Sade: Quiet, Cool and Completely Distinct

by

Soul · Jazz · Pop

Quiet, cool and completely distinct.

Sade Adu singing at the front of a wide stage in 2011, with band members behind her under red and yellow stage lighting.
Sade Adu singing at the front of a wide stage in 2011, with band members behind her under red and yellow stage lighting. Photo: Julio Lopes, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Source.
Burning prayer candles.
Burning prayer candles. Photo: Igor Ovsyannykov, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. Source · CC0. Display resized; no retouching.

The biography

Sade is an English band named for its lead singer, Sade Adu, formed in the early 1980s and signed to Epic Records in 1983. Their first album, Diamond Life (1984), brought “Your Love Is King” and “Smooth Operator,” with a sound built on soul and jazz, played lightly and with restraint. The second album, Promise (1985), with “The Sweetest Taboo” and “Is It a Crime,” kept that same calm, elegant style.

Marshall's Beach in San Francisco.
Marshall’s Beach in San Francisco. Photo: Matt McLean, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. Source · CC0. Display resized; no retouching.

The focus here is on the music: a voice that is low, cool and controlled, an arrangement that leaves space, and a mood that rewards listening slowly and carefully.

Listening observations are original Past Tunes interpretation. Photographs reproduced under the reuse terms shown in their captions.

Leave a Comment