British musician Ed Sheeran dominates the British charts with nine tracks from his new album Divide already making way into the Top 10. The Briton’s third work published last week sold 672,000 copies in its first seven days in stores, breaking the record of any male soloist who has reached the top this fast in the UK.
The success of Sheeran has been so overwhelming that it surprised the musician himself, who asked himself in an interview with Radio 1 if there had not been “some mistake” with the data, which put the 16 songs on the album among the 20 songs sold in the United Kingdom.
“I do not know if there is something strange that Spotify and Apple Music are going to have to modify in the streaming,” said the singer, who said that he “would never have expected to have nine songs in the top 10.”
“I do not know if there have been any mistakes, but I’m certainly very happy with this,” he added.
Just two albums have sold more in the UK during its first week: Adele’s 25 , which in 2015 placed 800,000 copies, and Oasis’ Be Here Now , which sold 696,000 copies back in 1997.
The bulk of the sales of Divide comes from physical stores, accounting for 62 percent, while 26 percent come from direct downloads and 12 percent from streaming listeners. The president of Atlantic Records U.K., Ben Cook, stated that Sheeran is a very unique and one-of-a-kind artist. “In the six years that have passed since we signed with him, nothing has happened by accident. He is constantly raising the bar, challenging us to keep up with him,” Cook said.
With his triumphant return with the album Divide , it is very likely that throughout 2017, the public will be able to see Ed Sheeran everywhere, including the world of… Game of Thrones ?
The Season 7 of Game of Thrones already has a release date, and among the novelties fans will see on screen, the producers of the legendary TV series confirmed the special participation of singer Ed Sheeran, who finally contacted after having tried to square agendas a while ago.
The producers of the series have loved the singer-songwriter for several seasons, but the performance did not materialize due to scheduling problems.
All this happened because Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) is a big fan of Ed Sheeran , and GoT producers took time wishing to surprise her by inviting the artist to the show. For some reason, this was not possible until this seventh season (to be released on July 16), when the British musician would make his great appearance, according to the words of the creators of the series David Benioff and Dan Weiss.
The news was given by HBO showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff during a panel at the South by Southwest 2017 (SXSW) festival. They said the singer is a favorite of the cast and producers of the series, but their participation could not be made concrete by an agenda item, until now. “For years we’ve tried to include Ed Sheeran in the show to surprise Maisie, this time we finally made it,” they remarked.
The #GoT creators and their moderators @Maisie_Williams & @SophieT at their #SXSW panel. pic.twitter.com/ORcrtIFnm7
— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) March 12, 2017
While it has not yet been specified what role or chapter the popular redhead will perform, he would not be the only famous musician to make an appearance in the series based on the literary saga of George RR Martin.
At the moment there are no more details of Sheeran’s appearance or the seventh season breakthroughs. But while keeping the hype to everything it gives, it is to be remembered that this is not the first time that famous musicians appeared in Game of Thrones . The clear example the public has is seeing Sigur Ros as well as members of Snow Patrol and Coldplay in the show.
[Featured Image by Getty Images]