A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Ed Sheeran has a new album that's bursting with international flavor.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SAPPHIRE")
ED SHEERAN: (Singing) Sapphire. Touching on your body while you're pushing on me. Don't you end the party. I could do this all week. We'll be dancing till the morning. Go to bed, we won't sleep. Cham cham chamke sitare wargi. Sapphire.
MARTÍNEZ: That's "Sapphire," one of the singles from "Play." It's Sheeran's eighth studio album. We sat down after Sheeran played NPR's Tiny Desk. And for the first time in a long time, the show was livestreamed, and has since been watched hundreds of thousands of times.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
SHEERAN: (Singing) Sapphire.
MARTÍNEZ: Sheeran used a looping pedal on the floor to layer sound upon sound...
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
SHEERAN: (Singing) Sapphire.
MARTÍNEZ: ...Until he was ready to launch into the track.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
SHEERAN: (Singing) You're glowing. You color and fracture the light. You can't help but shine.
MARTÍNEZ: The track is inspired by music half a world away from Sheeran's native England.
SHEERAN: I tour in India a lot. I always hang out with musicians when I go to India, and I just eventually lent into it. And we finished the record in Goa and it was super fun.
MARTÍNEZ: "Sapphire" went to No. 1 in India. And it's clear that Sheeran does not feel like he has to appeal solely to the American market.
SHEERAN: I can't base my career on what America's going to think about it. I do tour America, but I tour globally, and I'm British. So, like, I kind of go on what the song means to me, how it made me feel making it. And, like, I've had hits in America that weren't hits in Europe.
MARTÍNEZ: Sheeran also feels that way about the first single from the album, "Azizam." It means my dear or my beloved in Persian.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AZIZAM")
SHEERAN: (Singing) Azizam, meet me on the floor tonight. Show me how to move like the water in between the dancing lights. Be mine, mine, Azizam.
MARTÍNEZ: Why lead off with that one? I mean, I think you have to be, like, made out of stone not to move to that song.
SHEERAN: Thank you. I feel like always with my first singles, like, you have to take a big swing. To really get a big hit, you have to take a big swing. I'd say that that song worked in a lot of markets. I wouldn't say it necessarily worked in the U.S. market. But again, going into that, they said, you know, that this is a big risk in the U.S. market because it's not a very Western-leaning song. And I sort of took the approach that it's a song that might work globally, and it did work globally.
MARTÍNEZ: I mean, it seems like when we were upstairs, all the crowd was just into it. They were dancing around.
SHEERAN: But that's the thing as well. I mean, that song slaps in the live show. That song slaps in the live show in places it wasn't even a hit. And we're touring here next year. We're going to do a summer of stadiums, and I know that that song is going to work within the people who buy tickets to my show. They will know that song by the time we do the stadium.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
SHEERAN: (Singing) I don't care what they say. We can do it our way. And if love's just a game, then come and play. Azizam.
MARTÍNEZ: "Play" comes on the heels of two albums, "Subtract" and "Autumn Variations" - very different from the Ed Sheeran we've grown used to hearing. So I asked him what the game plan was for this one.
SHEERAN: Having fun. I think the last two records I did came out of a really dark period of my life. Therefore, the promotion reflected that. So, yeah, I think just coming out of that, being like, I want to make a really fun album that's upbeat, celebratory and - yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: Because in those albums, you kind of bared your soul a bit. I mean, you put yourself out there. I'm going to use the word that maybe you might not like, but people rejected it. As an artist who obviously puts things out there for people to purchase, did that hurt your feelings at all?
SHEERAN: Well, it depends how you measure success. Because I feel like it did exactly what I thought the record would do. I toured it, and my fans really liked it. So it depends how you measure success.
MARTÍNEZ: How do you measure it?
SHEERAN: Well, I think with an album like "Divide," I wanted to make a record that was really big. And it was really big. Like, I know that people will get ready to go out and have fun at a club or whatever by playing "Shape Of You." They're not going to do that with "Subtract." With an album like "Autumn Variations," I put that out on my own record label. We didn't service any songs or radio. We didn't do any music videos. I know how that's going to be perceived.
Like, commercial numbers in terms of sales with both those records, I knew that they would be like that, so I don't think that that made me feel any type of way at all. Artists aren't one-dimensional. Artists are allowed to do different things at different times in their careers, and I feel like that's the most interesting part of any artist's career.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So artistry, then, for you is then different than, say, like, a restaurant that changes the recipe on a very popular dish. They just want to try something new, and fans get all upset, so...
SHEERAN: Well, I think with the restaurant analogy, yeah. I think - like, I go to the same pizza place pretty much week in, week out, and I have the same pizza, but sometimes I'll try new things. So I think that there should be the pizza on the record. I think on all my records, I have heartfelt love songs, and every now and then you chuck in something with jalapenos on. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, you want the thing you're familiar with...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
SHEERAN: ...But if you do the thing that you're familiar with 100% all the time, it gets boring.
MARTÍNEZ: One song that brings the spice on the new record is called "A Little More."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A LITTLE MORE")
SHEERAN: (Singing) I used to love you. Now every day I hate you just a little more. Life got better when I lost you. But every day I hate you just a little more and more and more.
MARTÍNEZ: I read the lyrics, then I heard you sing it. And I thought, my gosh, how can someone say the words in this song and still have a friendly, approachable nature to the actual song itself? I mean, it was fun to hear, but it was kind of an angry song.
SHEERAN: Yeah. Oh, well, I feel like - I feel all the emotions. I'm not a robot. Like, I do get angry in my day. I do feel love in my day. I do feel frustrated in my day. I do feel sad in my day. Like, I'm a human being. And I think, like, making that song - I've made that song lots of times, and some of the times it just felt too angry. And it was Blake, the producer that I was working with, who suggested maybe making it sound feel-good. And I think it really worked as, like, a juxtaposition.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A LITTLE MORE")
SHEERAN: (Singing) For your dad's sake, please move out your dads' place. Stop bringing drama there with your mates. Your sister's got enough to manage on her plate to worry about you controlling your rage.
MARTÍNEZ: It's been 14 years since Sheeran's breakthrough album, "Plus." And like anyone, he's changed a lot since then.
SHEERAN: I'm a hugely different human being than I was when I was 19 - hugely - because you grow up and you learn different things. And so, yeah, I think that my music has reflected that. I'm a 34-year-old father of two, so I'm a different person than I was at 19 on my first album and going for it like that.
MARTÍNEZ: But his fans can rest assured that their favorite pizza toppings are all here, especially in "The Vow."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE VOW")
SHEERAN: (Singing) Words are just words, but I need you to know that beyond to have and hold, that my vow to you is to love you and never let go.
MARTÍNEZ: "Play" by Ed Sheeran is out now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE VOW")
SHEERAN: (Singing) But I thank the broken road that led me into your arms. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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