“You cannot please everyone”. With each passing day, no matter how talented you may be in ANY arena, you will always encounter people that WILL NOT like you. This is a fact of life, and a fact of growing up. You may have all the talent in the world, but on the one hand three people like and appreciate your talent, on the other, two people hate you and think your talent is the pits.
According to Ultimate Guitar, pop songsmith Ed Sheeran has reflected on the dismissiveness with which some people treat himself and or his music.
Critics – and haters – are a part of life and any human. The more people you encounter, and or reach, the more hate you will inevitably receive – and given the prominence of his works in the mainstream spaces over the past decade or so, Ed Sheeran has encountered a great many.
As Sheeran prepares to release his new studio album “-” (pronounced “subtract”) this upcoming May 4, the year of our Good Lord, 2023, Ed spoke with Rolling Stone:
“I spent so long with people laughing about me making music. Everyone saw me as a joke, and no one thought I could do it.
“And I think that’s still the drive. There’s still this need to prove myself. And I’m still kind of not taken seriously. If you were to speak to any sort of muso, ‘Oh, I love my left-of-center music,’ I’m the punchline to what bad pop music is.”
Although Sheeran admits that the potential cheesiness of his songs went through his mind even as he wrote them, having so many people connect with them took away any lingering doubts:
“I mean, mate, when I wrote ‘Perfect’ and ‘Thinking Out Loud,’ I remember being like, ‘Oh, these are a bit cheesy.’ But at the time being like, ‘I don’t know if I care.’ And they became the biggest ballads in the world that year. And you’re like, ‘Well, people must connect with cheese, then!'”
Similarly, Sheeran isn’t too bothered by people joking about his physical appearance, as he says:
“I think I’m quite meme-able. Have you seen the meme of me when I’m queuing up at a record store in my own T-shirt with a bag that says ‘÷’ on it? And it says, ‘Why does Ed Sheeran look like he’s queuing up to meet Ed Sheeran?’
