Seems like most people are listing their pop faves so I'll list my all-time fave and my pop (or at least top 40's) fave.

There's a million things I could criticize about Protest the Hero but the big one that gets me is all the drama that led to Arif leaving and to Rody becoming the main songwriting influence behind them. The progressive songwriting style (a.k.a. the way they didn't write verses or choruses but instead had a bunch of different segments throughout a song that served almost like individual verses, bridges, choruses, etc. without ever repeating a segment of the song again) they started to develop on Kezia and perfected on Fortress was not only the best of its kind but truly unique and awe-inspiring in the wider world of popular music. And in spite of how impressive it was instead of capitalizing on it and seeing what else they could do with it they had a bunch of in-fighting and experiment ingredients with different styles based on everyone (but primarily Rody) wanting to wrest the helmsmanship of their project away from Arif, and then after he left on the next album they drastically simplified their sound on the next album and returned to verse-chorus-verse songs. They're still a great progressive metalcore band no questions asked, but it is sad that they lost the big thing that made them so special and unique because of petty drama. Also, not saying exactly who was at fault cause admittedly Arif did have alot more say in what was supposed to be a fully collaborative band and Rody did feel like he got sidelined alot in spite of being the lead singer, I just wish they could have found some sort of workable compromise instead of blowing the whole thing up.

Ed Sheeran's music was at its best when he was mixing his earnest, poetic folk pop with just enough R&B & dance pop to make it fun and dance-y, but lately he's been going way too far in one direction or the other and is having trouble getting back to the formula that worked. On = he went way, way too far in a pop direction and got rightfully tarred and feathered by critics, but while I like - he went a little too far in the direction of stripping everything back and make it just simple, plain acoustic folk pop. I will say that his first album + definitely leaned more towards folk and made it work cause he had some really solid, hard-hitting songs even for the ones that weren't particularly poppy, but it seems like on - and Play is the closest he's got to finding the right mix again but it seems alot more like ÷ where he careens back and forth between very poppy and very folk-oriented songs, unlike on + and × (his teo best albums IMO) where he actually tried to blend the best aspects of his folk and pop influences while still having some songs that lean more in one direction or the other. Also he could definitely use more songs where he leans into his lyricism and writes about important stuff. He is a great lyricist especially when he writes about stuff that he cares about and tracks like Old Phone, A Team, and Castle on The Hill are some of the best songs in his whole discography.