16 March 2017 last updated at 9.00 GMT
by Gabriella (Year 7) & Naomi (Year 8)
Ed Sheeran dominates the charts
A singer songwriter from London has dominated the charts, with 16 of his
new songs from his album ‘Divide’, in the top 20 of the charts and his most
popular song ‘The Shape of You’, with 444.8m views, stands firm at the top
of the charts as number 1. But why is he so popular?
In December 2015 Ed Sheeran announced that he was taking a year break
from his career and all social media and he was going into the ‘wildernesses’
for a while. This aspect could have contributed to why Ed Sheeran was so
popular when he came back. People got excited and they spread the news of
his new songs.
We conducted a survey among our classmates, and it conveyed that out of
37 people, 33 people liked his new album. The other 4 either didn’t know it
or didn’t show a particular interest in the artist. We also did a survey to find
out which songs from Ed Sheeran’s album ‘Divide’ were the most popular
amongst girls in our school. We interviewed 18 girls and the result conveyed
that the most popular song was ‘Shape of You’ with 11 votes and second
place was ‘Castle on the Hill’ with 5 points and third was ‘Galway Girl’ and
‘Perfect’ with one vote each.
But in looking over the results I discovered that the most popular song are
the ones that are played on the radio like ’Shape of you’ and ‘Castle on the
Hill’ The songs that aren’t played often such as, Galway Girl and Perfect
weren’t liked by many people but only by some.
In another survey we asked people why the liked or disliked his music and
this is what they said: Erin in year 10 said that “I like his music because it is
very dynamic and captures different emotions.” And she also said “it
corresponds to the need of the society.”
We also questioned people who disliked Ed Sheeran’s music and James
Mallet the producer of BBC’s Newswatch and our BBC School Report
mentor said that : “it doesn’t grab my attention and I wouldn’t buy his album
but I wouldn’t turn off his music if it was on the radio.” he also said “it
wasn’t very exciting and was bland.”
Our conclusion is that if Ed Sheeran’s other songs were on the radio they
would be more popular.