On Jan. 6, Ed Sheeran returned to the music world by releasing two new singles off of his upcoming album, which will follow up his 2014 album, X (Multiply). The songs, “Castle on the Hill” and “Shape of You,” have received positive reviews from multiple celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Shawn Mendes, and Niall Horan. After only a few weeks, his songs are already doing well on the charts.

The “Thinking Out Loud” singer has not released a full album since 2014, so many fans have been looking forward to his third record for some time.  At the end of 2015, Sheeran announced that he would be taking a hiatus from social media but that the third album was on its way.

A year after his hiatus began, he posted a picture of a blue square, which later became his profile picture, causing many fans to predict that his new music would be out soon. On Jan. 1, 2017 he revealed that new music would be released by the end of the week, and throughout the week, he uploaded sneak peeks at lyrics and short audio clips to add to the excitement. At midnight ET on Jan. 6, Sheeran released two singles rather than one because he had been away for so long. He has not yet announced the release date for the full album, but a popular fan theory is that the title will be called ÷, in accordance with the math-inspired titles of his previous albums, + and X. 

In the first single, “Castle on the Hill,” Sheeran reminisces about his adolescence and memories in Suffolk, England, and how he “can’t wait to go home.” He sings about how his childhood friends helped to shape his life even though they were not perfect. In “Shape of You,” Sheeran sings about a club romance over a tropical beat. In a recent tweet, Sheeran said, “I’ve been working hard on the new material and I hope you can be as excited about it as I am. I really wanted to show two different sides to my music that I’m equally as passionate about and I just knew I wanted to roll with two songs at the same time”.

Fans have mixed views about the new music. Some are enthusiastic about his latest releases, while other felt that they were not his best work.

“The songs are okay but they’re nothing new for him. They sound too much like his older music,” said junior Jamie Littman.

No matter what fans thought of Ed Sheeran’s new singles, they are excited to see what music he will release in the near future.