeran has sold more than 150 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. He has 84.5 million RIAA-certified units in the US, and two of his albums are in the list of the best-selling albums in UK chart history: x at number 20, and ÷ at number 34. In December 2019, the Official Charts Company named him artist of the decade, with the most combined success in the UK album and singles charts in the 2010s. Globally, Spotify named him the second most streamed artist of the decade. Beginning in March 2017, his ÷ Tour became the highest-grossing of all time in August 2019. An alumnus of the National Youth Theatre in London, as an actor Sheeran’s roles include appearing in the 2019 film Yesterday.

Early life

Edward Christopher Sheeran was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England on 17 February 1991. His early childhood home was on Birchcliffe Road in nearby Hebden Bridge. His father was a curator at Cartwright Hall in Bradford and his mother worked at Manchester City Art Gallery. In December 1995 he moved with his family from Hebden Bridge to Framlingham in Suffolk. He has an older brother named Matthew, who works as a composer. Sheeran's parents, John and Imogen, are from London. His paternal grandparents are Irish, and Sheeran has stated that his father is from a "very large" Catholic family. John is an art curator and lecturer, and Imogen is a culture publicist turned jewellery designer. His parents ran Sheeran Lock, an independent art consultancy, from 1990 to 2010.

Sheeran sang at a local church choir at the age of four, learned how to play the guitar at age eleven, and began writing songs while at Thomas Mills High School in Framlingham.A 2004 school report described him as a "natural performer", and his classmates also voted him "most likely to be famous". He was accepted at the National Youth Theatre in London as a teenager. He successfully auditioned for Youth Music Theatre UK in 2007 and joined their production of Frankenstein in Plymouth. He is a patron of Youth Music Theatre UK (now renamed British Youth Music Theatre) and of Access to Music, where he studied Artist Development. Sheeran is a second cousin of Northern Irish broadcaster Gordon Burns, who hosted the British game show The Krypton Factor.

Music career

2004–2010: Career beginnings

Sheeran began recording music in 2004 and independently released his first collection of work Spinning Man. He has been friends with fellow English singer, Passenger, since he was 15, with the two playing the same gig in Cambridge. He moved to London in 2008 and began playing in small venues. In 2008, he auditioned for the ITV series Britannia High. He also opened for Nizlopi in Norwich in April 2008, after being one of their guitar technicians. He released another EP in 2009, You Need Me, just before going on tour with Just Jack. He also collaborated several times with Essex singer Leddra Chapman, including CeeLo Green's "Fuck You". In February 2010, Sheeran posted a video through SB.TV, and rapper Example invited Sheeran to tour with him. In the same month, he also released his critically acclaimed Loose Change EP, which featured his future debut single, "The A Team". In the autumn of 2009, Sheeran began studying music at the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) in Guildford, Surrey as an undergraduate at the age 18, though it is not clear how long he remained at the college.

Sheeran began to be seen by more people over the internet through YouTube and his fan base expanded, with him also receiving praise from The Independent newspaper and Elton John. He played a Station Session in St. Pancras International in June 2010. The episode is unavailable from the official Station Sessions channel. Sheeran also self-released two other EPs in 2010, Ed Sheeran: Live at the Bedford and Songs I Wrote with Amy, which is a collection of love songs he wrote in Wales with Amy Wadge. When in Los Angeles in 2010, he was invited to perform at The Foxxhole, a club run by actor Jamie Foxx, which ended with an invitation to stay at Foxx's home.

On 8 January 2011, Sheeran released another independent EP, No. 5 Collaborations Project, featuring grime artists such as Wiley, Jme, Devlin, Sway and Ghetts. With this EP, Sheeran gained mainstream attention for having reached number 2 in the iTunes chart without any promotion or label, selling over 7,000 copies in the first week. Three months later, Sheeran put on a free show to fans at the Barfly in Camden Town. Over 1,000 fans turned up, so Sheeran played four different shows to ensure everyone saw a gig, including a gig outside on the street after the venue had closed. Later that month, Sheeran was signed to Asylum Records.

On 10 May 2019, Sheeran released the single "I Don't Care", a duet with Justin Bieber, from his fourth studio album No.6 Collaborations Project. On Spotify, "I Don't Care" debuted with 10.977 million daily global streams, breaking the platform's single-day streaming record. The song debuted at number one in the UK, Australia and other markets, and number two in the US. On 31 May, “Cross Me” featuring Chance the Rapper and PnB Rock, debuted at number 9 in the UK. Released on 28 June 2019, "Beautiful People" featuring Khalid debuted at number 3 in the UK and number 4 in Australia. On 5 July, Sheeran released two new songs, "Best Part of Me" featuring Yebba, and "Blow" with Bruno Mars and Chris Stapleton. On 12 July, he released the album, along with “Antisocial” with Travis Scott. The album debuted at number one in the UK, the US, Australia and other markets. As of 9 August 2019, his four albums have spent a combined 41 weeks at number one in the UK, the most weeks at number one in the UK Album Charts in the 2010s, five weeks more than Adele in second. On 26 August, Sheeran wrapped up the 260-show Divide Tour with the last of four homecoming gigs in Ipswich, Suffolk. On 30 August, the seventh single from the album, “Take Me Back to London” featuring Stormzy, reached number one in the UK.

In 2019, Sheeran co-wrote country music singer Kenny Chesney's single "Tip of My Tongue". In December 2019, Sheeran was named artist of the decade by the Official Charts Company for being the most successful performer in the UK album and singles charts of the 2010s. Eight of his songs featured in the Official Chart Company's chart of the decade with three songs inside the top 5 – "Shape of You" was named number one. Globally, Spotify named him the second most streamed artist of the decade behind Drake.

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