Readers will be pleased to hear that, following five albums titled Plus, Times, Divide, Equals and Minus, Ed Sheeran has chosen not to cycle through SohCahToa. Rather, he has entered a new era with his new album, Play, expressed like the little triangle on your remote control and opening the door to a whole new world of title opportunities. Pause, Stop, Rewind and Fast Forward are to be expected, but dare I dream that in my lifetime I might hear the likes of Settings, Back, Menu, Guide, Info, Power, Volume Up, Volume Down, Channel Up, Channel Down, Right Arrow, Left Arrow, Up Arrow, Down Arrow, the numbers zero to nine and - whisper it - Netflix?

I expect I probably will, because the guy just cannot stop writing songs. Now indisputably the most divisive ginger man living in England (cheers, Harry, but we'll have you back whenever you're ready), Sheeran has soundtracked the banality of UK life for more than 15 years, and shows no intention of stopping. Play, his first album in two years since the understated Autumn Variations, is an 18-track ramble of soppy ballads, cynical streaming ploys, clever dance-pop and, occasionally, the beatboxer raps that distinguished Sheeran from the other 18-year-olds with guitars back in the early days.

As ever, Sheeran shows prodigious pop songwriting ability, a wonderfully distinctive style, a fantastic voice, a little bit of everyman charm and, with those rap sections, a gleam of his old originality - and then completely undermines it all with some of the worst lyrics you can imagine and an utter inability to stop showing off.

He simply cannot bring himself to be constricted by theme, style or genre - he has to show that he can do it all. The effect of this is that we lurch wildly between the likes of the slightly pathetic imploration to "give me all your workday news", sung tenderly over heartfelt guitar, to a jaunty brass number over which Sheeran reminds us that "One day we'll all be dead".

Let's start with the big pop songs, as Sheeran did back in April when he released "Azizam" - a Persian-inspired track co-written with the Iranian-born producer Ilya Salmanzadeh - for which the rationale was not quite clear beyond the fact that Sheeran quite liked the vibes. Similarly, on the pulsating, electronic "Sapphire", he collaborates with the Indian musician Arijit Singh to create a sort of euphoric Bollywood chorus that, though catchy and built on those distinctive Sheeran melodies, feels utterly incongruous with the likes of third single "Old Phone", a textbook Sheeran number featuring guitar, bashful tenor vocal and lyrics such as "My closed hand still holds some mates / But if I'm open it gets smaller day by day". Nope, me neither.

Then there are the love songs. Oh god, the love songs. Just as those booming sticky-floor club anthems feel boomier and stickier interspersed with the woodsy plaid-shirt feel of "Old Phone", so too do the declarations of devotion feel somehow even more literal among those abstract adventures in diversity that will ensure Sheeran's monthly listeners tick up across all continents. It is almost impressive -I don't doubt that several of these tracks were written in one afternoon, and that's not necessarily an insult - how swiftly he can transition to the kind of sentimental purges you might expect from someone who has never been in an adult human relationship.

Sheeran seems hellbent on convincing the world that love is founded on a) holding people in your arms (which apparently have a mind of their own: "the wind wraps around you like my arms want to", goes "For Always") and b) telling your partner they are literally the most beautiful person in the world ever, like, so much hotter than anyone I've ever met, like honestly the stars literally shine through your eyes, your hair is so nice as well especially when you straighten it, no like genuinely you're the most stunning girl in our year. His 2017 hit "Perfect" - "between my arms", "you look perfect" - is testament to this formula, and has been the most popular wedding song in the US since the year it was released.

Anyway, the love songs on Play are similarly shallow and vague in their declarations, despite invoking outer space at every chance: "You should see the way the stars illuminate your stunning silhouette"; "all the stars in the moonlit sky / couldn't match what you are to me"; "I'm dying alive every time that you leave / cos a life without you's not one I want to live". (If you're confused about what "dying alive" means, I can only assume it's the opposite of "waking up dead".) "The Vow" sounds like a conversation with his five-year-old about what happens when a mummy and daddy love each other very much: "then we talked, then we danced, then we touched / then we laughed, then we kissed, then we stopped".

Look, I know this is all such standard fare it's barely even worth saying. And who am I to judge if the nicest thing you can think of to say about your wife is that she's a bit of alright? The melodies are inspired! It's sweet! Suspend your disbelief!

But the problem is that on the latter third of the record Sheeran casts it all into doubt by describing in no uncertain terms that there is, in fact, trouble in paradise. One minute we're all "Hold me in your arms / Dance with me and sway / As the sun closes on / A beautiful day", and then suddenly we discover: "We got problems / But we don't know how to solve them". He goes on: "Every day we feel deflated / Trying to grow with all the changes". "Inches from moving out and moving on / Tension is all we've got / When will the fighting stop".

At first it's a relief to be planted back into reality - Sheeran and his wife, Cherry Seaborn, have two young children; his career can't be easy on the relationship, particularly as she is known to be very private. But while the likes of "Camera" ("I'll remember how you looked tonight") and "The Vow" ("my vow to you is to love you and never let go") at first seem so sincere they make you want to listen to nothing but Father John Misty for the rest of your life, these later songs make it clear that Sheeran's problem isn't sincerity after all. It's the opposite.

Because with tracks about "priorities [he's] prioritised" and "regrets!" and circular arguments and not getting enough time together, we are offered a much more realistic view of his life that has nothing to do with sunsets and slow-dancing. It's these honest songs that are the best, but they are hard to digest when you're stuffed on an all-you-can-eat buffet of sentimental generi-pop for people who get engaged on reality television. Worst of all, you have to plough through to track 14 to get the tea.

Sheeran may well be a pop genius. But he desperately needs an editor. Play has catchy songs aplenty to add to his ever-growing oeuvre, but it needs reining in. A direction. A theme. Some lyrics that don't make you wish you didn't speak English. What's your favourite button on the remote, out of interest? Mine is "Mute".