Singer Ed Sheeran is not giving up his pop throne just yet

A pop superstar for nearly 15 years, Ed Sheeran is always mindful of what — and who — is coming up next.

- Joe Coscarelli and Jon Caramanica

On the first track of Play, his eighth studio album that dropped on Sept 12, he raps a verse about the anxieties that have racked him in recent years. They include the loss of two close friends, his wife’s cancer scare and the legal challenges to his songwriting credits.

But on Opening, he is also puffing his chest about his successes, his influence and what feels like a light wariness about the “replacements” rising just below him.

“It’s a bad thing to look at them as kind of encroaching on your space, because my space is my space,” said the 34-year-old English singer-songwriter.

He is not ready to cede it. Play is the sunburst after Sheeran’s very cloudy stretch of emotionally low years, which led to some of the grimmest music of his career. The new album returns to the bright optimism of Sheeran-core, with wistful songs such as Camera and In Other Words. They recall his anthems Perfect (2017) and Thinking Out Loud (2014), which made him a defining pop artiste of the modern era.

Play also includes Sheeran’s foray into Persian-influenced music (Azizam) and his first song released in collaboration with Indian songwriters (Sapphire), following past collaborations with Nigerian and Ghanaian artistes.

“Sometimes, as Westerners, we have this view that the West is it, when actually, the world is huge,” he said, noting how his extensive touring around the world has led him to learn and embrace pop modes beyond the ones he grew up on.

And if those songs are not as broadly successful as the oodles of platinum hits he has under his belt, it is a bump he is willing to endure.