Ed Sheeran released his fifth studio album, "Subtract," on Friday.
This is the final installment in Sheeran's series based on mathematical symbols, which began in 2011 with his debut album "Plus."
He previously told Rolling Stone that he scrapped the original version of "Subtract" in 2021 after his wife, Cherry Seaborn, suffered a health scare and his best friend, Jamal Edwards, died shortly after.
After Taylor Swift introduced him to Aaron Dessner, who produced her critically acclaimed sister albums "Folklore" and "Evermore," Sheeran began confronting his grief through songwriting, inspired by the instrumental tracks that Dessner provided.
"I wasn't really around a guitar," he said. "But I had these instrumentals, and I would write to them — in the backs of cars or planes or whatever. And then it got done. And that was the record. It was all very, very, very fast."
Insider's senior music reporter Callie Ahlgrim listened to the new album straight through, jotting down her initial thoughts track by track.
Here is what she thought of each song on "Subtract" upon first listen. (Skip to the end to see the only songs worth listening to and the album's final score.)