And Finally Artist News

Ed Sheeran worries about being overexposed, no matter what Prince says

By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 31 October 2019

How much Ed Sheeran is too much Ed Sheeran? There are different schools of thought on this. For some, it’s all too much, but the general public doesn’t seem to have reached the upper limit just yet. And while tolerance for the star has certainly been tested, his manager Stuart Camp says that he is “very conscious” of that upper limit existing somewhere.

“I never want anyone to be bored of him”, Camp says on the new episode of BBC Music Introducing’s ‘Does My Music Suck?’ podcast. “But I guess if he’s top of the charts then they’re possibly not. You just want to make sure that’s a fair representation”.

To be fair, a certain amount of Sheeran’s overexposure in the public domain is out of his hands. He can’t really help it if he’s so popular that every song on his last album went into the top 20 in the UK singles chart. Or that so many wannabes sang his songs at ‘X Factor’ auditions that it became a problem. Or that every little morsel of his private life that can be brought into the public eye is gobbled up by the media.

Then there are things like his stand against ticket touts. The endless song-theft lawsuits. The charity work. Writing every other bloody pop song on the planet, as well as his own. The ketchup. And just generally being popular. All of which, to differing degrees, are his fault.

Still, says Camp, while he’s “very conscious of not doing overkill”, he admits that there have been moments along the way when “we really have overkilled, but no one seems to be sick of it”.

Except, there is at least one person who’s definitely had enough Sheeran. But that person is dead, so maybe Camp’s point stands.

I’m talking about Prince. Although even he was possibly more angry with the media than Sheeran himself. In a letter published as part of his new posthumous memoir, Prince wrote: “We need to tell [the media] that they keep trying to ram Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran down our throats and we don’t like it no matter how many times they play it”.

OK, maybe he was a bit cross with Sheeran. But Camp does have a point that Sheeran’s popularity doesn’t seem to have been damaged by his massive ongoing exposure.

And if people keep playing his stuff and talking about him, what can he do? Aside from take extended breaks from the public eye in between albums. He also once said he’d quit music once he had children, so there’s that to look forward to.