8 December 2017
When all 16 tracks from Ed Sheeran’s Divide album swamped the top twenty in the UK and in Ireland in March 2017, they had to change the rules. However, Ed wasn’t done with breaking the charts that year, no sirree.
‘Perfect’ had been around for a while – after all, it was one of those sixteen chart-shut-out tracks from that March. It got an official single release and glossy video (below) in September, and it was knocking around in our top ten in October. However, as part of a tilt at the UK Christmas number one, two extra versions were released in December: one featuring a verse performed by Beyoncé, and another with a verse by Andrea Bocelli. Under chart rules—other ones—these extra versions of ‘Perfect’ counted towards the consolidated chart place of the original ‘Perfect’. So, with the handy multiplier effect of three high-profile iterations of the same song, and an all-ages coalition of fans of Beyoncé and Andrea Bocelli duly dragooned, Ed Sheeran’s ‘Perfect’ indeed nabbed the festive top spot in the UK and in Ireland – in both territories beating ‘River’ by Eminem, on which the featured artist was Ed Sheeran. Christmas 2017 was The Ed Sheeran Holiday Special.
As for the thing itself in whatever iteration, well, sight-unseen and sound-unheard you know the sort of milky simpering you’re going to get from an Ed Sheeran song called ‘Perfect’: you—his real-life plus-one and soon-to-be Mrs Ed—are perfect, though I’ll be getting a Hollywood actor to take your place in the video because, you know, there’s such a thing as being too perfect. Ed has a strangely deep voice on this, as if he feels the need to project pipe-smoking maturity while singing about how he wants you to be his trad-wife and have his babies. His polite English folk vocal contortions mean there’s a bit where it sounds like he’s singing about being barefoot on the cross. Anyway, it’s all adequately made but essentially another outbreak of male soft rock’s ghastly gatekeeper-of-your-worth balladry like ‘Wonderful Tonight’, ‘The Lady In Red’ and ‘All Of Me’. I’m aware ‘Perfect’ may be the first-dance song for your past or future wedding, but that’s your business.
So, ‘Perfect’ is the last of only eight new songs to get to number one in Ireland in 2017, a chart year dominated by the éminence rousse-et-beige of Ed Sheeran occupying our top spot with three of those eight songs for a total of 20 weeks. What’s more, 2017 is the second calendar year in a row that no Irish act has a number one single in Ireland – and this drought will continue for another few years yet, until we’re graced by a male Irish singer whose laboured folk-pop vocals and basic-core maudlin naffness sound in hindhearing like a consequence of ‘Perfect’. So, there’s that to look forward to. Happy Christmas 2017.
