Pop

It’s been 10 years since Ed Sheeran unveiled his massively successful sophomore album, x, which gave fans enduring hits including “Thinking Out Loud,” “Don’t” and “Sing.”

“I think at the time you don’t really realize what’s happening,” he tells Billboard of his Billboard 200-chart topping 2014 album on the red carpet of the 2024 Blue Diamond Gala on Thursday (May 2), where he headlined the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation charity event. “You go from one song to the next song to the next song. At the time, I was just happy that people are liking the songs and now I look back at the album, and it’s an album people really liked, which I guess is good. It took me from arenas to stadiums and I feel like it was such an important album in my career.”

Shockingly, he had to warm up to one of the album’s biggest hits. “I remember ‘Photograph’ taking a really long time to get production right. It look a long while,” he recalls. “That was the song that I didn’t really like at first because we spent so much time doing it and it ruined it. Now, I can look back and enjoy the process.”

Since x, Sheeran hasn’t slowed down one bit. He completed his mathematical equation of albums with 2017’s ÷, 2021’s = and 2023’s –, as well as his 2019 collabs album No. 6 Collaborations Project and his most recent release, Autumn Variations. “It’s important to never do the same thing twice,” he says of keeping his career exciting after all this time. “Musically, I’m always like, ‘Have I said this before? Has a song sounded like this before?’ It’s less about what other people are doing, and more about what I’ve already done and constantly doing something different.”

The star is set to drop x (10th Anniversary Edition) on June 21, an expanded version of the 12-song original featuring nine bonus tracks, none of which have ever been available on vinyl before.

Ed Sheeran is going to go away for a little bit. The “Galway Girl” singer told People magazine this week that he’s not planning on releasing any new music this year. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to hit the studio to record new songs, just that he isn’t planning on sharing them for now.

In fact he’s not even that keen to talk about them, so when asked what he could say about his new music, he joked, “That I’m working on them and they’re new songs.” The bottom line is you will hear them when he’s ready.

“But nothing’s going to come out this year,” Sheeran, 33, added. “I’m enjoying being on tour. I released two records on tour last year and it’s quite a lot being on tour and releasing records. So, I’ve made the new music and I’m just going to sit on it for a bit.” That might upset his Sheerios, but Sheeran seems secure that his two biggest new fans dig his music, which is all that matters.

Ed said his daughters Lyra Antarctica, 3, and Jupiter, 2, love his songs. “Yeah, of course, of course. Mostly my new songs because I don’t really play my old songs in the house,” he said. “I feel it’d be quite weird to just put on my discography, so they mostly know the new songs that I’m working on because I play them quite a lot.”

Sheeran deserves a bit of a break, after releasing the final album in his maths series, – (Minus), in May of last year, as well as Autumn Variations, in September. He is still on the road as well, with a show tonight (May 3) at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, followed by a just-announced May 22 show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of his X album.

Dua Lipa is in a happier era, and that’s reflected on her brand new album, Radical Optimism, which arrived on Friday (May 3).

The 11-track Radical Optimism — Lipa’s first proper LP since 2020’s Future Nostalgia — features previously released singles “Houdini,” “Training Season” and “Illusion.” “[Releasing the album] feels good. It feels for lack of a better word — radically optimistic,” she previously told Billboard, before explaining the idea behind the album cover, which features the singer floating in a wide open ocean facing a shark fin. “Throughout the whole record, there’s this idea of chaos happening around and me trying to push through it in a way that feels authentic and honest to me.”

The 28-year-old singer also opened up about the newly released album to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe earlier in the week, and revealed which track resonates with her the most at the moment. “With this album, I feel like I’ve managed to put so much more honesty out there, and be really open in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to,” she shared. “There’s this one song, which is the last song in the album called ‘Happy for You.’ And I love that song because, to me, it’s about seeing someone who you were with move on, and be really happy for them. And I probably wouldn’t have been able to write that song on my first or second record because I don’t feel like I probably would’ve grown as a person or as an artist to be able to see someone that you loved move on. Or I would’ve found it difficult.”

Listen to Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism in full below.