Music for general societal exhaustion: why Ed Sheeran can't lose | Michael Cragg

The British star is, once again, our most-played artist, and no wonder. He asks little of listeners too tired to give anything anyway

Last September Ed Sheeran's Bad Habits was finally dislodged from its seat at No 1 in the UK singles chart after 11 long weeks. Its replacement? Ed Sheeran's Shivers, which subsequently nestled at the top for a month. That's nearly a quarter of 2021's singles charts ruled by one man. The streaming stats for both songs are mind-boggling, with combined Spotify plays at the time of writing soaring past 2bn, while their parent album, = (Equals), hasn't left the UK top 5 in eight months.

It's hardly surprising, then, that this week the music licensing body, PPL, announced Ed Sheeran as the most-played artist in the UK in 2021. In fact, it's an honour he's achieved in four out of the last five years. Not only that, but Bad Habits was 2021's most-played song, beating hits from the likes of The Weeknd (whose Blinding Lights banger Bad Habits cribs from), Little Mix and Coldplay. People, it seems, can't get enough - but what makes Sheeran's success so enduring?

Michael Cragg is a music writer for the Guardian and the Observer