Ed Sheeran has officially announced his upcoming album Play, which will be released on September 12 2025. To launch this new chapter, he has also released a brand new single titled Old Phone.
After closing the book on his Mathematics series, Sheeran returns with a bold and creatively charged project that marks a fresh start for 2025. With Play, he explores new musical territory through collaborations with producers and musicians from around the globe, while also reconnecting with the timeless sounds that have defined his career. Inspired in part by his exposure to Indian and Persian musical cultures, and their surprising similarities to the Irish folk music of his youth, Sheeran blends shared rhythms, scales, and melodies to create a truly global sound.
The album is a balance of experimentation and familiarity. Alongside the new influences, Sheeran delivers the heartfelt ballads and acoustic-driven songs that made him one of the most beloved singer-songwriters of his generation. Play feels both fresh and nostalgic, offering a vibrant and emotionally rich collection that showcases his growth as an artist and a person.
Talking about the album, Ed said: “Play was made as a direct response to the darkest period of my life. Coming out of that, I wanted to create something joyful, colorful, and inspired by the cultures I encountered while touring. I made this record all over the world, finished it in Goa, India, and had some of the most creatively fulfilling days of my life.
It’s a real rollercoaster of emotions, full of everything I love about music. It also reflects where I am now as a human, a partner, a father. Going into this album, I told myself: ‘I just want everything to be fun and playful.’ So we’re building pubs for folk jams, doing gigs on open-top buses, and singing in pink cowboy hats on bars. The older I get, the more I want to enjoy things and savor the madness.
You can pre-order Play now. So many more playful things are coming before the album drops.
Following the release of the upbeat global hit Azizam, Sheeran shifts into a more reflective mood with his new single Old Phone. The song explores the experience of turning on an old phone from 2015 and uncovering a digital time capsule filled with forgotten texts, distant friendships, and fragments of old arguments. Blending his signature acoustic style with emotional depth, Old Phone captures the tension between nostalgia and growth, and offers a poignant look at how our past continues to shape us.
Produced by Blake Slatkin and Ilya Salmanzadeh, Old Phone is available to stream now.
