Ed Sheeran’s Next Album Is Already Done and He’s Promising a Return to ‘Big Pop’

Ed Sheeran sometimes takes a bit of a break after an album/tour cycle. But After releasing two albums last year, – (Subtract) and Autumn Variations and touring the world for the past two years, the singer told Variety magazine that his next project is already in the can.

Sheeran told the magazine that the as-yet-untitled LP is already finished and that he’s shot two music videos for it, with plans to shoot two more early next year as he continues touring across India, China and the Middle East before returning to Europe next spring and summer.

The singer is planning a full-court promo push for the next LP after his = (Equal) LP’s release in the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the more subdued vibe on Subtract, which he said was “obviously a completely different record that didn’t really call for big pop stuff.”

Asked what fans can expect next time around, Sheeran had some good news. “It feels like I’m getting back into big pop for the first time in a long time,” he said. “It’s quite exciting.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Sheeran talked about his latest collaboration with Love Actually‘s Richard Curtis, which began when the director showed the singer some early storyboards for his first animated project, That Christmas. “He asked if I wanted to write the music for it, and I said, ‘Cool,’” Sheeran said. “There was one scene, and I wrote a chorus for it, but didn’t hear anything back.’”

Then, after two years, Curtis asked Sheeran to finish the song called “Under the Tree” — which Ed said was the first “sad” Christmas tune he’s ever written – for the animated movie now streaming on Netflix. “It’s the one thing I’ve wanted to write,” Sheeran said of the tune in which he put himself in the place of a man waiting in vain for his dad to come home at Christmas. “I’d never seen the need [to write] a sad Christmas song until writing this one… this is quite a lot of people’s realities at Christmas.”

When Netflix decided to edit the song into the movie Sheeran told them he wasn’t really planning to do promo this year, but said if they wanted a video he’d do it if Curtis agreed to direct his first-ever music video. “I’ve felt that having him put his stamp on me doing a Christmas song would be kind of special to me,” said Sheeran.

Check out the “Under the Tree” video below.