Maps of Music

Play (2025)

Where the lyrics of Play take you, and where it was really made.

Play is the first of a planned five-album series named after media control symbols, and it gave Ed Sheeran his ninth UK number one.

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Play: eighth studio album by Ed Sheeran
Released 12 September 2025 through Gingerbread Man Records and Atlantic Records
First of a planned pentalogy named after media control symbols
Following titles planned: Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, and Stop
A sixth album, Eject, is planned for posthumous release
Co-written and produced with a range of producers and musicians
Collaborators include Ilya, Blake Slatkin, Cirkut, Omer Fedi, Savan Kotecha, Elvira Anderfjärd, Dave, and Arijit Singh
Frequent collaborators Johnny McDaid and Fred Again also took part
Experiments with sounds from Indian and Persian music
Continues the electropop sound explored on = (2021)
Five singles: Azizam, Old Phone, Sapphire, A Little More, Camera

Two acoustic albums came before it in 2023: − and Autumn Variations
December 2024: Sheeran announced that with Play he was returning to big pop
March 2025: announced April release of lead single Azizam
Same month, confirmed the titles of the songs Old Phone and Sapphire
Performed several Play songs during the final 2025 leg of the +−=÷× Tour
Last album released under Atlantic before he left parent company Warner Music in May 2026 and signed to Interscope Records

Edward Christopher Sheeran was born on 17 February 1991 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk.
He began writing songs around the age of eleven and learned guitar at that age.
He studied at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford before leaving to support Just Jack.
He released the EP No.5 Collaborations Project independently in January 2011 and signed with Asylum Records the same year.

His debut album + (2011) topped the UK Albums Chart and featured the hit "The A Team".
× (2014) won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year and was the second-best-selling album worldwide of 2015.
÷ (2017) became the best-selling album worldwide of 2017, and he was named Global Recording Artist of the Year by the IFPI.
He has sold 200 million records worldwide and has won four Grammy Awards.
He founded the label Gingerbread Man Records and released albums including = (2021), − (2023) and Play (2025).

Mixed reviews from critics
Critics appreciated the production and global influences
Critics criticised the lack of artistic reinvention
Billboard's Thomas Smith called it a "buoyant record that traverses moods and continents"
The Irish Times's Ed Power described it as "enjoyably moreish"
The Guardian's Alexis Petridis called it "solid" and "dependable"
The Independent's Louis Chilton called the production "slick and glossy"
NME's Jordan Bassett praised Don't Look Down as a "psytrance banger"
Rolling Stone's Maya Georgi praised Symmetry as a "sultry" dance-floor number

Metacritic: 60 out of 100 from six reviews
AnyDecentMusic?: 5.5 out of 10 from nine reviews
UK Albums Chart debut at number one with 67,654 album-equivalent units
Ninth UK number one for Sheeran
United States: Billboard 200 debut at number five with about 71,000 units, 51,000 of them pure sales
Eighth top 10 album for Sheeran on the Billboard 200
Number one in Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium (Flanders), Poland, Australia, and New Zealand
Won Album of the Year at the Los 40 Music Awards
United Kingdom: certified gold, October 2025

The four-song remix EP Play (The Remixes), with Indian artists including Arijit Singh and Karan Aujla, came out on 17 October 2025.
A Little More premiered on 7 August 2025 as the fourth single, and Camera was released as the fifth single on the album's release day.
Lead single Azizam debuted at number three on the UK Singles Chart and number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Sapphire reached number five in the UK and number 74 in the US.
Sheeran promoted the album with the Loop Tour, which started in New Zealand in January 2026.