Ed Sheeran Explains Decision To Release Two Songs At Same Time

(Radio.com) The world has been waiting for new music from Ed Sheeran for nearly two years, and this past Friday (Jan. 6), he surprised us all with not one, but two singles. 'Shape Of You" and 'Castle On The Hill" immediately rose to the top of the iTunes charts worldwide and there's an important reason why the singer-songwriter chose to release both tracks simultaneously.

"I think it was quite hard to kind of pinpoint what song to go with to represent the album, so I thought I'd pick two that were kind of opposing ends of the album and release them at the same time," Sheeran told Carson Daly on 97.1 AMP Radio.

"And also, since I've been away, the way that albums are being released are now you have to just kind of make up your own rules. There's no rulebook to follow, so you just have to do things that people aren't doing, and I thought making two double A-side singles with two videos that go to radio at the same time, it's a talking point. And even if only one of the songs works, it still got people to talk about them." Read more here.

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