Ed Sheeran is a clever boy.
He’s also very powerful, with much of his power on social media. He has 19.5 million followers on Twitter and doesn’t even use it any more. On Instagram, where he is active, he has nearly 30 million.
Reviews of Sheeran’s first album, +, were published before its release and all suggested it was poor.
The A Team, the first single, features lyrics that concerned Radio 1 and other stations and the song wasn’t added to any playlists.
Sheeran, understanding that radio was (and still is) the most important platform to break a new artist, booked the Barfly, a small venue in Camden, in a school holiday, and tweeted:
He invited someone who worked on the Radio 1 playlist and someone who worked for Zane Lowe, the DJ.
The Barfly holds 200 people. A thousand turned up. Sheeran played three shows – three inside and one outside.
“(Radio 1) basically saw their whole demographic who listens to their radio station queuing up to get in to one show,” Sheeran said when he appeared on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs.
“So that was how I got on radio to begin with.”
The album came out and sold 102,000 copies in the first week because he was able to speak directly to his fans.
“That’s where the power comes from,” he said.
