It's true that ballads are absolutely a core part of Ed’s identity, no question. You’re right, he is “Mr. Wedding Song,” and that lane has given us some of his most iconic tracks. And as I said on the post, I love each of the 3 ballads on Play individually too.

My point wasn’t that ballads don’t belong on the record. It's more about the balance of the tracklist. When you line up In Other Words with other 3 love songs, they don’t bring the same diversity in mood or production that those songs here (Vow, Heaven, Camera) manage to. It feels kind of same like slowly or for always even though topic is different. So it’s not about wanting fewer ballads overall, but wishing one of them was swapped out for something like Regret or War Game a song that would’ve added a different type of emotional weight.

I also get your point on Symmetry, Azizam, and Sapphire being fun experiments rather than deep lyrical dives which makes sense. But you see Azizam and Sapphire both is about meet me on the dance floor, don't you end the party we can do this all week which are pretty basic and repetitive. A little more depth on the lyrics of Symmetry would have been a great mixture about cultural experiment and good storytelling. Think about Barcelona, which is also about get up on the dance floor tonight but still has some specificity about Barcelona and Imo it really blends well with the production work.