When your legs don't work like they used to before

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

2014 : Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran

The first of three visits with Mr Sheeran, this is probably the simplest of the three - there's really remarkably little to it. But somehow, he manages to make a little go a long way - and I'm not being mean here, because I suspect it takes a load of talent to do such a thing. There's not an awful lot to the video either - it's 4:56 of him and Brittany Cherry (a So You Think You Can Dance contestant) doing a contemporary dance routine. It's all nice enough and apparently Ed studied hard for the routine so props to the lad, but I'm not sure it would make all that much difference it wasn't him. It's had 3.8 billion views on YouTube though, so I guess quite a few people disagree with me.

Wikipedia tells us he co-wrote the song with Amy Wadge, who he had already worked with for quite a few years (his 2010 EP is called Songs I Wrote With Amy), it took them about 20 minutes to knock it off, it's on his second album (x) and went on to win Song Of The Year at the Grammy Awards. The critics generally liked it - some of them complained it wasn't as good as the other songs on the album but then others said it was easily the best. Commercially, it did OK I guess getting to the top three in most countries, and top ten everywhere except for Hungary (#14) and Japan (#39), shifting 4.2 millions units in the UK and 18 million in the US (whatever a unit is - or was back than, because I'm sure it's different now). It also set all sorts of streaming records at the time - all of which have of course been broken multiple times since.

In excellent news, we've got some controversy to discuss - Ed was sued not once but twice by various parties who had interest in Marvin Gaye's "Get It On" due to "substantial similarities". To his credit, Ed went "yup - both songs use similar chords" immediately followed by "along with all these other songs that also use them" and he won both cases. I also, right at the end of the entry, learned something I didn't know - Harry Styles provides backing vocals on this.

Wikipedia also gives us a cover version from Chad Brownlee (he puts a nice country spin on it, but it's very inessential) which didn't do quite so well commercially, getting to #34 in Canada. secondhandsongs.com offers up quite a few, but the only artist I've ever heard of was Wretch 32 (hmm - this is more him wrapping over some backing singers singing the chorus). YouTube offers us up a few more - Shawn Mendes (wooooah - reverb!), Tori Kelly (perfectly fine, but also inessential), Ne Yo (a surprisingly nice voice, but adds nothing) and Dylan Scott (a BIG voice, but it works well with the piano). There are approximately a billion other ones as well - it seems to be a "video yourself in your bedroom" favourite - I felt the need to sample some metal versions as palate cleansers with this remix being the best I found.

I don't mind this track at all - I wouldn't give it the year, but I imagine it's quite close to the top of the year-end list. OK - it's actually only #7 with top of the year being Pharrell Williams's "Happy" - boy was that track everywhere for a bit (and you still hear it quite often even now). The rest of the top five were Clean Bandit's "Rather Be", John Legend's "All Of Me" (out-soppying Ed!), Mr Probz's "Waves" and Ella Henderson's "Ghost" - all in all that's quite a reasonable top five. And there are a few more reasonable tracks in the top 50 as well - Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" and "Money On My Mind", Idina Menzel's "Let It Go", Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", George Ezra's "Budapest" and Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk". Not bad for what's not regarded as a classic year for music.

Looking further down the chart, I'm not expecting to recognise many, but let's see. Actually, it's not all that bad - The Vamps' "Wild Heart" and "Somebody To You", Little Mix's "Salute", Rik Mayall's "Noble England" (huh? Oh, it's the 2010 World Cup song, apparently), Sia's "Chandelier",  Jess Glynne's "Right Here", Charli XCX's "Boom Clap", Tove Lo's "Habits (Stay High)", One Direction's "Steal My Girl", Olly Murs's "Wrapped Up" and "Up" and Taylor Swift's "Blank Space". Looking across the pond, the list is pretty similar although there are surprising number of tracks from 2013, including Bastille's "Pompeii" at a surprisingly high #12.

All in all, it's quite a high quality year - I think Tove Lo and Olly Murs's "Up" are probably my favourite tracks but there are a lot I'm happy to hear again (and in the case of The Vamps, Olly Murs, One Direction and Taylor Swift - I often do). But do I dare argue with the legion of Ed fans? I do not - so I'm obviously happy to let him take the year.

2013 - Surprisingly successful whilst also surprisingly average
2015 - A very catchy number