When Ed Sheeran announced his second album of 2023 — Autumn Variations — some thought it might be the start of a new series of seasonal-themed records, like the math-themed releases he’s been doing since 2011.  But no — Ed says it’s really more like a “gift.”

On his Instagram Story on September 28, Ed posted a series of videos responding to fan questions, including one about whether he now plans to make Winter, Summer and Spring Variations. 

“The next series is not this. This is just something that I wanted to put out at the end of tour as sort of a gift to fans,” he explained. “But we’ll be starting the next series next year.”

Ed said that when he made Autumn Variations, his thinking was, “I’m only putting this out for my fan base … I’m not trying to like break records or change the world … I just want to make a really gentle-sounding album that can be my fans’ favorite record — that everyone in the world has to know about it.”

“It just feels like an album for the fans,” he adds.

It’s also got a cool concept.

“The album was inspired by [the] classical composer [Edward] Elgar, who made this thing called Enigma Variations,” Ed explained. “Which was 14 songs about 14 of his friends, and he didn’t say what friends they were about.”

“I just thought it was such a cool idea and no one’s done a modern spin on it,” he added. “So it’s basically 14 songs about my mates, in autumn.”

Going forward, Ed said he’d like to alternate between making “indie” albums like this one with “big pop records.”

He noted, “I don’t want to just feel like I have to do one thing because that’s what people know me for.”

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