As many of you know, I am a big time fan of Ed Sheeran. I've listened to his music since 2011. When he announced last year that he was going to take a hiatus, I thought he'd be gone for a few months. Instead, he was MIA from all of his social media accounts for exactly one year. Like, down to the minute. His first post was a cryptic blue square, immediately prompting album rumors. (This simple blue square got over 125,000 retweets, by the way.) Finally, on January 1, Ed uploaded a silent video of himself holding a piece of paper that said, "New music coming Friday." I was ecstatic. For five days, I ran around telling anyone who would listen, "Ed has a new album coming out on Friday!" I could hardly contain my excitement. Last night, I actually dreamt about what his new music would sound like. This morning, I literally jumped out of bed to buy the songs. After a year of waiting for music from the Ginger Jesus, I had high expectations.

He didn't let me down.

Let me start off by saying that it wasn't an album he released, much to my dismay. Instead, he released two singles and will be releasing an album sometime in 2017. The two singles are called "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill." They have a different sound than his prior songs, but that's not necessarily a bad thing...and, without further ado, let's talk about "Shape of You."

In truth, I heard a blurb of this song a day early. (There is a new filter on Snapchat that plays the beginning of "Shape of You" in the background.) I knew as soon as I heard the opening bars that it was going to be fantastic. The song has a very catchy beat the whole way through. The lyrics are not up to par with some of his more poetic songs ("Shirtsleeves," "Thinking Out Loud," etc.) but they still got stuck in my head. After listening to this song a few times, I can confidently sing about 65 percent of the song and awkwardly mumble the rest. All I can think when I listen to songs like this is, Wow. Whoever he wrote this song about is so lucky. Imagine a man writing a song about how much he's "in love with your body." Sigh.

My overall rating of "Shape of You" is a 9/10. As much as I love the catchiness of the song, I miss the acoustic feel of Ed's first album. The lyrics are also not as poetic as some of Ed's other songs.

If you'd like to listen to "Shape of You" you can listen on Spotify here, watch the lyric video here, or buy it on iTunes here.

The other song Ed released is "Castle on the Hill." This song also starts with a strong beat, but sounds more like Ed's other songs. His voice is husky and raw in this song, even catching a few times in the chorus. (Swoon). This song didn't really resonate with me for a few reasons: I didn't grow up in England, so the references to the winding country roads and the castle were tough for me to visualize. I also don't know Ed's friends personally so the lyrics aren't very meaningful to me. I'm sure this is a very fun song for Ed to sing because it means a lot to him and his loved ones, but I had a hard time connecting to it. That being said, it does showcase how incredible his voice is during the powerful chorus.

My overall rating of "Castle on the Hill" is a 7/10. I feel like Ed could've done better on this one; the personal lyrics feel a little disjointed from the synthesized background music. It was also pretty hard for me to connect with the lyrics, which is usually easy for me to do. That being said, I will still listen to this song until I have all of the lyrics memorized!

If you'd like to listen to "Castle on the Hill" you can listen on Spotify here, watch the lyric video here, or buy it on iTunes here.

Thank you for sharing your talent with us, Ed. I look forward to everything you have in store for 2017.