Ed Sheeran has officially confirmed the release date of his new album, according to NME. Fans will be able to get hold of ÷ on 3rd March. Sheeran took to Instagram to announce the news, posting the album artwork, along with the caption, ‘÷ out 3rd March. Pre-order will go live at midnight in your country x’.
The news follows a record-breaking week in which Sheeran has confirmed the name of the album, which will be ‘÷’ (pronounced ‘Division’), as well as its track list and has even shared two of those tracks, ‘Shape Of You’ and ‘Castle On The Hill’, which you can read more about here. The record breaking aspect of the week came with the release of these tracks, which achieved unprecedented streaming success; ‘Shape Of You’ was streamed 7.9m times in the first 24 hours of its release at 5am on Friday. This wrenched the record for most streams in a day away from Adele’s Hello; and the two tracks together raked in more than 13m streams, earning Sheeran another record at the expense of fellow Brits One Direction.
As for the tracklist of the album, Sheeran shared a photo of a series of strips of paper arranged on what looked like a retro school desk, seemingly revealing the tracklist for ÷. We’ve put together a typed version just in case you’ve been struggling with Ed’s beautiful handwriting.
- Eraser
- Castle On The Hill
- Dive
- Shape Of You
- Perfect
- Galway Girl
- Happier
- Hearts Don’t Break Around Here
- New Man
- What Do I Know?
- How Would You Feel (Paean)
- Supermarket Flowers
The album will be Sheeran’s third, following his 2011 debut + (Plus) and 2014’s follow-up X (Multiply). Sheeran has appeared on a number of radio stations and shows this week to announce various bits of news and showcase his new tracks. Yesterday he appeared on the Capital FM Evening Show and played his own rendition of Will Smith’s theme song for ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’, which you can check out below:
There is currently no official news on Sheeran’s live activities for 2017. However, the Metro reports that book makers have suspended betting on the possibility that Sheeran will headline Glastonbury this year, having previously appeared at the festival in both 2011 and 2014. As well as breaking records for streaming, Sheeran has also made history in the live arena; becoming the first act to headline Wembley without a band in his three sold-out shows at the venue. When we have any more information, MxdwnUK will, of course, keep you up to date.
