Sheeran's Persian hit is odd - but his is a numbers game

The success of new single Azizam’ tells a story of popularity in the streaming era. It also shows how his everyman brand is simply too big to fail at this point, argues Mark Beaumont

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On first listen, you might think Eurovision has come early. Over a disco-fied adaptation of exotic Eastern melodies and rhythms – played out on Iranian lutes, dafs and santoors – a pop singer wails lyrics resembling a bad AI translation. “’Til the sun is awake, be like a magnet on me,” lusts a plucky contender. “I wanna be tangled and wrapped in your cloud/ I wanna be close to your face”.

But this isn’t any random Uber-pop face-hugger, it’s the return of Ed Sheeran, back to reclaim his throne at the top of the charts (or thereabouts) with his Persian-themed new single “Azizam” (Farsi for “my dear” or “my darling”). At which point, the question becomes: how?

Almost 15 years after Sheeran’s breakthrough debut album +, the music industry has changed beyond all recognition. Streaming has decimated the sort of multi-platinum sales figures upon which Sheeran became a Brit culture behemoth; his last album Autumn Variations (2023) sold a third of -, released just four months earlier, and that in turn sold a quarter of 2021’s =. In the meantime, near-weekly waves of viral acts have swamped the singles charts and arena schedules with formulaic TikTok sewage, as if Thames Water is now in charge of the globe’s musical output.