Not a lot of love lost here.

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Iris Xie: If I had a husband, and he sang this to me, I’d file for divorce and serve this song as proof. Hearing the line, “You know my lips are all I can hold against you” doesn’t even make sense and makes me want to flee. Is this man a pair of disembodied lips? Additionally, this wreck is all blended together with the most generic of twinkly EDM synths, and a blown out and poorly harmonized chorus. Not to mention, “There were times I’d drive you nearly mental/But when you’re mad, you’re still beautiful” is a sentiment that needs to be retired because it’s the most mediocre expression of male gaze, and is wrapped up in a casually ableist almost-rhyme. And this set of lines: “No one knows ’bout all the good things you do /When people take advantage of you/Your heart is pure and so beautiful.” I cringe so hard at these sentiments, because there’s nothing romantic about idolizing how your partner overgives out of societal pressure and their personal history, and it makes this picture of romance rather unsettling. And, of course, Ed Sheeran co-wrote this. It’s an ode that lacks self-awareness about how it lauds problematic norms of compulsory heterosexuality and the patriarchy, and basic as fuck relationships.
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Thomas Inskeep: As bad as Ed Sheeran is, he’s even worse as a songwriter for hire. And as for Westlife, well, on the scale of boy band edginess, they make Take That look like Joy Division.
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Alfred Soto: The hop-skip-jump vocal melody is distilled Ed Sheeran with bubbles and a slice of lime, and those build-ups are lowest common denominator modern electro-pop. Give Westlife this: in their prime they were at least crass.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Ed Sheeran’s songwriting voice is instantly distinctive, full of grace notes and particularities that only he could have come up with. Also, it makes me want to die.
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Joshua Minsoo Kim: No one would bat an eye if this were performed by the cast of SNL; the pre-chorus/bridge is filled with lyrics befitting a parody of a reunited boy band’s love song. While Ed Sheeran’s writing credit is deeply felt, the fact that dudes in their late 30s/early 40s are singing a line like “You could have someone without a belly or a temper” makes “Hello My Love” as much a labored-over dad joke as it is a worrying symptom of midlife crisis.
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Edward Okulicz: Ed Sheeran’s psychotherapist probably finds a lot of interest in this, in how he creates a Perfect Woman who ticks all the fantasy boxes, and then gives her to himself in song, but Westlife don’t sound especially invested. They used to get off their stools for a key change, now he wants them to dance as if they’d stumbled into a Lithuanian Eurovision entry?  That bit is at least competently corny, I suppose. At least the lyric isn’t “it’s just my angel envy” as I first thought, but “angel and me” probably isn’t better. Ed, it’s not popular to say it around these parts, but the non-EDM “Castle on the Hill” was fine like it was.
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Katherine St Asaph: What a canny move by The Wanted, to reboot their moribund career with a 2010 Bruno Mars song.
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Scott Mildenhall: Like Gary Barlow ten years ago, Ed Sheeran just can’t help himself. First Boyzone, and now he’s projecting his perpetual amazement at being loved onto another unfortunate foursome, doomed to listing ever more undesirable shortcomings in the name of nothing but a good line for the press release. Such is the self-deprecation being apportioned to them, it genuinely sounds during the chorus that they’re declaring themselves eternal winos. On the other hand, at least they’re not the ones plagiarising their own plagiarism. This would be much diminished if Sheeran were the one doing the singing. Indeed, it would almost be “Castle on the Hill”. But inadvertent interpersonal issues aside, there is a wondrous celebration to it that in these safe hands — and that includes the ones that were previously barred from the microphone — makes for a triumphant return.
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