Ed Sheeran: Ed The Great? Or Ed The Duck?

If you haven't heard of Ed Sheeran, you soon will.

The 20 year old Londoner has just signed a deal with Atlantic and has had his first single The A-Team play listed at Radio 1. A young lad with an acoustic guitar (who doesn't just write love songs is refreshing - I can say that as someone who has penned a fair amount of love songs in his time), clever lyrics and rapped/spoken verses mixed with melodic choruses definitely make him stand out from the crowd. He has already been on tour with Just Jack as well as Example, sold over 10,000 copies of his self released EP and has celebrity fans in Rio Ferdinand and Elton John.


Subsequently, Sheeran has already built a large following, via an excellent live show (his track You Need Me his huge and apparently even better in the flesh), collaborating with some already famous friends (Devlin, Example & Wiley) and by believing in what he does. I keep hearing about him everywhere I go and that is only a good sign for the lad, as well as his label.


As ever with people who start to create hype, there are those who don't want to believe, to which, I say (as Mrs Knox used to say), the world would be extremely boring if we all liked the same thing! She's not wrong. Sheeran may just be "another singer-songwriter"? Does the industry really need another? He may just be a little ginger kid with a decent voice, some decent tunes and a loop pedal (which in itself isn't a unique sound any more)? But that's not all, there are the Jamie Woon parallels which might seem a little cheeky to some. First the covering of Jamie Woon's version of Wayfaring Stranger (which in my opinion helps both artists, but anyway...) and then the going down a river on a boat performing. See Woon in Cambodia here (Feb 2011). See Sheeran in Camden here (May 2011).


Personally, I think Ed Sheeran is going to go on to have a big 2011 and become a household name here in the UK and probably beyond. Everything is coming together nicely, mainly down to all the hard-graft he has put in over the years (he did 312 gigs in 2009!) and the fact he now has the financial backing of a major label. Finally, Sheeran is a fantastic role model to anybody trying to make it (he has gigged, been self sufficient, gigged, wrote lots of songs, gigged, collaborated and gigged) but I have no doubt he is well aware that the real work has now only just begun.

Click here to watch Ed Sheeran - The A Team on Later with Jools Holland.

What do YOU think of Ed Sheeran? Get back to me and let me know.