Why is Ed Sheeran fighting for his reputation?

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:12Ed Sheeran used to play his songs for anyone who'd listen. This week, the music stopped as the whole world heard him say sorry. And this is why.

0:25I'm Adele Robinson, a correspondent for Sky News. and I wanted to give you a recommendation for when you finish this podcast. I've made a documentary for YouTube called The Comm, Online, Sadistic and Deadly. It takes a look inside one of the darkest corners of the internet and the disturbing community that exists there, exploring how young people can be drawn into it and the devastating consequences that can follow. It's a story that's difficult to hear, but one I think is really important to understand. You can find The Comm on the Sky News app, website and YouTube channel.

1:00Hi everyone, Neil here, and I've always found Ed Sheeran's career slightly ridiculous in the nicest possible way. One man, a guitar and a lute pedal, and somehow tens of thousands of people are singing every word back at him. Meanwhile, I can barely get my son to acknowledge my existence. But this week, the man who seems most at home on stage looked deeply uncomfortable on one. American rapper Macklemore certainly isn't a stranger to making political statements but he was removed from Sheeran's tour after speaking out for Palestinians. Other performers on the bill chose to down tools in protest.

1:37So when Ed returned to the stage in Philadelphia alone, it certainly wasn't his usual banter. This week the criticism was about something much more important and I've had to take and make difficult decisions and I am making mistakes and I'm so, so sorry. I don't want to disappoint fans, and I've never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet. Of course, it's a long way from playing small rooms to apologising to an entire stadium. But there's also a country mile between that bloke with a guitar and the multi-million pound business built around him.

2:19John Robb is a musician, author and music journalist. John, thank you so much for coming on because there is so much to discuss about this young man, this artist but I wonder if we can start with that on-stage apology not just an apology I mean, a mea culpa out there there were tears shed what did you make of it? I know everyone's really cynical now and they say, oh, he's just done that to save his career but it did seem genuine and I think he's kind of got himself really stuck here and he's like a rabbit in the headlights I don't think he's the kind of artist who can deal with these kind of issues, really, you know, these kind of really big issues, emotive issues, very polarising issues as well, because he is a very mainstream, very middle-of-the-road kind of artist, and it's like all the world's problems are being thrust upon his shoulders, and he's trying to do it.

3:10I didn't think he said anything particularly badly, really wrong in his on-stage statements, and also, I think a lot of people on the internet probably think it's quite easy to go out there and tidy up this mess, you know, on-stage. I think it's pretty difficult, really. You've got thousands of people in front of you. You don't know which way it's going to go. And it's not something you normally ever talk about. So, yeah, I get all that. I think, I mean, the damage has been done, hasn't it? Just reminders, exactly the nature of the route. Because, you know, to me, some of this appears to fall squarely in Ed Sheeran's lap.

3:40Some of it appears to be entirely out of his control. So what's happened here is Ed Sheeran's doing this huge stadium tour in America. He's playing these football stadiums, 70 ,000, 80 ,000 people at night. he had a very good sort of pretty good sort of varied support bill this is the interesting bits he's got macklemore he's kind of part of the controversy here who's already been on stage doing you know free palestine is part of his show and he goes out and says that so in the first place um ed sheen would have known that and he's booked him or maybe his age or his manager but he's on the bill for the tour and everyone knows his stance so it shows that they must have some kind of empathy for the stance in the first place but robert craft who owns i think it's the new england patriots i think of the american football team he didn't want this to happen so he said i don't want this bill at my stadium he owns a stadium and he's friends of ed sheeran as well so ed sheeran's played his wedding and so he said i don't want that bill at my stadium so ed sheeran's management or ed sheeran or somebody in that camp has said okay we'll change the bill and the whole things just gone berserk so they all those support bands walked off the tour ed sheeran's had to like cobble together another uh support bill i think some of them walked off as well and then i mean the tour's kind of carried on and it's still sold out tour but it's caused this massive uh controversy so it wasn't like ed sheeran has walked in and said i don't want these bands doing support but it shows what you're saying initially about the um the corporate nature of music now it's like you can't play this stadium if you bring this bill into my stadium you can't bring it so it's a question about free speech and free speech maybe sometimes has to be some things that owners of football stadiums don't necessarily agree with it's quite interesting because i was reading that robert craft's quotes about this as well and he's not totally pro-israel anti-palestine either he's sitting on the fence but he's kind of saying he understands apply to the people of palestine but he doesn't want any politics in his stadium but maybe we got to a time where you do have to have a stance you have to decide which side the fence you're on this is not just about the israel palestine issue it's about the nature of free speech the nature of what was expected of artists and how far artists can go without alienating one half their crowd or the other what he should have done probably said okay i won't play that stadium this is my bill we've picked the bill we've already signed what the bill is we knew what these people stood for in the first place we knew that macklemore would probably say free palestine at some point on the tour and we were we were happy with that then we can't change our minds now because a corporate millionaire of an American football club.

6:14He's one of the stadiums on the tour who told us we can't play. John, try and explain if you can, because this has always puzzled and confused me, frankly. How does a lad with a loop pedal and a ukulele turn into this kind of global, dominating musician, selling millions of records, making millions of pounds? How does that happen? What is the appeal of Ed Sheeran? No one knows. No one knows what the magic is, because otherwise, right now, I'd be running around trying to find the next one No I mean, Ed Sheeran won't know I mean, I'm not a fan but I'll sit here and look at it objectively I mean, he's the boy next door, I suppose He's not like a Mick Jagger sort of rock star He looks a bit awkward So people think, oh, he must be quite nice and he sings empathetic songs about love and relationships and he's quite old-fashioned but also slightly hip because he has that little hip-hop side and he has these kind of mad tattoos, etc, etc So he's sort of somewhere sitting on the fence, isn't he?

7:11Somewhere right in the middle, which probably seemed like a very safe place to be until this came along, when sitting on the fence was such an extreme position, isn't it? But on the music, as you say, you know, there is that hip hop influence. There's the work that he's done with British crime artists. Now, whilst you and I may not be the biggest of fans, there are certainly plenty of people who are, and they seem to come from all these different genres of music. yeah i think sometimes people have the thing don't they i think he's got the songs i mean on the rise up to the top he had that thing where people felt something for him they felt sorry for him he looked a bit awkward up there didn't he i do and i do get it it's amazing like it's amazing you can stand on an acoustic guitar and a looper pedal in front of 80 000 people that own that audience i always think um because looper pedals aren't that easy to use if you if you press it wrong all the everything's got to go completely wrong and it's like that takes some bottle to do, so I get all that bit and I understand the songs, you know my nieces love him, you know, they think they're really grown up at 14 because they're like this kind of more, they go from Boy Bounce, Girl Bounce to Ed Sheeran, he's the bridge and he's got these songs that, you know like Taylor Swift, they write great songs for teenagers you know, like awkward teenagers and the world is full of teenage lads who look like Ed Sheeran and teenage girl equivalents who would probably like to hang around than Ed Sheeran.

8:32These are all factors of why his things kind of worked. In my mind, there's kind of two types of pop star. There are the other worldly, you know, your Madonnas, your Lady Gagas, and then there are the people who speak directly to you because you see yourself in them. This ordinary man image that he has cultivated is certainly part of his appeal, but I wonder how much scrutiny it stands up to when, as already mentioned, you know, your best mates with billionaire Bob Craft. Yeah, well, it's the thing, it's like everybody has to deal with this and when you actually do finally make it you start you have to deal with the devil don't you start you become in that world of uh of people that you had no idea even existed before don't you and i think you're not you're not the boy next door if you're doing a million pound wedding gig or whatever it is you know but every band doesn't don't they even people you wouldn't expect will do these big money gigs for the sort of people who aren't that good for the planet really at the end of the day i mean he's in that rarefied atmosphere the you know the vvvip club in it i guess for the fans, most of the fans, the bulk of the fans, ones are still going.

9:34I mean, these stadiums are empty. You know, people, there is a massive controversy. There's a lot of noise about this, but the stadium is still, I think it was almost 7, 8, 4, even more than 7, 8, 4, you know, and it's most people aren't interested. You know, he knows these people now. They still feel like he's a boy next door. And I think the image and the songs always go in front of the artists, don't they? I've seen that countless times with countless people. And also, I think with Ed Sheeran, I think all artists have this. You have the car of crash points in your career. You know, like the Beatles, when Lennon said that the Beatles are bigger than Jesus and it just went crazy in America, the stadiums were selling out and people were burning all their records.

10:11And a few months later, it kind of goes around. So there is damage and limitations like Ed Sheeran could do. Just on the row, though, between kind of McLemore, Ed Sheeran, and of course Bob Kraft, the owner of the stadium, when Kraft and those other venue owners objected to McLemore being on the bill, I mean, did Ed Sheeran really have any power to resist them. Yeah, he's in a very difficult situation there, because if you walk out of an 80 ,000 gig, the 20 ,000 people who spent loads of money on hotels and 200 miles to the gig, whatever he'd done, there's going to be loads of people that are going to be very angry with him, isn't there?

10:44So I think at the end of the day, he should have just said, you really can't tell me what the support bill of this tour is. You know, we announced this bill months ago. You can't just change your mind three weeks out. I think he really, at the end of the day, he's in a no-win situation, So he should have gone for the right decision would have been to say, we got this bill. It's all signed and sealed. It's all contracted. You can't change our bill. Because where does this end? You know, where does it mean the next time he plays in Boston, an owner of another stadium says, I want all the sport bands to be pro-Trump and do pro-Trump songs?

11:18Was this then perhaps where Ed Sheeran went wrong? I mean, he always talks about his concerts as a place for everyone, that you're there to enjoy yourself. You're there to forget about the outside world. But, you know, there have been so many artists over the years who've said, you know, basically, you know, all art is a political statement. When did music stop being political? Well, I don't think it did. I think, you know, you've got bands like Fontaine's DC, who are now, after Oasis, probably the biggest rock band in UK Ireland, aren't they? You know, they can play 30 ,000 a night. They're very political.

11:49They're very free Palestine, you know, and they talk about it on stage, you know. So I think it's a bit of a myth that music stopped being political. I mean, in the 60s, people would say, oh, yeah, but the 60s, we go, there's loads of bands in the 60s who were not the slightest bit political, selling loads of records. I mean, the biggest rock star of all time, Elvis Presley, was not political at all, was he? There's always been some acts are more political than others, some are totally apolitical, some say something now and then. You know, it's always very different people, isn't it? I mean, this is the other thing you have to contend with if you've got, like, a liberal mind.

12:20You have to contend with artists whose music you really like, who have a point of view of the world as your complete opposite, isn't it? So, you know, so freedom of speech does come with, it's not an easy ride, is it? Because you have to allow the freedom of speech for people you completely disagree with as well. You can't just pick and choose your freedom of speech issues, can you? No, you can't. But whilst absolutely agreeing with you that in the past, there have certainly been apolitical musical stars, people who just did not talk about that sort of thing. Nowadays, when so much of your revenue comes from being able to engage directly with your audience through social media.

12:56I mean, that is a two-way street. I just wonder if any musician right now can be apolitical, if Ed Sheeran could refuse to establish exactly what his position is on Gaza, on Ukraine, on whatever, because constantly he is in conversation with people who are asking him directly about it. Yeah, I think some people do, don't they? I think he probably could have just about got away there, couldn't he? But that was the interesting thing with this bill, because he had a support bill of people who were obviously all, you know, free Palestine, but some are more vocal about it than others. So he's obviously leaning in that direction, and it's not like he's been completely caught out and he's got this kind of very sort of neutral support bill.

13:39The fact that he's actually got a very – almost like he was getting a support bill to talk for him in a sense, wasn't it? and that he got picked up because Robert Craffleton was playing in his stadium, you know. So, I mean, Ed Sheeran, he does claim he's not a political artist and he's not a sloganeering political artist, but there is a slight fuzzy liberal politics to him, isn't there? You know, it's kind of, why can't we all be nice to each other? I know it's a very vacant statement, but it's actually one that may have most luxury political slogan of all time, you know. But look, just on Macklemore himself, I mean, you know, It is pretty obvious that there are venues out there that will book him, that there are venues out there that will welcome him with open arms, despite or because of what he is saying.

14:24I mean, he's just launching his kind of Free Palestine tour as well. So there is a market out there for musicians to be able to articulate political positions as part of the music. But then again, I thought we all started to get a wee bit sick of it once upon a time. You know, musicians proselytising to us and telling us how we should feel about X, Y, or Z political issue. Yeah, I think some people did. I think as people get older, they find it more ridiculous in a sense. But on the other hand, everyone's got a right to their opinion, haven't they? So whether you're a musician or somebody who's working on the door of those venues, you've got an equal right to your opinion.

14:58You've got a bigger space, obviously. You've got 80 ,000 people in front of you. But you still have a right to have your opinion. Even if it's an opinion, if it's pro-Trump, I'd go, oh, God, please don't say that. But you're allowed to say it. You know, so that's a difficult thing. And also I think the other big switch was social media, wasn't it? So everybody in the second scene had two followers. It became somebody who's got a platform to spout off about different issues in different ways, isn't it? So really, at the end of the day, social media is the front line of political opinion in the current world, for good or bad, and musicians aren't.

15:33And this issue, interestingly, is really driven. You know, the Ed Sheeran issue is driven by social media arguments, and it's a huge social media issue. Everyone's taking opinions and sides on it. And the story's been driven more by, you can't even hear Ed Sheeran because everyone else is shouting about it on Twitter. How damaging do you think this has been for him? Yeah, I think it's damaging in a way. So there's always going to be this feeling that he's this guy who did this. And also people don't really listen to the whole context of the story, do they? So there's going to be some people out there who think, Ed Sheeran, he's really pro-Israel.

16:05You know, not really. It's a bit more messy than that. I think Macklemore is a boost for him because he's put them in a mainstream conversation, hasn't it? So even though he's a big artist already, now he's getting discussed here, he's getting discussed everywhere, isn't he? So his career's done good, I think ultimately in five years' time, this will be part of a chapter in Ed Sheeran's autobiography or something. My dark days after the controversy, but then he'll just carry on being Ed Sheeran, won't he? Do you think we'll be hearing more or less from Ed Sheeran geopolitics, economics, the state of the world going forward?

16:42No, I think you'll find he'll be doing very few interviews and he's going to be very careful what he says. He's going to be burned by it. There's a vulnerability of that level of fame as well. You just don't know who's out there. You don't know if a friend or foe are coming towards you. You don't know what their angle is. It's difficult to be that well known. I mean, there's a lot of pluses, but also there's a lot of minuses as well. So I think you'll find a much more reserved, very carefully controlled public persona. John, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thanks a lot for your time. Thank you.

17:17And that's your lot for today, indeed for this week, but do remember to get in touch. Plenty of you did in response to yesterday's episode where we were taking a look at the legal row between Piers Morgan and Earl Spencer over the latter's book about Diana. Janet emails in, why didn't Spencer say this 30 years ago and why put the kids through it now about their poor mother? Let her rest in peace. Spencer, are you really that short of cash? Why at sky.uk is always the email to use. You can get in touch with me directly there. Have a lovely weekend. We'll see the other side. The most excruciating period of politics that I can ever remember.

17:56I have to say, as a government minister, never quite sure what the Cabinet Office did, but just hold meetings. It has gone down like a bucket of sick. I kind of thought that decades of experience meant that you weren't swallowing this vapid. Oh, blimey! Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby. Me, Ruth Davidson. Me, Harriet Harman. And me, Jess Phillips. Electoral Dysfunction, wherever you get your podcasts.