Insurmountable weight of expectations. That pretty much sums up Ed's latest single Shivers.
When you have delivered masterpieces such as Thinking Out Loud, Shape of You, and Perfect, took a hiatus, and then consumed three days to write Shivers, you can't assume that the song "is too special to get wrong".
While Shivers is a rather catchy love song with crisp hand claps in the chorus, it surely lacks the depth, intricacy and singularity one would expect from Ed Sheeran. Try playing this track on repeat and immersing in it. You would notice an uncanny resemblance to a rushed song that hits it high on first play but has an accelerated diminishing returns on subsequent plays. And to wrap it up, the lyrics are mediocre, not earworm worthy and at times, pretty shivering.
Catchy: 7/10
Chart Topper: 5/10
On Repeat: 6/10
On Playlist: 5/10
Music Elements: 5/10
Lyrical Beauty: 5/10
Critics Verdicts:
"A sexy, rocketing song that includes hand claps in the bridge..." - GQ Magazine
"...punchy blast of lovestruck pop, with Sheeran crooning over crisp handclaps, plucky strings,..." - RollingStone
"If there were any shivers, it was certainly not for good reasons" - TheEdge
Fun Facts:
Ed Sheeran wrote Shivers in a studio at a rented farm in Suffolk towards the end of his Divide tour
Shivers was originally intended to be the main single for his new = album
Shivers music video released on 10 Sep 2021, featuring AnnaSophia Robb
