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Alex Petridis of The Guardian gave the album three out of five stars, writing that, "at its worst, + is a pretty winsome business" Petridis found the lyricism of tracks such as "Wake Me Up" weak, but stated that, "apart from his teen appeal, Sheeran's strength is his melodic ability, a way with a really strong, radio-friendly tune, as on 'The City' or 'Grade 8'". Andy Gill of The Independent gave the album four stars out of five, finding that Sheeran was right to follow his own "instincts" and not conform to mainstream pop music, saying: "if he had followed the advice to tone down the crackhead portrait of 'The A Team', Sheeran might have wound up with a respectable, if predictable, career as a mainstream folkie singer-songwriter rocking the outer reaches of Radio Two" but found his "nimble hip-hop delivery rides a slick R&B groove" and his "blue-collar sensibilities cut through" after not attending schools such as the Brits school. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 67, based on 9 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". + received mixed to favourable reviews from critics. The album concludes with the track "Give Me Love" and the Scottish folk song "The Parting Glass" as a bonus track. The record also visits a "darker side" on tracks such as "The City", which depicts homeless street-life and features Sheeran beat-boxing. Lyricism also derives from Sheeran's own "self-doubt" heard in tracks such as "Wake Me Up" and "Kiss Me", which has been compared to musician Van Morrison. It differs between genres, with tracks such as "Grade 8" showing R&B influences, garnering comparisons to Bruno Mars, while the album also features folk-hop inspired tracks such as "Drunk", a "self-pitying, doomed attempt to resurrect a lost relationship". The record features "chipper" beats with staccato guitar riffs throughout. The Daily Telegraph found that the lyricism is based around subjects he cares about in his own life, performing with a "soft toned, flexible voice" with a hip-hop theme. Sheeran performs throughout the record with a small acoustic guitar, with "no band" and "no beats". + is influenced by rapper Eminem, hip-hop inspired duo Nizlopi and recording artist Damien Rice. After spending four years performing in the British live scene, Sheeran met singer Jamie Foxx in Los Angeles, and Foxx liked Sheeran enough to "put on the path to success". Moving from place to place, he performed at open-mic nights across the United Kingdom, where he would sleep on his friends' sofas spending time self-releasing homemade EPs and albums. + is the ninth best-selling album of the 2010s in the United Kingdom.Īfter completing school at age 16, Sheeran spent his student grant on rail tickets. The album was the highest debut for a British artist's first studio album in the US since Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream in 2009. The album performed well on the US Billboard 200, peaking at number five, selling 42,000 copies. Upon release, + debuted atop of the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales exceeding 102,000 copies. The album was met with generally positive reviews from music critics.
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