Sade: Classic or Dud?

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why is this thread necessary??

^^

I want to invite the folks who would say "dud" to a duel, you see? Let's have it out.

That's more sportsmanlike than is befitting of a Sade-hater.

I say oil up the guillotine.

why is this thread not necessary?

thread can only be saved by large images of sade being hott (pretty much any pic of her)

http://www.langfieldentertainment.com/images/IMAGES%20TO%20KEEP/sade.jpg

I know I am an old man tonight, because I just wiki-ed her and found out she's 49. And of course she is, if I think about it. Still. I hate it when time passes.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov04/images/classicpela7sade.l.jpg

large images of sade being hott (pretty much any pic of her)

yes, i also noted that GIS is none too forthcoming with the pics of her at 7 a.m. in curlers and her "comfortable" robe.

^^^^^my desktop photo

I've started quite a few Sade threads around here. Apart from some isolated comments on how Sade fans couldn't possibly "love music", they've been well recieved.

dood. 'your love is king' slays a party if mixed into hiphop. she should put out an lp produced by dangermouse or timberlake/land.

There's no straight-up "classic or dud" thread because everyone thinks she's classic.

harumph!

i'll use this thread to recommend both of her live DVDs

dood. 'your love is king' slays a party if mixed into hiphop. she should put out an lp produced by dangermouse or timberlake/land.

Yes. Almost every good old song should be remixed and updated. For the kids!

http://www.fgbuddyicons.com/images/icons/hearts/hearts21.gifhttp://www.fgbuddyicons.com/images/icons/hearts/hearts21.gifhttp://www.fgbuddyicons.com/images/icons/hearts/hearts21.gif

by your side is the tenderest ever

she should put out an lp produced by dangermouse or timberlake/land.

-- U-Haul, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 16:07 (48 minutes ago) Link

no offense dude, this sounds like awful idea

Really, really happy I had the chance to see her perform. Her voice is just as stunning live. "Is It a Crime?" = SWOON. I'll check out those live DVDs mentioned.

actually it would have been dope to see her do a record produced by Massive Attack in their prime. but you really cant fault her music at all.

Good lord, her with Massive Attack. That sounds like a fantastic idea.

There's no straight-up "classic or dud" thread because everyone thinks she's classic.

Not everyone, apparently. From AMG's review of Promise:

was once again the personification of cool, laid-back singing, seldom extending or embellishing lyrics, registering emotion, or projecting her voice. This demeanor made her more desirable in the minds of many fans and was perhaps the ultimate misapplication of the notion of sophistication.

From AMG's review of Stronger Than Pride:

After two LPs with little or no energy, Sade demonstrated some intensity and fire on her third release. . . . Not that she was suddenly singing in a soulful or bluesy manner; rather, Sade's dry and introspective tone now had a little more edge, and the lyrics were ironic as well as reflective.

AMG was also lukewarm on Diamond Life. To be fair, all three of these reviews were written by the same reviewer (Ron Wynn). Still, I'm surprised, since I've always thought that AMG seemed pretty generous to artists (maybe that's a complete misperception).

FWIW -- not much, I know -- I like Sade, but I don't think she's as great as most others here apparently do. De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess.

I know I'm gonna sound like some random googler, but, Sade? I love her. I mean, I really, really love her.

(Um, classic obv.)

That is a really rare contrarian POV for AMG.

PS: Most classic for me of all her classic moments: "Every day is Christmas / And every night is New Year's Eve."

live album is good

'By Your Side' is very soothing

Bimble, don't be so literal! I started this one in 2001:

Sade: Hologram or Dud?

If anyone's interested in what a Sade/Massive Attack Collabo might have sounded like, this is probably the closest thing to it -

Sade - "Love Is Stronger Than Pride (Mad Professor Mix)"

http://www.sendspace.com/file/sks22h

There's also a shitty Neptunes remix of 'By your side' floating around

It's on the single. I don't like it mainly because it changes the chord progression, rendering Sade's singing faintly ridiculous for anyone who loves the original..

theres a vinyl 2x lp of a bunch of remixes of sade out there that includes that mad prof. mix. I saw it the other day at a record store

It's OK. Don't spend a fortune on it, tho

heres one from what.cd

sade - best of (the remixes)

01-sade-love_is_stronger_than_pride__mad_professor_mix
02-sade-give_it_up__kenny_larkin_rmx
03-sade-kiss_of_live__deep_mix
04-sade-feel_no_pain__nellie_hooper_mix
05-sade-turn_my_back_on_you__heffs_mix
06-sade-sweetest_taboo__extended_version
07-sade-i_never_thought_id_see_the_day__danny_tenaglias_musk_men_mix
08-sade-by_your_side__ben_watt_mix
09-sade-somebody_already_broke_my_heart__excursions_mix

oh man im listening to that neptunes by your side and yes it is awful - talk abt completely missing the mark uhg

I guess I should have said "Everyone thinks she's classic except for one AMG reviewer who doesn't post here anyway and is more on-the-fence than negative, anyway."

I remember that Kenny Larkin remix of 'Give it Up' as being pretty good?

You're in luck: http://turbocity.blogspot.com/2007/09/best-of-remixessade.html

As much as I love Sade I don't understand how a live album could be worth having. I've been to one of her shows (at Madison Square Garden) and it was mindblowing, but aside from a conga flourish or two, the music itself seemed exactly the same as on record..

OTM. Live DVDs on the other hand...

the live DVDs are very nice. smoke some herb, watch it with your lady. the bomb.

god, 'no ordinary love' is so fucking beautiful.

YOUR LOVE IS KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

was she really a junkie?

!!! surely not !!!

no, i was reading some brit music magazine years ago and they more than hinted at her being into that shit

but maybe the british music press does that with any given random artist as easily as the rest of us sneeze when presented with a cotton swab tickling our nose hairs

nice

I know, right?

...

God you really hate it when people do that, don't you, I know, right?

Sade is too excellent to go on.

Also she is way too beautiful to believe.

ABBOTT BE SPEAKING THE TRUTH YO

I know I've made an ass out of myself here before, but Sade is the most attractive woman to have ever made music, ever. Why isn't she my wife? She's the creme de la creme.

bought this guy yesterday at flea market:

http://www.discogs.com/Sade-Couldnt-Love-You-More/release/105842

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/11/24/PH2009112403079.jpg

FEB 8th. Stoked.

dope cover imo

wooooahhhhhhhhh

I guess this deserves its own thread, huh?

Sade - Soldier of Love

HOLY SHIT

LOVE SADE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvcNtoHwd6Y

this is one of the best sade things ever

that whole live dvd, jeez

hmm i dunno titchy, that youtube sounds pretty cheap

actually best live cut is of 'smooth operator' -- crazy-ass coda

RT @ToureX: People are like afraid to say Sade's album is blah bc she's such an icon and so beloved. But it is.
9:57 AM Feb 19th from TweetDeck

I haven't heard the new one but I thought I'd post this just to show that some folks don't like the new one (or at least one person!)

i think it's just that one guy.

btw the best (and perhaps only good) sade remix is Tattoo (House Mix) (i think that's what it's actually called on the 12" vinyl, though on youtube it's "deep house vocal mix))

nah tb perfecttly honest, I still haven't been won over by this album. Haven't given up on it though

xp multiple ppl on this thread have expressed similar sentiments

i think ppl were expecting a more uptempo jamming joint & instead its pretty ballad-heavy.

I expected better programmed drum machines.

no idea what you dudes are talking about with this drum machine shit

not sure that they're machines but they are quantized all to shit & it's a drag - I dig the record but it's not even in the same league as "lovers rock"

i dont ever remember their drums ever being anything but super-tight & borderline robotic tbh -- like its part of the style

"borderline robotic"? can't really agree man. you can play real tight and still sound engaged, and for that matter you can quantize here and there without having the numbing effect that solider of love's production has. sade's always had a great band, but they've been much, much better served by the production than they are here. not unique to this record obv but since it's by an artist whose records have always felt live, you notice

yes borderline robotic! theyve never really been about letting the rhythms swing. i mean, arent the drums on 'turn my back on you' super-quantized too? i dont get any sense of change between this & their older stuff at all really.

im using the wrong terms -- swing isnt what i mean -- but the precision of the drums doesnt sound like some new thing to me. at all

they don't swing, but they do sound more like they're listening to each other, which is what over-quantizing a track takes away - most of this record you don't get the feeling you're listening to a band, whereas on love deluxe you feel like no matter how many punches & overdubs there are the unit is playing together - which this doesn't sound like, to me

i see what you guys are sayin - i mean, love deluxe, iirc, had a bigger impact on me right off the block than this one. it's quite possible that several of her earlier albums are better than this one. BUT, i liked it a lot the first time i heard it, i have yet to EVER turn it off mid-album (which i'm very very prone to do to almost anything else) even after many many playthroughs, and something tells me it's gonna keep growing on me. lord knows lovers rock was a grower, in the best way possible - i'm kinda only just now realizing how awesome that one is cause i only gave it, like, 5 chances back when it came out. don't know what the hell i was thinking then back then, not loving LR to death!?!?! anyway i suspect this one will hold it's place proudly among the cannon of sade albums, some of which are inevitably better than others, but all of which are unquestionably awesome.

re:quantitization: i think none of the core members of sade (the band) are drummers - thus their growing use of drum machines over the years. therefore, the drums are almost by definition very highly quantized - and as a guy who messes with drum machines and software a lot, i suspect they program, not input by hand, their drum patterns... so almost by definition they're 100% quantized, period, and perhaps have been since love deluxe. any looseness you hear is from the musicians playing around the beat, not the drums themselves. i think this one's just pretty slick, not too lose, lots of takes to get everything perfectly perfect... hell it's their first album in like 10 years and its FUCKING SADE so i think they were really trying to get everything sounding polished...

...what am i trying to say? basically i think their drum machines have always been quantized, it's not any different here from their last 3 albums. and i suspect this album sounds more polished cause they WANTED it to sound more polished, perhaps as a turn-around from the looseness and simpleness of lover's rock...

Lyrics to Baby Father :
We were waiting for the bus
No-one much around but us
Then I see this young boy cut a look at me
I’m stunned
In a daze
He had the whole street set ablaze
It’s only love they say
Makes you feel this way

She liked his eyes she wanted more
The baby gonna have your smile for sure
He saw a lovely girl
Smelling sweet and soapy like fresh air
She saw him looking acted like she didn’t care
That’s how we knew
And so love grew a flower
A flower that is you

this kills me...

is she saying "Your daddy knows you're a fling"? If so, it's a devastating lyric.

this album really hit for me when the lyrics sunk in - inc, yes, "your daddy knows you're a fling"

Bimble.

He just knew, didn't he?

wtf?

listening to sweetback right now (ie. sade without sade singing) it's like love deluxe, except with someone else on vox...

...obviously. definitely very nice. and not completely unlike portishead as well. which is not a bad thing... like if portishead was more Adult Contemporary? no, wait, it's like this: it's like if this incredibly talented backup band was just dicking around, recording the tripout album they always wanted to do while the diva was disappearing to jamaica and port au prince for years at a time...

wow, nice rapper chick on "au natural" too... who is that?

bahamadia.

is she saying "Your daddy knows you're a fling"? If so, it's a devastating lyric.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:10 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
this album really hit for me when the lyrics sunk in - inc, yes, "your daddy knows you're a fling"

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:24 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i asked upthread & its apparently "flame." the 'fling' lyric would be devestating if it made any sense w/ the rest of the lyrics but there are no references to him ditching or whatever, they talk about the kid being a flower-product of 'love' not 1nitestand

& messiah totally otm about the quantizing, i really have no idea what j0hn is on about -- theyve never been some loose live-sounding band, its been a huge knock against them for years that they sound all studiofied

the problem with the drums on this record isn't that they sound too quantized, it's that they sound too tinny

Yes. I had to look up "quantized."

i read "flame" on the lyrics site, but i always heard it clearly as "fling" before i saw it written out. fwiw according to wikipedia she had a child out of wedlock about a year after getting divorced in 1995, and that the relationship was somewhat shortlived and is definitely now over - thus "you're a fling" makes perfect sense

the drums are just incredibly bland and insipid (and tinny yes, though i dont know if the reverend is being sarcastic or not).

babyfather is just sublime tho.

when i saw Sade at Madison Square Garden her drummer was playing MIDI triggers iirc

what is this fixation on Sade's drums?

they detract from this record?

i haven't noticed anything egregiously bad or off about the drums tbh

Me neither.

but is that something you usually notice when listening to music? some people think focusing on things like that is overly anal. i dont like the production of the last 2 records all that much to begin with anyway personally. its like listening to a dido record really. bad hip hop programming.

"Drums" is actually code for "tittays."

they detract from this record?

^^^

it's not like the record sucks but the performances are for the most part uninspired (in the drums imo obv)- unlike lovers rock which was one big rush of understated feeling after another, waves-on-the-beach action, or love deluxe which was like that only more intense. I dig about 1/3 of this record to pieces & like the rest well enough but anybody saying "it's just like her other stuff" is drinkin crazy juice, this is a minor entry in the sade catalog

HISTORY WILL VINDICATE ME

her next record in 2024 will be a return to form, trust me

j0hn i feel you to a certain degree, inasmuchas love deluxe> promise > diamond life > lovers rock > soldier of love > stronger than pride (album not the song)

but it's frikkin SADE man! her weaker albums are manna from heaven compared to 99.9% of all other tripe out there, and i'm counting the days till 2024

I am with you! I am stoked to have a new Sade album! it's just that the groove isn't as mmmmmm as I'd like & I'm putting that on the degradation of production techniques & standards over the years - I know this is corny decrepit listener central but if these guys were tracking to tape with an engineer who knew his way around a big analog console, every mind on this thread would be completely blown by these exact same songs

the whole albums a bit slower and less sexy, more introspective. i put it down to mrs. adu herself, like it's just where she is in her life and so that's what her album sounds like...

actually you can see her whole catalog through this kinda mental filter - diamond life = young n carefree, promise = budding young love with the guitarist, stronger than pride = difficult relationship choices, getting married (not to the guitarist), love deluxe = clock ticking, i'm super horny someone please get me pregnant asap, lovers rock = concerns over stability in relationships...

soldier of love = ...looking back on the past, reminiscing at 50 etc? fuck it, i'll listen to sade reminisce if thats what she wants to sing about

if these guys were tracking to tape with an engineer who knew his way around a big analog console, every mind on this thread would be completely blown by these exact same songs

sad but truth bomb

if these guys were tracking to tape with an engineer who knew his way around a big analog console

are you sure they aren't? sade's "the most successful solo female artist in British history.[2]" so if she wanted to track to tape with the same engineer who recorded promise, i'm sure that's exactly what she did, industry trends be damned.... though if anyone has a link to a sound on sound article about this joint, i'd be happy to be proven wrong, just to read what studio/mics/preamps etc she DID use

ok enough sade stanning from me for a while

i bet she doesnt give a shit about tracking to tape or recording in a nice studio blah blah audiophile blah. wouldnt be surprised if most of this album was done in a home studio. could be totally wrong of course - i dont have the cd to check. but a lot of artists think that sort of talk is for saddos and geeks. plus recording to tape and all that is more expensive these days. a lot of artists seem to prefer being able to record in their own studio or a small home setup rather than going to a professional one.

but comparing the sonics of this album in terms of richness/expansiveness etc to the older ones is just :( which is sad, cos yknow, its SADE.

im gonna listen to it again now anyway.

are you sure they aren't?

I would bet money on it.

the whole thing sounds thin so im guessing it was straight to digital.

it's that + I would also guess that an above poster is correct: that the guitars are being tracked in the console room and treated in the HD with various processes that simulate amp tone - which may some day provide the varieties of tone you can get with guitar + pedals + amps, but sure doesn't at this stage imo, or which doesn't anyhow outside of the hands of some really forward-looking engineers

I could be completely wrong tho gotta say I am just estimating on what I hear. for all I know it's just a lazy mastering job.

to my ears it sounds pretty much like the same sort of production values of a james blunt album.

xpost - why dont people just actually use guitar pedals and amps?

it costs a lot of money to run a big studio & upkeep good vintage gear & there's a general movement toward soft emulators of amps & effects - convenience & the unassailable truth that most people don't give a shit & won't notice the difference

one can have v. long discussions about this, it's hard not to sound like an "oor it were much better before awl the CHANGES, yargh" person on the one end but I've tracked electric guitars in both contexts with world-class engineers and imo plugging directly into the board is borderline criminal; room tone is hugely important, and it's something people pay less & less attention to

"most people don't give a shit & won't notice the difference"

these people are listened to far too much.

I have no idea where she actually recorded it but she's got a studio in the basement of her house in Islington.

J0hn maybe this is all a set-up to prime you into purchasing "Soldier of Love - Unplugged"? Only half joking..

"most people don't give a shit & won't notice the difference"

also, i think these people do notice the difference, they just arent able to verbalise it.

well - on this - the liner notes say "recorded at realworld studios uk & el cortijo spain." realworld is world-class, was state of the art when it was new & I'm assuming is still something special - its website is droolworthy stuff. El Cortijo looks if anything more amazing. so if there is a problem, it's not in the environment - there is no reason, given enough budget, not to make an album full of "soldier of love"s in these rooms. "soldier of love" is to me sonically on par with plenty of other sade tracks.

but it does have this one sampled guitar hit throughout that I find distracting - it can't really hurt the track, but that's partly because the track is made of really strong stuff - and this is part of the sonic picture that isn't working for me - this sort of frankenstein feel. I look toward the digital treatment of percussion & of performance for a culprit here, and sometimes to mastering. the album was mastered at metropolis - I don't know anything about them, but john davis, the mastering engineer here, has a strictly a-list bunch of recent clients - snow patrol, stereophonics, arctic monkeys, bloc party - whose records I haven't heard, so I can't say what his aesthetic is.

so, I don't know. the problem isn't the studio, and it's probably not the mastering job. as an analog dude I'm inclined to point fingers at changes in technique ushered in by the wholesale transition to digital - I listen to that monochromatic beat on "babyfather" and think "if you'd tried to bring that blah sound into a love deluxe session you'd have been laughed out of the room." but maybe I just ain't feelin the songs as much? I don't know.

Derail: just noticed how she's sloowly turning away...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b356/olem/sadeturns.jpg

(I'd estimate the time of orbit at abt 58 years (ie 2042), except a couple of them I had to l/r-flip so it doesn't really work)

j0hn you got called on the quantizing thing already so now you're changing yr argument & real talk you sound exactly like every sade critic ever. TOO MUCH LIKE A STUDIO. i dunno. it strikes me as fronting. i just listened to 'cherish the day' seconds ago & the drums are just as 'quantized' as ever. they never sounded like a live band, or when they did, they sounded like a live band that was TRYING to sound as mechanistic/studioized as possible, clean & antiseptic in the rhythmic department.

i dont hear any problems with the sound quality on this record, really struggling to hear what everyone's problem is tbh

it doesnt help that u keep shifting the goalposts. is it 'tinny'? those drums dont sound tinny to me. they sound ... like regular sade drums. i dont hear, like, compression problems. can u guys try to tease out exactly whats so annoying about the sound because i dont get it

when did I say "tinny"? you're so busy insisting that everybody (which is a bunch of people) who hear this record as quite different from other sade records are somehow kidding themselves, etc., that you can't even distinguish between who's arguing what. there is kind of no point in trying to make a case to you - you're just going to reject the argument anyway owing to your lack of interest in discussion - glad you think the album sounds exactly like every other sade album ever, plenty of people who've been listening to sade for 20+ years don't hear it that way, w/e dude

like this

they never sounded like a live band, or when they did, they sounded like a live band that was TRYING to sound as mechanistic/studioized as possible, clean & antiseptic in the rhythmic department.

not going to dispute that that's how they've always sounded to you, but "mechanistic" is about the last word I'd've used to describe the band playing "cherish the day" - they always sounded like a live band

also, the diff between a band TRYING to sound mechanistic or whatever as opposed to a band that DOES sound mechanistic is pretty big.

though i wouldnt say they sounded mechanistic either.

Sade's on Jonathan Ross!

titchy it can also be pretty small!

& john -- listen to cherish the day right now. how do those drums sound like a 'live band' to you?? ppl were comparing them to trip hop for a reason

& yes the rev rodney did in fact say the drums sound tinny as have other ppl -- i wasnt responding to you when i mentioned that

im interested in discussion i just think so far yr answers have been nonsensical!! & ive explained why.

imo it sounds like your idea of 'sade' is different from the music of sade, like theres a divergence between how the music sounds when listening & yr (....shh .. rockist??) remembered view of some incredible band.

im not saying everyone has to love the new record! im not speaking in absolutes about your degrees of interest in it. im just saying that your criticisms so far sound like things ppl have been throwing at this band for years, and i dont really hear much difference AS FAR AS the specific shit you've mentioned. yes it is a different record, in a lot of ways. but no, their drums have always sounded like this & i dont get where yr coming from at all

their drums used to be much fuller sounding

deej I made a point of listening to cherish the day before I singled that one out - my hearing of sade is rooted not in some remembered view but in the music of somebody with whose music I've been actively engage for a couple of decades, whose development I've followed as one follows the music of an artist in whose work one takes an interest. but take for example the sort of shaker-sound in "babyfather" - now a/b that with, say, the closed hi-hat hits on "nothing can come between us" from stronger than pride - both are right on time, obviously in-pocket and locked into the groove are what this band is aiming for. but there's an audible difference between snapped-to-grid stuff like that shaker (fish? you'll hear what I mean, it's a soft version of one of those chains-of-metal-beads handshaker things) on "babyfather" and the live band feel that I've always gotten from sade. I mean, you dig, right, that they put out a live album after lovers rock? unless you count them as really cynical ppl, I think putting out a live album kind of asserts "the band that made this album is a live band."

( which is another way of saying: are you sure it's not your own not-exactly-supported-by-the-evidence expectations/ideas about sade that are being brought to bear on the text? )

the drums on cherish the day are obviously looped though. any idiot can tell you that. so of course they dont sound like a live band. but ultimately, even then, as the rev says, they sounded a lot fuller and had more body. on the new record they sound tinny, small, and just insipid overall. the sounds are also deeply uninspired. when i said waht theyve been doing wince love deluxe has basically been with the remnants of that sound, i meant their production is not really distinctive from any number of sub zero 7 groups or downtempo singer songwriter types, which is a shame.

i caught a bit of solider of love on jonathan ross - i thought the band/backing sounded horribly 'canned'. was like all the sounds were being played off someones mobile phone.

anyway, some examples of old sade where they DO sound live. and these arent tucked away on the albums. these were singles. is it a crime, your love is king, smooth operator, sweetest taboo, and so on and so on. youd be hard pressed to say they were trying to or DID sound mechanistic 'all along' from listening to these tracks. that argument really makes no sense. i mean, sure you could argue the drums sounded boxy, but then so did every other 80s band at the time. even then though, they werent dully quantized to shit like they are these days.

this isnt hard to hear. im just working through tracks on their best of album.

*doing since love deluxe

"the sounds are also deeply uninspired. when i said waht theyve been doing wince love deluxe has basically been with the remnants of that sound, i meant their production is not really distinctive from any number of sub zero 7 groups or downtempo singer songwriter types, which is a shame."

but the sounds on any number of sub zero 7 groups/downtempo singer songwriter types are often really 'good' in terms of effect -- its just that the songwriting isnt there (whereas with Sade it obviously is). titchy ive read your shit on here a long time & while ive given you shit a bunch i do think you bring some pretty good insights sometimes. but this is one of these things where i just smh @ u because it feels like you're missing the entire point. Sade's sound is not about standing out for its sonic invention -- or even sonic 'refinement,' its always been to a degree about 'fitting in' imo. people come to her for the songs, the voice, a kind of sense of universal restrained & intimate romance. i kind of hear where you're coming from in that i dont think this stuff sounds like its dropping dollar bills all over the place, its not sonically ~~expansive~~ but the actual production qualities themselves sound pretty high

& fwiw i never claimed that all sade was trying to sound mechanistic (certainly not 'is it a crime'), & theyve always been a hot live band, but obviously huge swaths of their shit was going for a really stable, precise rhythmic feel that doesnt sound loose/'live' or, like, blatantly swinging. theres a sense of intentional stiffness to the drums on tracks like "sweetest taboo" which has always been a part of their sound.

i do hear how the drums sound less ... banging? less large. but they dont sound 'tinny' at all, there is definitely a sense of clarity & not distortion or bleeding high frequency that i think 'tinny' implies

how is Lovers Live, by the way? i can't believe i've never heard it!

i dont expect sonic innovation from a sade record. just good fidelity. tinny as ive said before is the wrong word but ive also used small, insipid, and generally lumpen to describe the programming, rather than the sounds. hence, i think the backing is often more functional than anything else. that richness/general opulence of sades sound is what made them, well sade, to me. obviously pop production values have changed a hell of a lot since the 80s, though at the time they were making those early classics, they didnt sound like most pop bands, ie drum machines, synths etc, so to have them basically reflect pop sonics now is a bit dissapointing. you keep talking about what 'people' have always said about her, or what they come to her for, rather than actually looking at what else they got along with those obvious qualities. its like saying people came to rakim only for great lyrics and a certain cool poise and ignore when a new album of his comes out with terrible production and hooks that affect everything else. so, sure most people might not notice whats missing/whats there on the new sade album (though i played it to my cousins who were all teenagers in the 80s and loved sade and they said they thought it sounded different for some reason and didnt warm to it as much), and yes, the main elements that make sade are still intact, and make me return to the record, but its still important.

btw when i say modern pop sonics im not talking about your gagas and britneys obv, more the dido/james blunt/singer songwritery types with mass appeal that get sold in tescos and sainsburys.

i think thats a decent argument. i dont really hear it personally, or its not detracting from the positive qualities of the record for me (i dont recognize any similar feelings while im listening to this record) so im not really sure i agree.

actually on reflection i hear it to a degree actually - i would buy that this one is recorded digital when the prev were analog for instance. and there are places where it IS clearly noticeable now that you mention it, like that one weird distorted guitar on soldier of love that pops in every once in a while, and is clarly cut-and-pasted into every chorus... if it were analog you couldn't really do that easily and there would have been subtle differences each time he played that fill on each chorus...

i don't think it really overly detracts from the album though, it's still lush and beautiful and well produced. it's just most likely recorded digitally like everything else is these days, and maybe sounds a touch "thinner" for it. look, in 30 years people are gonna be paying top dollar to emulate the "digital" sound of the naughties, reproducing that thin digital gloss on retroesqe albums etc - just roll with it

ugh at that thought

Lovin' this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW8HHw8kpfM&feature=player_embedded#at=102

I love the production on it, too.

yeah, this is nice

sooooooooooooooooooo classic!

i feel "paradise" does not get enough love

i feel Stronger Than Pride altogether does not get enough love

my favorite Sade track of all time is on Stronger Than Pride:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzvM0M6lRfI

I could listen to "Never As Good As The First Time" on a loop all day.

Yeah, this is pretty damn sharp.

Another new one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v29hLQnr1fo

(Prefer the timeless sound of the other new one.)

i'm loving the new tracks

even jay-z doesn't disgrace himself on "the moon and the sky" remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adOUY8Ue9LU

shes playing in AUGUST and shit is sold out.

Sade - The Ultimate Collection

1. Your Love Is King
2. Smooth Operator
3. Hang On to Your Love
4. The Sweetest Taboo
5. Is It a Crime
6. Never as Good as the First Time
7. Jezebel
8. Love Is Stronger Than Pride
9. Paradise
10. Nothing Can Come Between Us
11. No Ordinary Love
12. Kiss of Life
13. Feel No Pain+
14. Bullet Proof Soul+

Disc 2

1. Cherish the Day
2. Pearls
3. By Your Side+
4. Immigrant+
5. Flow+
6. King of Sorrow+
7. The Sweetest Gift+
8. Solider of Love+
9. The Moon and the Sky+
10. Babyfather+
11. Still in Love With You**
12. Love Is Found**
13. I Would Never Have Guessed**
14. The Moon and the Sky (Remix Featuring Jay-Z)**
15. By Your Side (Neptunes Remix)+

hate that neptunes remix.

no "To Turn My Back On You" = fie on your "Ultimate" appellation

happy, for no real reason, that my favorite song is on there "Bulletproof Soul". What's with the "+" after certain tracks?

I think there might be a one-disc version without the + songs. Was trying to find a YouTube to post of another new track but found this listing instead.

so "i would never have guessed" is the only new track that hasn't emerged yet?

According to my official Sade page on Facebook, they released it to Starbucks this weekend--don't know if that just means in-store play or a free MP3 or what.

Sade is my "friend."

"I Would Have Never Guessed", one of four new songs from Sade's The Ultimate Collection, premiered with Starbucks over the weekend. To listen to the song click here: http://web.epicrecords.com/sade/starbucks/

The track is free with the purchase of a half dozen vanilla scones.

First concert in a decade.

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/224984_10150159019427882_9994477881_6783763_6356076_n.jpg

Our local show sold out 5 months in advance.

Saw her on the Love Deluxe tour. Fucking phenomenal.

no "To Turn My Back On You" = fie on your "Ultimate" appellation

― fat fat fat fat Usher (DJP), Monday, April 18, 2011 3:04 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah wtf this had a video & everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyh-d-LS1po

this is like, my favorite sade song

Love the new Thin Lizzy cover.

My favorite Sade song: "Never As Good As the First Time"

"no ordinary love" is mine

"Bulletproof Soul".
I love most of Sade but the damp and sticky sound they perfected on 'Love Deluxe' is really up there

My favorite Sade song: "Never As Good As the First Time"

― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 6 May 2011 13:48 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

good choice!

love 'war of the hearts' on that album too

wait, are they going to launch Sade into the sun? because that is excessive.

im riding for 'kiss of life' these days

the sound they got on 'lovedeluxe' is some sort of peak of recorded music

actually, wait no, "stronger than pride" isn't my favorite sade song. it's "by your side", duh.

"And does Destroyer, or whoever wrote the bio sheet that accompanies this album, really expect us to believe there’s anything of any value whatsoever worth appropriating from Kenny G or Sade, both namechecked and both making their influence felt on Kaputt?"

'Paradise' is probably my favorite.

sade is an artist where i can entirely understand other people's favorites & sometimes feel like that might actually be my favorite after all

I'd like to pick something less overt than By Your Side, but its just not possible, its the best (my favorite). Feel No Pain is my second favorite, for what its worth.

this is an awesome footworking remix of "cherish the day" that i first heard when nguzunguzu played it at night slugs

http://soundcloud.com/ghettophiles/jody-breeze-the-way-i-move

Assuming that's not the Jody Breeze from Boyz in da Hood?

"jezebel" = proto "fancy" duhh

The instrumental on STP is perhaps the best driving around New York at night tune ever

"And does Destroyer, or whoever wrote the bio sheet that accompanies this album, really expect us to believe there’s anything of any value whatsoever worth appropriating from Kenny G or Sade, both namechecked and both making their influence felt on Kaputt?"

where is this from?

the sound they got on 'lovedeluxe' is some sort of peak of recorded music

― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Friday, 6 May 2011 20:47 (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sincerely believe this.

I love all Sade but this is in addition one of the best sounding records ever IMO.

Lex on Sade.

hah, i came here to link that—excellent piece

Not bad for a dance party:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxLKMxbIZX0

I can't find any other evidence of a DDM "Cherish the Day" cover????

Re: Lex's review

Kompakt is from Cologne, not Berlin.

hey lex (or anyone else that's heard the new collection, preferably on cd):

is the mastering job alright? several amazon reviews (i know i know...) mention that the mastering is botched, overloud, full of digital distortion and clipping. i was gonna pick this up, but—confirm/deny?

elan, i know that, but thanks for nitpicking nonetheless.

ilxor, it sounded fine to me. it sounds slightly "bigger" and more detailed, but not massively so. i heard no "digital distortion and clipping" at all but bear in mind i'm also the person who doesn't believe in that audiocompression thing that nick s keeps going on about.

I can't find any other evidence of a DDM "Cherish the Day" cover????

I can't find any other evidence of a DDM "Cherish the Day" cover????

I can't find any other evidence of a DDM "Cherish the Day" cover????

I can't find any other evidence of a DDM "Cherish the Day" cover????

Lex that's like not believing in evolution

Ilxor just buy her albums they are all great and beautifully mastered

It's definitely closer to the brick-walled aesthetic than the prior best of if you look at the waveforms. However, I don't hear clipping or distortion, just a shift in the dynamics towards "bigger and brighter". I don't feel it is as ear-tiring to listen to as typical brick-walled recordings but your mileage may very.

deej i have all the albums! just wondering abt the collection, i want the new traxx :(

well if u want the new traxx what are yr other options

if you just want the new cuts can you hit up itunes or amazon?

elan, i know that, but thanks for nitpicking nonetheless.

do you think they are synonymous? cologne and berlin are between 5-6 hours apart: http://goo.gl/maps/EDPS

I can't find any other evidence of a DDM "Cherish the Day" cover????

From lex's article:

This year saw Diddy-Dirty Money both dedicate a whole song to her on the LoveLove vs. HateLove mixtape (the hypnotisingly sleek Sade) and cover two of Sade's own most epic cuts, No Ordinary Love and Cherish The Day.

Rev- Pretty sure that should be "Soldier of Love", not "Cherish the Day".

oh i had no idea what rev was talking about, never seen it abbreviated to DDM before and had been under the impression that i typed "soldier of love" as i obviously meant to

can you tell which bits of my articles are done at 4am lol

A "Cherish The Day" cover would be AWESOME though, I love that song so so so so so much.

Having said that the transition to "Soldier of Love" in the "No Ordinary Love" "cover" is so smooth, I don't think I even registered what they were doing until the third listen.

i'd love to see them do "pearls". recasting "hurts like brand new shoes" into the pained superstar narrative would work soooo well

You don't think that would actually be borderline icky?

I'm not the kind who hates celebrities for being rich and famous but I'm not sure Diddy is best placed to be saying what life is like for a woman in Somalia.

Or are you saying they should junk that part and make it, like, "there is a woman in Beverley Hills... who's just bought a pair of pearls..."?

That might be worse, IDK?

Yeah, that would be kind of shitty either way imo.

err, is Sade really better placed than Diddy to comment on global injustice?
Not saying she can't but I don't really see why that would be a problem if Diddy were to do it.

I just don't want that song to be any more ~pained superstar narrative~ than it already is.

Stronger Than Pride is such an underrated album. So dreamlike!

The only studio albums I own are Soldier of Love and Love Deluxe (I own the comps though). My parents owned Diamond Life. Can someone give me capsule reviews of the first three?

'sades first three albums are great and you should hear them all'

-D-40

that will be $75

lol @ not googleproofing myself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoRAw_bXoYs

^^^this shit

^^^^YES. my secret fav. open dj sets w/ that

feels like its about to turn into a banger & never quite does...eternal intro

so it sounds like Stronger Than Pride is the one I should move in now, even though I love the "The Sweetest Taboo-Never As Goood as the First Time" duo more than any children I'll have.

*move in on

Move on into rent-controlled Stronger Than Pride.

Yeah, prob my 2nd fave Sade after Love Deluxe. xp

prob definitely

rev 100% otm

but that said theres no excuse for not having all of them imho

rev 100% otm

― lebroner (D-40), vrijdag 27 mei 2011 1:48 (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

There is a lovely Kenny Larkin remix of Give It Up you can find on the Sade remixes collection. It's great. 11 minutes. I just start it over when it's done. Usually don't stop listening until it's time to leave the apt or whatever. Hoping for a gig soon where I can drop it.

Larkin was probably the best Detroit techno artist to do a straight beefing up of the song (as opposed to a Carl Craig style remix that would just use the original track as inspiration or a jumping off point). I mean it's basically just an extended DJ tool version of the song. Not much added. Larkin always sounds so fragile and fussy to me... he sort of fills an archetypal emotional / spacey / gentle Detroit sound for me. Like Craig's More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art. I guess Craig did it first as Psyche/BFC.

Larkin has his own niche though. I think it's the gratuitous flanging. Give It Up's percussion basically sounds like something Larkin would have arranged minus a kick drum and slower.

Eh, I'm talking out of my ass. Give It Up (Kenny Larkin remix) is just so perfect that it sounds like has to be part of some bigger order of Detroit music...

Okay here it is. On one condition: don't listen unless you can play it loud, with bass.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7f23fissujwspnz

I hope that's kosher

the rabbi says a ok

I mean linking... I am serious about my volume diktat

alfred you should get all of the first three records. work backwards into them, back in time. you can find most of 'em super cheap, check amazon used marketplace or something.

I played some sade for some of my students and they wanted to know who it was and they wrote it down in their iphones so they would remember to look for it later

That house mix of "Give It Up" is A++++ btw

what were u up to w/ ur student that u thought sade was an appropriate soundtrack dayo

that kenny larkin remix is excellent

we were playing cards and they wanted something 'light'! I put on steely dan later but it didn't go over as well xp

thanks for the Kenny Larkin, could dance to that indefinitely

the live DVDs are very nice. smoke some herb, watch it with your lady. the bomb.

― pipecock, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 12:26 PM (3 years ago)

smoke weed listen to sade!!!! pipe otfm here

gonna see here at the prudental center on the 25th and do jsut that

is pipecock a swizz beatz sock ?

for bimble wherever you are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpwKdzOcurI

yeah, this thin lizzy cover is kinda the shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW8HHw8kpfM

Sade covering thin lizzy could only be a more deej look if it featured a jacka guest rap and dj quik remix

Love this song.

What's up with the hipster vogue for Sade these days? I mean, I like Sade somewhat, but I always thought it was basically fuck/dinner-music for yuppies. Like my parents love Sade, for instance. Then all of a sudden a year and a half ago or so my best friend - who's so effortlessly cool it's infuriating - was talking about how Sade is awesome. And I was like, OK, sure, but I didn't quite get where the love was coming from. Is it the (outmoded genre label alert!) trip-hop connection or something?

an unprecedented rise in the number of chill bros

I always thought it was basically fuck/dinner-music for yuppies

You shouldn't feel so alone -- thousands of people aver this cliché.

Oh yeah, I know that - in fact, it seemed like the critical consensus/cliche regarding Sade for years. I'm just wondering what instigated the critical reevaluation, and why it came from the cool people. (in other words, non-"bros", heheh.)

ha i had no idea "still in love with you" was a cover. all three new tracks on the ultimate collection are superb imo.

i don't know how much of a critical consensus it was really, sade's always been revered in dance/hip-hop/r&b/soul circles.

Oh yeah, I know that - in fact, it seemed like the critical consensus/cliche regarding Sade for years. I'm just wondering what instigated the critical reevaluation, and why it came from the cool people. (in other words, non-"bros", heheh.)

Umm everybody I know who thinks about Sade at all has considered her a great artist since at least stronger than pride, when it was new. I don't think any critical reevaluation has taken place, you just found out that people think she is great.

At precisely what hour of what day in what year did _Appetite for Destruction_ become a hip cultural reference point?

Same answer: "The day people found out about it"

Oh yeah, I know that - in fact, it seemed like the critical consensus/cliche regarding Sade for years. I'm just wondering what instigated the critical reevaluation, and why it came from the cool people. (in other words, non-"bros", heheh.)

― thewufs, Wednesday, June 15, 2011 9:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i don't think what you're describing had anything to do with critical consensus. it's just that dumb 80s & 90s hipsters made an ethos of sneering at anything too smooth, soft or "mainstream." now that it no longer seems cool to do so, hipsters have come around.

I suspect Sade's critical stocks have more to do with whether there's been a new album recently.

Probably the various critical rehabilitations of smooth music (yacht rock et al) would have had a knock-on effect in some circles, esp for people who weren't really around for previous albums. A 21 yr old today would have been 10 when Lovers Rock came out!

:o

god thanks for putting that into perspective - I still consider LR as a recent album

my haircutter, a gorgeous 19-year-old who was born in jamaica and lives in london and who looks a lot like sade, has never heard of her

Also I don't even remember Lover's Rock making a dent on the radio, whereas I definitely remember Love Deluxe tunes - so it wouldn't surprise me that a lot of people who started paying attention to music in the past 15 years or so might not have been particularly aware of Sade.

c.f. say Janet Jackson whose career only started flying under the radar in about the mid-00s.

In my part of town "By Your Side" got airplay after the fact -- after "Sex and the City" played the hell out of it in 2001 or 2002.

tim f otm

Steely Dan: "Steely Dan's name has been popping up as a hip musical crush. Remember, this glossy bop-pop was the indifferent aristocracy to punk rock's stone-throwing in the late 70's. People fought

same argument seems to get advanced against hall and oates too

Yeah Sade fits well into the nu-Balearic thing, but that's obviously not a big enough factor to fuel a revival like this in its entirety.

Just being a safe distance for the 80s probably helps - Lex's Guardian piece pointed out that she's associated so heavily with aspirational lifestyles and it's unsurprising that would've been critical kryptonite among left-leaning critics in the 80s, especially in Britain.

Well I don't think the big sales are due to what's big with critics, but how Sade is presented by critics can be influenced by changing attitudes to "smooth" music, which is much broader than just nu-balearic.

Your additional point is a part of this Matt - the rehabilitation of smooth music is in part due to distance from the aspirational 80s.

that piece was for the national!

big US/UK divide here too, needless to say, and i get the impression that UK critical consensus has a much more rapid turnover - ie few young UK critics right now would give a shit that sade was antithetical to all that 80s UK critics held dear

In terms of wider consensus I don't think it's actually about what people thought in the 80s so much as what people thought about the 80s in the 90s.

Also Lex you may be a maverick but I suspect most general community taste setters are rather older than you!

Not necessarily musically antithetical but atithetical through reflected politics, but that doesn't really hold now obviously.

I mean my guess would be that Sade would have been lumped in with people like Phil Collins and Simply Red regardless of whether or not she deserved it whereas by the 90s it was perfectly acceptable to have a Shara Nelson or Gabrielle here or there. She came through on the wrong side of the Wild Bunch watershed I think.

Sade had loads of critical support at the start of her career, though. She was well-connected, and she slotted right into that whole "soul-cialism" ethos. (Case in point: "When Am I Going To Make A Living" off the first album.) A quick check reveals that Diamond Life was #2 in The Face's year-end poll, #10 in Melody Maker and #40 in the NME. But then it got played to death for the next five years in crap wine bars (Diamond Life was the Moon Safari of its day, basically) - so people just got fed up with her!

So basically her career trajectory is closer to UB40?

xpost
Some bizarre back-projection onto 80s critics taste here I think - Sade was Bobby Elms' gf and poster girl for the early Face, most of whose writers were firmly proto RedWedgistas. Working Week's "Venceremos" kind of sums up the political/style temper of the times.

Agreed. Hell, even Simply Red had their moment, Valentine Brothers cover and all.

xpost Heh - well, she never had a "sod it, I'll just bung out a bunch of covers" moment, so fair play to her!

She continued to get respect from the London soulboy/KISS FM crew, though - the consensus being "she can be a bit boring, but the band are hot".

Well obviously I wasn't there at a time, or at least not in a position to be paying much attention, but at the time I started she seemed hugely unfashionable, part of that might have been her career being boiled down to Smooth Operator and not much else.

it was only in the mid 00s, after i got online, that i realised sade had any critical respect at all, so pernicious was the "oh she's BORING YUPPIE MUSIC" line in uk criticism

^^^ yeah I really think this is some 90s shit.

Matt's "she was on the wrong side of the Wild Bunch" might be correct if offending critics had actually listened to Love Deluxe... or had been prepared to give anyone other than Massive Attack a standing get out of jail free card for smoothness (see also, um, Bedtime Stories?).

i'm old enough to have bought sade's first two singles when they came out, and she was def hyped/supported by certain kinds of hipsters, as stevie t sez - soul boy socialists associated with the face and the nme, in the main - tho of course there were other 'rockist' hipsters who dismissed her, and - another kind of hipster - old skool soul fans who thought she couldn't hold a candle to aretha or whoever.

i guess my point is, 'hipster' wasn't/isn't just one thing/type and is practically useless as a critical 'concept'

Also in fairness by 1993 or so, EVERYTHING from the 90s that wasn't hip-hop, acid house and some indie seemed incredibly unfashionable and remained so for most of the 90s.

Didn't follow this very closely at the time but instinctively I would think that 'Love Deluxe' was the seed for the subsequent critical re-framing

If this is any indication of Sade's critical stock: at some point in the 90s, Q did an extended feature which named the worst album of each year. Diamond Life was their choice for 1984. (And Cockney Rebel's marvellous The Psychomodo was their choice for 1974, pah.)

Let me guess, Metal Machine Music featured prominently?

If that mag is the reason I can always find a used copy of diamond life lp for two bucks more power to them

being boffed by robert elms really is the dark unutterable at the heart of all sade enjoyment that can never be fully overcome

and i say that as a fellow ranger

lol yeah its like i can never read an article by marina hyde wout thinking ewww piers morgan

In terms of critical context here my reference points were probably the 90's looking back on the '80s. I was barely walking when Sade appeared in the mid-80s, so I wasn't really aware of what critics thought of the band at the time (except for Christgau, who seems to have been a dissenting voice). Part of the reason I've never fully embraced Sade's music may have been its surface affinities with "smooth jazz" dreck, although since I adore Steely Dan I understand the value of fine distinctions here. But Steely Dan also has lyrics.

I'm American, by the way, and I read very little UK pop journalism until sometime in the '00s, so I wouldn't have been aware of the general UK critical opinion on Sade in the 90s.

In regards to "UK critical consensus has a much more rapid turnover" (lex pretend) - one of the reasons I don't go out of my way to read UK pop journalism today is that I really don't like kneejerk turnabouts and flavor-of-the-month hyperbole, both tendencies that I associate (perhaps unfairly) with UK rock-crits. To be fair, though, I've pretty much passed on Rolling Stone's review section for years, too - Jann Wenner's starfuckery (try to imagine a two-star review for U2, or the Rolling Stones, or even, say, Coldplay, or conversely a four and a half/five star review for a new/unknown artist) does a real disservice to the many good writers they employ.

And to any UK rock writers on the board here, a disclaimer - I should've written "probably unfairly". I'm talking about a writing style here more than anything else, so take my uninformed generalization for what it is.

If this is any indication of Sade's critical stock: at some point in the 90s, Q did an extended feature which named the worst album of each year. Diamond Life was their choice for 1984.

interesting. i stuck up for sade's critical rep, cuz i never got any clear sense that US critics hated her. most of her albums seemed generally well-reviewed, at least by the most visible mainstream critics. maybe i'm remembering this incorrectly? it's been a while.

the reason i described sade-hate in terms of (always tediously divisive) "hipsters" was that...
A) the wufs used that term in initially asking about sade's supposed critical rehabilitation, and...
B) i observed a lot of smooth music hate among trendy indie/anticorporate/punk types during the 80s and 90s.

seems to me that this was the dominant form US hipster/scenesterism took during that era, and the attitude was certainly prevalent among "edgier", low-circulation zine & magazine critics. but hipsters of this sort are hardly representative of pop criticism as a whole, right? even when they publish reviews and essays in your trendier magazines.

suppose this is the same argument put forth by xhuxk, with his constant appeals to P&J in attempt to establish an objective critical baseline (often in opposition to the confusion of trendy points of view with "critical consensus"). tbh, i've found that annoying in the past, but suddenly understand the impulse. not saying that sade's critical rep wasn't in the dumps, just that i never saw much evidence of it. were love deluxe and lovers rock critically savaged or ignored upon release?

Love Deluxe actually ranked #31 in the 1993 Pazz & Jop. So obviously I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about a few posts back.

when lovers rock came out it was pretty huge and acclaimed and tbh when i heard it i finally "got" sade. unfortunately i think a lot of people only knew her from lite fm ads which juxtaposed 'smooth operator' with 'songbird.'

xp And Lovers Rock places at #25 in 2000.

And since I went out and said "hipster" I'm wondering if there's a better or at least less contentious/less played-out term to use. I was questioning it myself because it's so overused, but I think in a place like ILM it's basically understood - not least because many tastemaking ILMers are hipsters themselves. I didn't mean it as a term of derision either - I envy hipsters their temperament and their ability to pick up on new shit and what have you. But whenever I've tried that look on for myself it didn't take. Better to be honestly unhip than a trying-too-hard poseur.

other side of the coin is that, not among critics but among music-inclined friends (many of whom are unregenerate punks, rockers, indies & metalheads), i find that my enthusiasm for sade often raises eyebrows. was so in the 90s and hasn't changed much since.

Actually I love "Smooth Operator." Love Deluxe has some shitty New-Age style drum loops, but "Pearls" is pretty great if you ignore some of the lyrics. Right now mid-80s production kitsch sounds better than early-90s production kitsch. That'll change, though.

I think I am going to have to killfile this "thewufs" person.

Hey, sorry I wasted your time.

wufs, re: "hipsters"

main problem is that the word is unitary, implies that all hipsters are of a stripe when they aren't. hipsters come in endless varieties, and worse, everyone defines and views them differently. you might as well say "those people over there" for all the real specificity the term possesses.

i mean, i know what i mean when i talk about "hipsters" and i'm sure you do too, but if we were to hash out the details, we'd almost certainly find that we weren't talking about the same people in the same way. plus there's so much pejorative baggage, intended or not.

which is fucked. because it's hard to talk about the interaction of art and culture without taking early adopters and other trendsetters into account. you just have to be careful w/it.

Thanks contenderizer. This is a hard thing to really talk about openly and honestly - too easy to generalize and piss people off, I agree. And often they have a right to be pissed off about it, too.

Anyway, avoiding easy generalizations is a hallmark of good (as opposed to half-assed) criticism.

one of the things that makes u realize how truly great Sade is, is when you hear a great Sade song, and you go, man, what are some other artists like THIS, and then you realize there are none

well i guess there's sweetback

Maxwell?

Tracey Thorn comes closest, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okd7DJhnmc4

dang, man, that's pretty great. sade by way of K&D.

k&d?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VH7V170VL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

school me, i've never heard of them

austrian trip-hop/downtempo DJ duo, popular in the 90s alongside the likes of thievery corp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU789_SJ6Is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL4IoJ42eDo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfnR1cOnfS0

austrian trip-hop/downtempo DJ duo, popular in the 90s alongside the likes miles ahead of thievery corp.

LBI OTM. i was just connecting dots.

if you're interested, rev, check out their G-stoned EP and K&D sessions collection (both pictured & represented above).

haha yeah don't taint k&d by association with their contemporaries. they were like the only good thing to come out of "downtempo."

k&d sessions is still really good it's-too-hot-to-move late-night late summer listening.

i like those thievery corp joints that arent very downtempo, like that doors remix

also lebanese blonde is kinda dope imo

man i owned JAZZANOVA records and i still could not fuck with tc

Haha so true Strongo :)

not a TC fan, but deej OTM re: "lebanese blonde"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d99LRLnPeLg

also copped this after i heard harvey drop it, kills imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLRf2CX4Iu0

theres a downtempo version i dont like as much but they remixed their own shit & it kinda bangs

K&D was so ubiquitous at a moment in time - don't think I could ever decide to put it on.
I need to give Sweetback another go tho

I enjoyed the Sweetback album a lot at the time (it was as close as I ever got to buying a Sade record between the "Your Love Is King" 12" and the Soldier Of Love album) - must find out whether it still holds up.

The Brainwasher

Only one of those doing anything for me is the Who Is David Byrne? joint

sweetback is sade btw, just wout the singer

yeah, i know that

well, for everyone else then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15WDBuvovXo&feature=player_embedded

so good! the visuals and the intro sorta remind me of gotan project

sade dancing!!!

amazing. fucking psyched for the new orleans show next week.

buying tix for austin tx next weekend, show's in october :D :D :D

really great show. totally worth the (not inconsiderable) ticket price. classy stuff. also it was a sade show in new orleans in july, everyone looked amazing, great vibe.

so im getting into sade

i got lovers rock, it is epically fantastic. i am in love with the song flow especially but also somebody already broke my heart and immigrant and by your side which along w/ smooth operator is p much the only sade song i had heard before. i am in my room bc my housemate has banned me from listening to sade (i am also banned from listening to enya wtf)

evict your housemate imo

there's a quiet storm and you are just gonna have to DEAL OK

nah he's a nice guy

i like the way her voice sounds like its pushing in this really flat way against the edges of her range.

She and the band SLAYED in Oakland last night! Her saxophone-man Stuart Matthewman nearly stole the show. Going again tonight before another 10 year wait.

i have a ticket for Austin Sept. 7th show :O !!!!

She was so good when I saw her a few weeks ago. So totally cool, so totally in control, but she was definitely having fun, too. Super staging as well, totally subtle and tasteful, which is what I'd expect, but still more than I usually expect from an arena. Love the economy/restraint of her band.

is it possible for anyone to u/l the kenny larkin remix of "give it up" linked upthread? that one's down, it's not on itunes for sale and it died with my hard drive a few weeks ago ;_;

here ya go http://www.mediafire.com/?duo9cec30t2iri4

you STAR <3

yr welcome. it meant i listened to that track again which improved my day :)

love that remix

yeah, so much

We played Diamond Life at our record club. http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/sade-diamond-life-round-45-grahams-choice/

I really want the Bring Me Home DVD. The truncated version they showed on tv was incredible.

I hung out in her guitarist's loft yesterday. (BRAGGIN' 2015)

Wait wat

....meaning you hung out in stuart matthewman's loft?

no, her other guitarist Ry4n W4ters

ah! awesome

I was there for an event his wife was hosting. There was one room set up as a studio and there was all this Sade memorabilia around, then I noticed the platinum plaques on the walls and was like wait a minute...

"They take really long vacations."

For some of these acts who disappear for a long stretch, I sort of want every single generically titled thread to be amended with either "not an RIP thread" or "there is a new album coming out."

Sade, doesn't age. How could she die?

I saw her live a couple of years ago. She moves with such purpose. She will live forever.

ummmm so classic

been playing diamond life all the time this week

good times come and they go

She's back! With one song but still

http://www.okayplayer.com/music/new-sade-music-2018.html

From little things big things grow.

The last time I saw her live she kicked my ass.

Wow. Can’t wait to hear it

And here's said song

https://audiomack.com/song/no-id-4/flower-of-the-universe

It's very nice, I just wish the drums were mixed a little lower. They're a bit distracting.

the drums feel like a callback to Soldier Of Love, I love this

never forget the quantization discourse

Stellar piece on her by Tracey Thorn

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2018/03/queen-quiet-storm-tracey-thorn-return-sade

WHAT

As a singer, Sade sounds like no one else. There’s a plangent tone to her voice, a liking for the long-held note, almost vibrato-free. A precision of diction. No melisma, no swooping octave leaps. And there are two very distinct tones – softness with just a slight husk in the bottom range, and above that, a more strident note, bringing a hardness which is vital, adding the only sharp edge.

It's just a brilliant piece. That Chet Baker comparison Sade gave her! Astounding.

Great piece, with a very good final paragraph as kicker.

i'm astounded

that piece is so fucking excellent

to get compared to chet baker's playing by sade

https://www.nts.live/shows/test-pressing/episodes/test-pression-w-andrew-hale-9th-june-2018

Andrew Hale (from the band) was on Test Pressing's radio show at the weekend for a Sade special. They only seem to have recorded the first hour but I went into the chatroom and asked what was happening with a new Sade album and near the end of the show he confirmed it is being actively worked on.

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

I think about the live show I saw a few years back all the time.

In the wikipeida article about Sade (band) it says Eric B and Rakim referenced Smooth Operator in Paid In Full. I can't find the sample or lyrical reference. Can someone point out what i'm missing?

that statement on wikipedia seems to be based on a misreading of the quote from rakim that is cited.

Thanks, finally clicked the link to the source of that reference and I can see where someone would be confused by his quote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4H9T3iFfWg

new song

https://store.sade.com/products/this-far-boxset

forthcoming boxset of all six albums remastered on vinyl

I moved cities a couple of months ago and didn't bring my record player (or much of anything else besides my clothes and laptop) and tbh i doubt i'll ever get a record player because i feel less attached to physical media by the day (yes, I know that the cloud and digital isn't forever and physical media is Actually Good for preservation etc) but i still want this set so badly

diamond life and promise were dollar bin staples a few years ago, super easy to find great copies for cheap. don't know if that's still the case. i've never seen anything from tld onward in a bin. used cds on the other hand are plentiful iirc.

what i would personally kill for otoh is a complete set of remixes on vinyl.

this sade at live aid vid is probably humanity reaching a peak it'll never regain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwDjJP_l5AY

you can still find lots of their records in used bins cheap yes, and they sound great. tough to think of another act less in need of a remastering job.

i actually just got used copies of diamond life and stronger than pride back in June! I'd never heard stronger than pride before and i just love how vaporous the record is

Paradise and Siempre Hay Esperanza are two of my absolute favourites

murgatroid otm
maybe setting aside a week or two for a nonstop sade listening party isn't a bad idea

two things in life will never change: 1) the sun will always be hot and 2) sade will always rule.

and yes, stronger than than pride is probably the most overlooked sade album. after love deluxe (which will never be topped by anyone), pride has always been my #2 pick, easily.

also, here's an old podcast of non-album sade material for your throwback thursday.

have you got a tracklisting for that?

you can still find lots of their records in used bins cheap yes, and they sound great. tough to think of another act less in need of a remastering job.

― unpaid intern at the darvo institute (Simon H.), Wednesday, September 2, 2020 9:36 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yes, found promise in my mother-in-law's record collection recently, sounds amazing

can't think of many other things in life that match the dollar to pure joy ratio of buying an 80s sade lp secondhand

you too can be in the presence of a goddess for $1

have you got a tracklisting for that?

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, September 3, 2020 12:41 PM

fuck! i'm sorry, mixcloud has really gone overboard with the efforts to not get copyright dinged. the tracklist used to be there. i didn't write it down anywhere else, so hang tight, i'm gonna dig through discogs info and see if i can get it compiled again.

Haha lol ok thanks. Am listening now. Love the vinyl crackles :)

here's the tracklist for that mix and where the tunes first appeared:

1. Love Affair With Life (Your Love is King b-side)
2. Smooth Operator/Red Eye (Smooth Operator 12")
3. Should I Love You (Hang on to Your Love b-side)
4. Wired (Is it a Crime? b-side)
5. Love Is Stronger Than Pride [Mad Professor Remix] (Feel No Pain b-side)
6. Super Bien Total [Extended Mix] (Paradise b-side)
7. Spirit (Smooth Operator b-side)
8. Keep Hanging On [Live] (Paradise b-side)
9. Make Some Room (Nothing Can Come Between Us b-side)
10. Room 55 (Kiss of Life b-side)

enjoy.

all credit due to my homie tREBLEFREE for putting that mix together. it was just an idea i had; he did all of the actual work. check him out on mixcloud for monthly r+b mixes that will feed your soul: https://www.mixcloud.com/treblefree

Awesome! Thank you!

Birthday wishes to Sade Adu who turns 62 years young today pic.twitter.com/aAPz1NuVl3

— Barney Hurley (@barneyhurley1) January 16, 2021

62 today!

there was a really good video essay recently on the trash theory youtube channel that got into some specifics about the early years of the band that i didn't know about.

anyway, that's fine i'm just on my sunday evening bullshit and wanted any reason to post a general appreciation of the thin lizzy cover that came out to entice folks to buy that ultimate collection set. i bought just the track on itunes lol. crazy to think that was a decade ago. nothing revelatory and still absolutely magic. big sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW8HHw8kpfM

no expectations for a next record at this point, but it's silly to deny my desire in wanting to see that happen. which it probably won't. but gee whizz, if it did!

they are supposed to be have been working on a new album for a bit now actually

indeed, but i won't hold my breath — in a nice way.

same feelings i have about people like andre3000, maxwell, and erykah badu releasing new records. "be nice if it happens."

with sade though the obstacle has usually just been them all being ready to work on a new album, so i'm not too worried now that it's in progress

https://www.nts.live/shows/test-pressing/episodes/test-pression-w-andrew-hale-9th-june-2018

Andrew Hale (from the band) was on Test Pressing's radio show at the weekend for a Sade special. They only seem to have recorded the first hour but I went into the chatroom and asked what was happening with a new Sade album and near the end of the show he confirmed it is being actively worked on.

― boxedjoy, Monday, 11 June 2018 14:14 (three years ago)

big sigh.

― the beginning of the end of discourse. (Austin), Sunday, November 14, 2021 7:39 PM (yesterday)

lol they've always taken forever? it's going to happen unless one of them keels over and even then it will probably happen. like planting tulip bulbs.

i want it to happen and i'm willing to wait.

sigh.

all those early records are an endless horizon i just keep going back to them over and over, constant rotation

i don't think i'll ever tire of them

we watched the video for "sweetest taboo" again over the weekend - it's aged very well imo.

agree those records do just seem to age better and better. so very, very classic.

if anybody wants that b-sides collection upthread as a download, lmk.

and yes re:the visuals with the band. just, everything, like i said: so very, very classic.

truly wonderful band.

xps just watched

when she gets up from the windowsill at 1:56 and starts dancing whaaaaaaat

life promise pride love is an essential dvd imo

https://www.discogs.com/master/204977-Sade-Life-Promise-Pride-Love

Thanks for getting me to watch her videos, few of which I had ever seen. Great and timeless indeed ('Turn My Back on You' and 'When Am I Gonna Make a Living' could have come out today).

sade on horseback is magic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfzmVUrZplw

Love that Thin Lizzy cover, thanks for posting

I don’t have anything to add on Sade, except that I once saw a mean tweet from Tracy Thorne about “Soldier of Love”, and it has basically made me dislike TT forever since

Tracey's a big fan though

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2018/03/queen-quiet-storm-tracey-thorn-return-sade

I love Sade's singing more and more as time goes by. And I already loved it a lot.

— Tracey Thorn (@tracey_thorn) January 9, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx_BZ5VfyWQ

I didn't appreciate her nearly enough when Diamond Life came out (it got overplayed at our record store), but her records have aged remarkably well. In addition to a fantastic voice and amazing presence, she's just cool as hell. A star.

sade on horseback is magic

(Swoon)

this was posted a few days ago. sad news but also makes me hopeful that something new will show up eventually.

https://scontent.fslc3-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/295694383_597681398390594_5659744349417744772_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=1kueaRPbKAkAX-mMQns&_nc_ht=scontent.fslc3-2.fna&oh=00_AT93KaQfdFnmHvnyx73XUn3lMf9B3aL1igjsy4EhVr_QSg&oe=62E8127F

i found stronger than pride in the glove compartment of my boyfriends car a few weeks ago while we were driving around with the windows down. so good and tbh i've never felt cooler.

rest well mp☮️🕉

thank you for sharing that news, map and big co-sign on stronger than pride. that one's probably aged the best of her catalogue by this point. "turn my back on you" is such a standout no matter where or when i hear it.

great music to listen to with a person you love

Lovers Rock and Love Deluxe have really been doing it for me the past years but I am now enjoying Stronger Than Pride

does "no ordinary love" ever lose its power

Just relistened and nope, still great. The stereo panning on the palm-muted electric guitar under Sade's silken vocals is such a great textural touch.

They continue to be one of the few artists my dad and his friends love that I also love. Their production makes them tower way above the rest.

"All About Our Love" is a song i dream about sweetly slow dancing to my spouse 10-20-30 years down the line.

^That's one of my favorites, too. In fact, all of 'Lovers Rock' is sublime.

who programmed the drums on Lovers Rock and Love Deluxe?

they are perfect

for some reason I had the impression it was the drummer, but apparently no

I'm going to guess Andrew Hale.

Thought the thread bump was going to be about this:

Brad Pitt reopens Miraval Studios at Provence wine estate

Award-winning Sade has become the first artist to record new music in the refurbished studios at Château Miraval, co-owned by Pitt and which previously hosted sessions for Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’.https://t.co/LBR5zMfryk

— Decanter (@Decanter) October 11, 2022

do we have a release date?

no & there's not even really much news here, they've been working on the new album since at least 2018. who knows when it'll be done

I think the consensus is that Soldier of Love was a bit underwhelming?

I'd be very (happily) surprised if they reach former heights on a new release

I think the consensus is that Soldier of Love was a bit underwhelming?

No way.

Alfred otm

i guess i'll pay whatever i have to when she tours

absolutely the best arena show i've ever seen, definitely do so.

haha I just knew Alfred would be into it

not for me

"Soldier of Love" (the song) ruled live. As did Sade on that last tour.

haha I just knew Alfred would be into it

not for me

― corrs unplugged

Ha. Does anyone else think Diamond Life their weakest? Apart from the singles and Timmy Thomas cover it's hard to remember how the tracks go when I look at the listing.

I think Lovers Rock and Love Deluxe tower over the rest

diamond life is so amazing it feels wrong to call it the weakest anything but it is my least favorite sade record yes

absolutely the best arena show i've ever seen, definitely do so.

I saw the Love Deluxe tour. Life-changing.

I'm sure I've detailed it upthread somewhere but I saw her live at MSG and was up in the cheap seats with my friends, having just bought hot dogs and beer, when out of nowhere somebody in a hi-vis vest started handing out free floor tickets. We were agog. Eventually we were led down to the floor, where folding metal chairs had been set up in rows, and waiters wearing waistcoats were swanning around with trays of plastic champagne flutes with strawberries floating in them. Every time we stood up to dance we got yelled at by the people behind us. Well excuuuuuuuse me! Afterwards somebody was telling me that she's famous for leaving the building before the last notes of the encore have even finished playing. GOAT

Afterwards somebody was telling me that she's famous for leaving the building before the last notes of the encore have even finished playing

oh man what a power move, absolute queen.

it's a huge ask for me to go to anything, i hate crowds and i live in the fucking wilderness and everything is sign-over-your-car-title expensive now etc, but if she ever makes a stop in l.a. and i still have a grand on my credit card i would at least make an attempt to get tickets and airfare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaD3SgPuccE

no reason, this simply rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51ptJw8uWE0

"love is stronger than pride (mad professor remix)" (1992)

Yes it does.

oh def

what's the category above 'classic'

i always considered that like the blueprint, or the prototype... or maybe like the "pocket translator" level. like, right then: welcome to day one. this is where you sort out the standard definition. have a great time.

xp iconic

happy 65th

Sade will release “Young Lion” on Nov. 22 as part of the “Transa” benefit album by non-profit Red Hot, supporting transgender awareness and featuring trans and non-binary artists. The song is dedicated to Sade’s son, Izaak, who is a transgender man. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Cnj7S5vDba

— Sade (@sadearchive) September 4, 2024

awwww

awwww seconded

v nice

^^ said in Borat voice

“Start believing in yourself / put the blame on no one else”

https://i.imgur.com/XN7Xrbw.jpeg

I was stressed out and driving my wife’s car. She uses Sirius XM and I was stabbing my finger against the touchscreen, trying to find a station that wasn’t irritating.

I stumbled onto “Your Love is King” and it was like someone lowered my soul into a luxurious bubblebath and I instantly relaxed. Love that band, love that woman.

^

<3

Young Lion so good!

So, nice little mention of the woman herself in this short interview between Tamara Palmer and former Epic exec Dan Beck talking about his new book. Seems a very practical approach here:

I so enjoyed working with Sade! I served in a marketing capacity on her first four albums. She dreaded doing promotional work and interviews. However, she and I worked out a plan that was unique, in that she gave us four weeks of intense promotion in front of each album, and I promised we would not trouble her after that. I told her she would hate those four weeks! She’d laugh and I would tell her it was going to be terrible! She loved the fact that once it was complete, she was free to tour and not have to dread any further promotion. No artist that I know of had fewer expectations from her career. She often did it to be good to her bandmates. Jacob Bernstein did a fabulous NY Times Sunday Magazine piece several years ago that captured the essence of Sade.

(Said NYT piece in question, doubtless linked earlier: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/style/sade-sade-sade.html )

Whoops, forgot to link the interview itself: https://musicbookclub.substack.com/p/dan-beck-on-working-with-michael