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May 2009
www.sade2009.com announced the release of the new Sade's album on 24 November 2009. | |||||||||
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June 2009
1 June 2:41 - Billboard: Exclusive: New Sade On The Way, 2009 Release Possible, By Monica Herrera and David J. Prince • " Sade Adu, the reclusive "quiet storm" soul signer who takes notoriously long breaks between releases, has regrouped with the band that bears her name and is recording her first album of new material since 2000's Lovers Rock, Billboard sources confirm. The group is in the studio through June and Sony hopes to put the record out by the end of 2009 though, despite rumors, there is no set release date on the calendar. "She is in the studio and the album will come when it is ready," a source at Sony tells Billboard. "You don't wait for years for one and then rush it." Sade's longtime bandmate Stuart Matthewman, a.k.a. Cottonbelly, also confirms that new material is in progress, though he says the project is still in its "early days" and won't be close to finished until "later in the year." Last week, rumors of a new Sade album surfaced when the official-looking website www.sade2009.com went live with a message claiming a release date of 24 November 2009 for a new album. However, the source at Sade's label denies any connection to that site. "We do not know where that fan site could have got that release date from, but it is 100% not true." Billboard contacted the site's owner and web developer, who insisted that the release date was "official;" since his response, however, the site's posting has been updated with a correction: "The date above has been changed, a representative from Sony confirmed the new date to be unknown. Please check back for the update on Sade's album release." Though no details about Sade's new music have yet been revealed, one artist may have already heard snippets: Maxwell, a fellow Sony recording artist and longtime friend and collaborator with Matthewman, who will soon release a new record of his own (Black Summer's Night, 7 July 2009) after a multi-year hiatus. The R&B singer sent a message to fans in March via his private Facebook page in which he indicated that he'd heard some of his labelmate's new recordings. "Trust me, it's so monolithic it'll shake you in your shoes!" he wrote. Sade's 2000 release, Lovers Rock, sold 3,881,000 copies in the United States and the prior album, 1992's Love Deluxe sold 3,407,000. Since 1985's Diamond Life debut, Sade has sold nearly 17 million units in the United States alone according to Nielsen SoundScan. " | |||||||||
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November 2009
24 November - Epic Records and www.sade.com announced the worldwide release of the new Sade's album Soldier Of Love on 8 February 2010. 
24 November - PRNewswire: Sade Set to Release Soldier Of Love Worldwide on February 8th • " Soldier Of Love Marks Sade's First New Studio Album Since The Multi-Platinum Lovers Rock The wait is now over. Epic Records is pleased to announce the release of Soldier Of Love, the highly anticipated new body of work from Sade. Soldier Of Love - which will be released worldwide on 8 February 2010 - is Sade's first official studio album since the multi-platinum release of Lovers Rock in 2000. Known for their one of a kind timeless sound, Sade has enjoyed phenomenal success both internationally and stateside throughout the span of their twenty-five year career. Since the release of their debut album, Diamond Life in 1984, the band has seen all five of their studio albums land in the Top 10 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart selling a total of more than 50 million albums worldwide to date. They've been nominated for American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and have won three Grammy Awards - first in 1986 for Best New Artist, then in 1994 for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group for No Ordinary Love, and again in 2002 for Best Pop Vocal Album with Lovers Rock. Soldier Of Love was recorded in England and produced by the band and their longtime collaborator Mike Pela. www.sade.com www.sadeusa.com Source: Epic Records " | |||||||||
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December 2009
7 December - Epic Records and www.sade.com announced the premiere of the first single Soldier Of Love off the new Sade's album on 8 December 2009 on the official band site and radio-waves. 7 December - PRNewswire: Sade To Release First Single, Soldier Of Love Off Forthcoming New Album • " Epic Records is pleased to announce the release of Soldier Of Love, the highly anticipated first single off Sade's forthcoming new body of work by the same name. Soldier Of Love which Sade co-produced with Mike Pela, was written by Sade along with longtime collaborators Andrew Hale, Stuart Matthewman and Paul Spencer Denman. The track, featuring a pulsating and anthemic drum beat along with haunting vocals that Sade is known for, is set to hit airwaves 8 December 2009 and will kick off the countdown for Soldier Of Love. Recorded in England and set for release worldwide on 8 February 2010, Soldier Of Love marks Sade's first studio album since the multi-platinum release of Lovers Rock in 2000. The first single Soldier Of Love will premiere on Tuesday, 8 December 2009 at 7 AM EST on www.sade.com. Known for their one of a kind timeless sound, Sade has enjoyed phenomenal success both internationally and stateside throughout the span of their twenty-five year career. Since the release of their debut album, Diamond Life in 1984 the band has seen all five of their studio albums land in the Top 10 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart selling a total of more than 50 million albums worldwide to date. They have been nominated for American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and have won three Grammy Awards - first in 1986 for Best New Artist, then in 1994 for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group for No Ordinary Love, and again in 2002 for Best Pop Vocal Album with Lovers Rock. www.sade.com Source: Epic Records " 8 December - Soldier Of Love was premiered on www.sade.com and radio-waves. 
Famous photographer and music video producer David Lachapelle was chosen as the director of the Soldier Of Love music video. 8 December 12:34 - Urban Network: A. Scott Galloway Reviews Sade's Soldier Of Love Single • " Soldier Of Love finds Sade dropping a megaton bomb of inspiring and senses-smacking musical dynamite. More Maelstrom than Quiet Storm, this audiophile attention arrester is a razor-sharp reflection of the reamed-raw times we are now fighting through - artistically, morally, spiritually, financially, globally - yet penned with a lyric of vague obliqueness chased with defiant optimism into which everyone can slot their singular, personal cross to bear. Whether you're fighting Wall Street woes, struggling thru unemployment, still picking yourself back up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or literally fighting for your country at war abroad, you will recognize yourself among the song's walking wounded with heart in hand... "I'm at the borderline of my faith I'm at the hinterland of my devotion In the frontline of this battle of mine But I'm still alive... I'm a soldier of love Everyday am I I'm a soldier of love All the days of my life I've been torn up inside I've been left behind So I ride... I have the will to survive In the wild, wild west Tryin' my hardest...doin' my best To stay alive" With it's minimalist militaristic jolt of soulsonics as soundtrack, Soldier Of Love is a techno-soul KO - absolutely astounding and unexpected. Raising their rousing customizable mantra of fortification like a flag, The Four Musketeers of Sade (Helen Folasade Adu, Stuart Matthewman, Andrew Hale and Paul Denman - plus one hella tasty snare drummer) are riding back in funky formation - busting down barricades along both the battlefields of life and of global pop with two messages: To the World at Large - Stay Strong, Love Will Prevail! To the Music Industry: We're comin' back, kickin' ass and collectin' soldiers! I'm certain there are more soothing and sensual songs to come on Sade's 8 February slated album. But right now, I am spellbound by the swagger of the planet's most bewitching barefoot Braveheart. I have awakened this day beside myself with Sade's Soldier of Love. " 10 December 5:29 - Billboard: Chart Beat Thursday: Sade, By Gary Trust • " Back in operation: After only one day of airplay in the chart's tracking week, Sade's Soldier Of Love debuts at #49 on R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The single was serviced to radio stations Tuesday (8 December 2009) and is the title cut from the group's first studio album in nine years, due 8 February 2010. The song is the act's 16th entry on R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, dating to its first, the #14-peaking Hang On To Your Love in 1984. It had last appeared with By Your Side, which reached #41 in November 2000. The band, often regarded as a solo act but is led by Helen Folasade Adu, has notched seven top 10s on the survey, highlighted by the #1 Paradise in 1988. Its signature song, 1985's Smooth Operator, reached #5. (Despite his increased popularity in the wake of claiming the crown on this year's edition of Dancing With The Stars, Soldier Of Love is not a remake of Donny Osmond's hit. Osmond's song reached #2 on the Hot 100 in 1989.) " 14 December - an exclusive Soldier Of Love listening party took place in Frederick P. Rose Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City, United States. Sade unveiled the new album. Soldier Of Love track listing: 1. The Moon And The Sky 2. Soldier Of Love 3. Morning Bird 4. Baby Father 5. Long Hard Road 6. Be That Easy 7. Bring Me Home 8. In Another Time 9. Skin 10. The Safest Place 15 December - Sade Sizzle Reel (Short Version) An icon... An award winning superstar... 50 million albums... Multi platinum in 27 countries... Timeless... One of the greatest voices of all time... SADE 10 years later... The legend is back... SADE Soldier Of Love The new album worldwide release date February 8th 2010 SADE Soldier Of Love The new single February 8th 15 December 3:46 - Billboard: Sade Unveils Soldier Of Love Album In New York, By Mariel Concepcion • " Sade, the R&B group featuring vocalist Sade Adu, will release its first collection of new material in almost ten years, Soldier of Love, on 8 February 2010 through Epic Records. The singer/songwriter, looking as youthful as ever in a black, silk pant suit and her staple slicked-back ponytail after revealing herself to thrilled members of the media, previewed the album in New York City's Frederick P. Rose Hall at Lincoln Center last night (14 December 2009). Soldier Of Love is produced by Sade along with the band's friend and longtime collaborator Mike Pela. The band's lineup remains virtually unchanged since its inception in 1983, and the songs on Soldier Of Love are written primarily by Adu, saxophone and guitar player Stuart Matthewman, bassist Paul Spencer Denman and keyboard player Andrew Hale. The Moon And The Sky finds Adu declaring her devotion to her former lover, singing, "I pulled in all the stars and the moon/laid them on your feet till I gave you my love/you are the one that got me started/you could let me love anyone, but I only wanted you/why did you make me cry? Why didn't you come get me one last time," over choppy violins and simple drums. The title track [Soldier Of Love], which was released last week as the first single, begins with a gentle wind, followed by muted trumpets. "I've lost the use of my heart, but I'm still alive/still looking for the light in the endless pool on the other side," Adu croons in her husky voice over marching band drums and smeared electric guitar riffs. The heartfelt Morning Bird is packed with strings, piano strokes and tambourine clatter, as Sade questions, "How could you? You are the river/I told this life, how could you/you are the morning day, you sang me into life/everyday, fly away, you are the blood of me/the heart of my dream." She commends a man's fatherly instincts on Baby Father over a guitar and drums, while she shelters the love of her companion on The Safest Place, singing, "In my heart, your love has found the safest hiding place" over a piano-based production. Long Hard Road has dramatic violins and Be That Easy is reminiscent of a country love song with guitars and whistles. Meanwhile, Sade sounds pained on Bring Me Home, with lyrics like, "I've cried for the lives I've lost/I feel so close but far away from God;" In Another Time is one of the album's highlights, with a stunning violin arrangement and saxophones; and Skin features a delicate drum and bass beat. Sade's 2000 release, Lovers Rock, sold 3.9 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. " 15 December 20:01 - VIBE: Sneak Peek: Sade's Soldier Of Love, By Keith Murphy • " Few recording artists in the time of continuing shrinking record distribution, digital music downloads, and a never-ending recession, would receive the posh red carpet rollout exhibited last night (14 December 2009) at New York's historic Lincoln Center. But not every artist has the immense mystique and event-like cache of Sade Adu, an act who has meticulously stayed away from the proverbial spotlight since her neo jazz-based 1984 debut Diamond Life. At an exclusive listening party for the Nigerian-born British singer-songwriter's sixth studio release Soldier Of Love (due 8 February 2009), the atmosphere was as elegant as the 50-year old singer herself. Pink roses, pear bellinis, and a mammoth window overlooking a postcard-worthy view of Manhattan's bustling Columbus Circle proved to be a savvy backdrop. But you get the sense that the diverse range of individuals who made it out to hear Sade's first new studio album in nearly a decade (who else could get the likes of golden age hip hop producer DJ Marley Marl, legendary radio personality Tom Joyner and the New York Times' respected veteran music critic Jon Pareles in the same room together?) would have gladly listened to the album at a greasy hamburger joint in Queens. Musically, the 10-track Soldier Of Love doesn't stray too far from the classic Sade sound. Mournful lyrics that dive into the emotional cost of lost love as well as hope-driven introspection fuels much of the album's dramatic tone. And that voice? It's still there: haunting, calming, gorgeous all at once. Still, nothing could have prepared those in attendance for a rare sighting of the reclusive Sade, who following the session, appeared with members of her backing band that have been with her since the beginning of her career. Dressed in an all black silk outfit, with her trademark crimson red lipstick and pulled-back hair, Sade was greeted enthusiastically by the usually jaded music industry tastemakers who stood in line just to take a picture with the singer who seemingly ages every twenty years. "She's been signed to the label for 25 years now, so obviously she's an incredibly iconic artist," glowed Rob Stringer, Chairman of Columbia and Epic label Group, Sade's longtime label home. "We are just thrilled that she wants to make music again. She doesn't have to put records out every year to be relevant. She's earned that respect and credibility to where she can put records out whenever she wants." To hear a straight-no-chaser record-man like Stringer make such a statement runs counter to the strike-while-it's-hot mindset of a music industry in which a much hyped pop star like Rihanna has released four albums in five years. But Sade, who has sold more than 50 million records worldwide, is known for taking long hiatuses between albums. Her last studio album, Lovers Rock, was released in 2000. So why the long break this time? "She's been busy raising her daughter," said Sade's longtime manager Roger Davis. When asked about the prospect of a tour, he laughed and said, "We can only hope. We have to get the record out first." And what does the lady herself have to say about all the outpouring of support? "I'm just happy that everyone came out," Sade told VIBE in a whispered British tone. "Thank you." Highlights on Soldier Of Love include: The Moon And The Sky A seductive Latin groove accented by Spanish guitars is paced by an assertive rim shot. "Why didn't you come get me one last time...we could have had the moon and the sky," Sade sings. Intensely sexy. Soldier Of Love The official first single and album title track has been a curve pitch for longtime Sade fans. The harder edged Portishead-style production and winking western-standoff feel of the track (complete with rumbling military snares) takes a minute to get used to. But its relentless groove and Sade's sincere vocal performance makes it more than believable. Babyfather Sade at her most whimsical. "For you, he's the best he can be...daddy loves you," she says on the reggae-tinged track. Bring Me Home One of the tracks that will surely get play from club DJ's who worship at the alter of early '90s, digging-in-the-crates hip hop. With it's thumping bassline, this standout cut is easily the fastest paced song on Soldier Of Love. There's ominous talk of tears. But this dramatic line says it all: "I've cried for the lives I've lost..." Wow. Skin Ranks among Sade's most heavy vocal and lyrical performances of all-time. A Fender Rhodes keyboard can be heard. So can the pain of a romance gone terribly wrong. "I wish I could wash you off my skin." There's no room for ambiguity here. The Safest Place Sade finds comfort in another's arms. Lush harmonies. Hope closes out the album. " 16 December - DJ Casamena (Carlos Mena) released the track Sade - Soldier Of Love (Casamena Basement Edit). 21 December - PRNewswire: Sade's Highly Anticipated First Single, 'Soldier Of Love' Making Radio History • " Album to be released on 9 February 2010 Track debuts at #11 on Urban Hot AC Chart - highest debut of the decade, and takes #1 spot on Smooth Jazz Top 20 countdown Soldier Of Love, the highly anticipated anthemic first single off Sade's forthcoming album, Soldier Of Love is already making radio history. Following it's release on 8 December 2009, the track debuted at #11 on the Urban Hot AC chart, making it the highest debut of the decade and the third highest all-time on the Urban Hot AC chart. But, that's not all! Soldier Of Love also debuted at #5 on the Smooth Jazz airplay chart while also becoming the first ever vocal to hit #1 on the Smooth Jazz Top 20 Countdown. Soldier Of Love which Sade co-produced with Mike Pela, was written by Sade along with longtime collaborators Andrew Hale, Stuart Matthewman and Paul Spencer Denman. Recorded in England and set for release on 9 February 2010, Soldier Of Love marks Sade's first studio album since the multi-platinum release of Lovers Rock in 2000. Known for their one of a kind timeless sound, Sade has enjoyed phenomenal success both internationally and stateside throughout the span of their twenty-five year career. Since the release of their debut album, Diamond Life in 1984 the band has seen all five of their studio albums land in the Top 10 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart selling a total of more than 50 million albums worldwide to date. They have been nominated for American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and have won three Grammy Awards - first in 1986 for Best New Artist, then in 1994 for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group for No Ordinary Love, and again in 2002 for Best Pop Vocal Album with Lovers Rock. " www.sade.com www.sadeusa.com Source: Epic Records " 27 December 14:37 UAE / 10:37 GMT - The National: Success On Her Own Terms, by Andy Pemberton • " "She is pop music's Greta Garbo," says John Aizlewood, the music critic with London's Evening Standard. "She's an enigma." One glance at the cover of Sade's new album, Soldier Of Love, released 8 February 2010, underlines his point. Sade is pictured with her back to the camera, her face turned away. Her press agent confirmed she will endure a solitary interview to support the release of the new CD. Promotional overkill clearly isn't Sade's style; Simon Cowell would definitely not approve. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, her obvious diffidence, the return of the Nigerian-born pop chanteuse after 10 years is major news. When her single Soldier Of Love was released last week, The New York Times gushed: "Sade's voice is as pure and mysterious as ever." In an age of unchecked self-expression and unbridled exhibitionism, Sade's poise and restraint have drawn listeners closer and turned her into a star. Her last studio album, 2000's Lovers Rock, which featured the affecting No Woman No Cry retool By Your Side, went to #3 in the US Billboard chart. It was an impressive feat given the eight-year gap between that CD and her previous release, 1992's Love Deluxe. One reason for her enduring success is that her songs from the mid-1980s are still heard on American smooth-jazz and pop radio stations (and have helped guide R&B and neo-soul stars back to the artists that influenced her, such as Donny Hathaway and Billie Holiday). "But Sade is successful because no one does anything quite like she does," Aizlewood says. "No one is 'the new Sade'. She is utterly unique." As well as resisting the temptation to flood the market with her music, Sade (real name Helen Folasade Adu) declined to draft in big names to help her scale the charts. For her new album, which she produced and co-wrote, she teamed up with her long-term collaborators Andrew Hale, Stuart Matthewman and Paul Spencer Denman, with whom she has worked since 1984. She has even used the same photographer, Sophie Muller. The album features the soft and plush jazz grooves of her biggest hits, Smooth Operator and Sweetest Taboo, and little else, but her singing has become richer with age. Her voice used to float above her material, but now it sits in the centre of it, sounding emotionally crushed but hopeful. It's a tone The New York Times described as her "veil of heartbreak". New album tracks such as The Safest Place, Bring Me Home and In Another Time are concerned with solace rather than romance, heartbreak instead of devotion. But given her propensity for privacy, it's hard to know what the source of Sade's great pain might be. "I married. I had a terrible relationship. I got divorced," is all she would say about her 1989 marriage to the Spanish filmmaker Carlos Scola, with whom she had a daughter. [It's a mistake of the author of the article. In fact Sade has given birth to just one child - her daughter Ila, in love with the Jamaican reggae producer Bobby Morgan. - comment] When the couple split up, Sade left Madrid and returned to her London home. Soon after, The Daily Mail intended to publish a story alleging she was a drug addict, but when her lawyer threatened legal action and offered to provide blood tests to back Sade's denials, the newspaper backed down. Since then, Sade has admitted that, had she known she would have to endure spiteful press articles, she would have never entered the music business in the first place. So can Sade, now 50 and with an OBE (the British Labour government awarded her the honour in 2002), bounce back again? People may have to be reminded that she still exists, but she is managed by Roger Davies, the Australian powerhouse who helmed Tina Turner's return to global stardom, so it would be premature to rule out another barnstorming comeback. "This has been Sade's longest time away," Aizlewood says. "But there is a lot to work with here. It's a terrific album. Her quality will win through." " | |||||||||
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January 2010
6 January 17:52 - The Black Urban Times: Sade's New Album 'Soldier Of Love' Out February 9!, by A.E. Cruz • " After a decade of waiting, it's finally here! Epic Records is proud to present the release of Soldier Of Love, the highly anticipated new body of work from award winning artist, Sade. Soldier Of Love is Sade's first official studio album since the multi-platinum release of Lovers Rock in 2000. The album will be available everywhere on 9 February 2010! Soldier Of Love is only the sixth studio album chanteur Sade has released throughout her 25-year singing career and the first since Lovers Rock in 2000. As for Sade's songwriting efforts, it's a simple matter of integrity and authenticity. Sade: "I only make records when I feel I have something to say. I'm not interested in releasing music just for the sake of selling something. Sade is not a brand." The call went out in 2008 for Sade's group, Sade, to re-convene at Peter Gabriel's Real World studio, near the singer's hometown in the countryside of south west England. It was the first time the four principals had met up since the Lovers Rock Tour wrapped in 2001. Bassist Paul Denman de-camped from Los Angeles, where he had been managing his teenage son's punk band, Orange. Guitarist and sax player Stuart Matthewman interrupted his film soundtrack work in New York, and keyboardist Andrew Hale gave up his A&R consultancy. In a series of four nightly sessions at Real World, Sade sketched out the material for a new album which, they all felt, was probably their most ambitious to date. In particular, the sonic layering and martial beats of the title track, Soldier Of Love, sounded quite different from anything they had previously recorded. According to Andrew Hale: "The big question for all of us at the beginning was, did we still want to do this and could we still get along as friends?" The answer soon came back as a passionate affirmative. The album was completed in the summer of 2009, mainly at Real World. The feel of the music this time had moved away from the old country soul styling of Lovers Rock and assumed a more eclectic identity. At times the band sounded like the original Sade, with Matthewman back blowing soft sax on In Another Time and the vocal on Long Hard Road hymning. But with songs such as the joyously quirky reggae chant Babyfather, and the dramatically arranged album opener The Moon And The Sky, Sade were exploring new territory. Sade: "I never want to repeat myself. And that becomes a more interesting challenge for us the longer we carry on together." Helen Folasade Adu was born in Ibadan, Nigeria to her Nigerian father, a university teacher of economics and English mother, Anne, a nurse. Her parents met in London while he was studying at the LSE and together they moved to Nigeria shortly after getting married. When their daughter was born, nobody locally was prepared to call her by her English name, Folasade, so a shortened version stuck and Sade was born. Sade's parents separated when she was four-years-old and her mother brought Sade and her elder brother Banji back to England, where they initially lived with their grandparents just outside Colchester, Essex. She listened to American soul music, particularly the wave led in the 1970's by artists such as Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, and Bill Withers. As a teenager, she saw the Jackson 5 at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, where she worked behind the bar at weekends. Sade: "I was more fascinated by the audience than by anything that was going on on the stage. They'd attracted kids, mothers with children, old people, white, black. I was really moved. That's the audience I've always aimed for." Music was not her first choice as a career. She studied fashion at St. Martin's School Of Art and only began singing after two old school friends with a fledgling group approached her to help them out with the vocals. Somewhat to her surprise, she found that while the singing made her nervous, she enjoyed writing songs. Two years later she had overcome her stage fright and was regularly singing back up with a North London Latin funk band called Pride. Sade: "I used to get on stage with Pride, like, shaking. I was terrified. But I was determined to try my best, and I decided that if I was going to sing, I would sing the way I speak, because it's important to be yourself." Sade served a long apprenticeship on the road with Pride. For three years, from 1981, she and the other seven members of the band toured the UK, often with her driving. Pride's shows featured a segment in which Sade fronted a quartet that played quieter, jazzier numbers. One of these, a song called Smooth Operator, which Sade had co-written herself, attracted the attention of record company talent scouts. Soon, everybody wanted to sign her, but not the rest of Pride. Obstinately loyal to her friends in the group, Sade refused to depart. 18 months later she relented and signed to Epic Records - on condition that she took with her the three band mates who still comprise the entity known as Sade: saxophonist Stuart Matthewman, keyboard player Andrew Hale, and bassist Paul Denman. Sade's first single, Your Love Is King, became a top 10 British hit in February 1984, and with that her life, and that of the band, changed forever. The unstressed, understated elegance of the music in conjunction with her look - unspecifically exotic and effortlessly sophisticated launched Sade as the female face of the style decade. Magazines queued to put her on the cover. Sade: "It wasn't marketing. It was just me. And I wasn't trying to promote an image." At the time of her first album, Diamond Life, her actual life was anything but diamond-like. Sade was living in a converted fire station in Finsbury Park with her then boyfriend, the style journalist Robert Elms. There was no heating, which meant that she had to get dressed in bed. The loo, which used to ice over in winter, was on the fire escape. The bath was in the kitchen. Sade: "We were freezing, basically." For the remainder of the 1980's, as the first three albums sold by the million around the world, Sade toured more or less constantly. For her this remains a point of principle. Sade: "If you just do TV or video then you become a tool of the record industry. All you're doing is selling a product. Its when I get on stage with the band and we play that I know that people love the music. I can feel it. Sometimes I yearn to be on the road. The feeling overwhelms me." Intrusive media interest in her private life has inspired a continuing reluctance on her part to participate in the promotional game. Having been travestied in print on many occasions, Sade rarely gives interviews. Sade: "It's terrible this Fleet Street mentality that if something seems simple and easy, there must be something funny going on." For most of the past 20 years, Sade has prioritised her personal life over her professional career, releasing only three studio albums of new material during that period. Her marriage to the Spanish film director Carlos Scola Pliego in 1989; the birth of her daughter in 1996 and her early 21st century move from North London to rural Gloucestershire, where she now lives with a new partner, have consumed much of her time and attention. And quite rightly so. Sade: "You can only grow as an artist as long as you allow yourself the time to grow as a person. We're all parents, our lives have all moved on. I couldn't have made Soldier Of Love any time before now, and though it's been a long wait for the fans and I am sorry about that - I'm incredibly proud of it." " 8 January 11:01 - LiveDaily: Sade To Play Europe, US In Spring, by NULL • " Spring outing supports 'Soldier Of Love' With her first album in nine years scheduled for worldwide release on 8 and 9 February, Sade is looking to first tour Europe and then the US in support of the new album. It will be her first tour in nine years as well. Preliminary plans call for Sade Adu, who turns 50 on 16 January [It's a mistake of the author of the article. In fact Sade Adu turns 51 in this year. - comment], to tour Europe in March and then head to the states in April and May. More details are expected within a couple of weeks. Sade's sixth album, Soldier Of Love is her first new disc since 2000's Lovers Rock. The title track has already been released to radio and online. Her five albums have sold 17 million units, according to Nielsen Soundscan. " 8 January - The Star Online eCentral: Watch Out For Sade's Latest Video Here • " Fans of Sade take note, the group's latest album, Soldier Of Love, will be released worldwide this 8 February, Sony Music announced this week. This will be the group's sixth studio album since the multi-platinum release of Lovers Rock in 2000. Known for their one-of-a-kind timeless soul, Sade has enjoyed phenomenal success both internationally and Stateside for 25 years. The band's last five albums beginning with Diamond Life in 1984 has been on the Top 10 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart selling a total of more than 50 million albums worldwide. Come Monday, 11 January Sony will premiere Sade's new video Soldier Of Love in the United States. If you're looking forward to the video, keep it here as we will exclusively premiere it on Wednesday, 13 January. " 11 January 16:20 ET - Music Mix - EW.com: Sade Strikes Back! The '80s Soul Star Unleashes A Surge Of Dancing Desert Soldiers, By Joseph Brannigan Lynch • " British soul band Sade yep, "Smooth Operator" Sade is a band is back from a ten-year hiatus with the video for Soldier of Love, the first single from their upcoming album of the same name. What has lead singer Sade Adu been doing for the last decade? Perhaps traveling coast-to-coast, L.A. to Chicago on foot? Who knows, but as you can see from the moody video below, she hasnt lost any of her enigmatic aura. Soldier of Love is a laid-back R&B jam dolled up with some Ennio Morricone flourishes, and appropriately enough the video is set in the desert, or as she calls it here, "the hinterland of my devotion." Dressed like Trinity from The Matrix and doing some lasso work George Bailey would be jealous of, Sade performs against a backdrop of barren red desert and menacingly cloudy skies. (Maybe shes a fan of Dune, too.) Accompanying her is a troupe of backup dancers doing things desert soldiers are wont to do, like military-march-styled dance moves and synchronized push-ups. What do you think is this tune worth the ten-year wait? And how about the video? Does it hold a flare gun to Rihannas Hard video, which also featured army-tastic dancing in the desert? " 31 January - The Sunday Times : Sade Emerges From Her Country Retreat, By Robert Sandall • " She's Britain's most successful female solo artist but has remained a glamorous enigma - until now. Sade emerges from her country retreat to tell how she's a tree-climbing tomboy at heart Sade is so very private, so extremely wary of the press that her friends - all of whom are bound to silence - have nicknamed her Howie, after Howard Hughes. The most reclusive British singer of the 1980s has kept such a low profile since her Smooth Operator days - one tour in 14 years - that, when we meet at the London office of her record label to hear the songs from her new album, Soldier Of Love, I am the only person in the room who has met her before. It's 10 years since her last album release, the 2000 offering, Lovers Rock. Despite or maybe because of that, the reverence she commands is palpable. She is the most successful solo female artist Britain has ever produced: she has sold more than 50 000 000 albums in a career that stretches back 27 years. And more than half of those albums were sold from the mid-1990s onwards, when Sade all but disappeared from view. Since then, she has only surfaced a few times and this is the only face-to-face interview she will consent to now. Paradoxically, in person she is open, friendly and relaxed - she's happy to let me into her spacious Georgian house in leafy north London - and willing to laugh at herself. Unlike her songs, which are often freighted with introspective sadness and regret, her conversation is punctuated with a lively and very English self-mockery. She tells me about a graffitied poster of herself that her guitarist Stuart Matthewman spotted in New York. Above her glamorous image, some wag had sprayed the observation: "This bitch sings when she wants to." Sade thinks this hilarious. It sums up her career pretty well. She makes music on her own terms. She tells me how, on seeing a poster for Lady Gaga's album The Fame Monster recently, she wondered: "Why can't I get so worked up about being famous?" She is a complicated, ambitious woman. "Artistically, I have high aspirations. I don't want to do anything less than the best I can do," she says. Yet she spurns the promotional rigmarole of the industry, despite knowing that it's hard to win the public's sympathy if you ignore them. She learnt the downside of fame - "not the sweet, rosy thing anybody expects" - very early on. As her albums sold millions all round the world, paparazzi climbed the trees around her London house to get an intimate shot of her. Rumours about her personal life plagued her, even the funny ones such as the report that she was about to buy Fulham Football Club. "I came to think that those tape machines the journalists used would just scramble what you say, like a liquidiser. Its terrible, this mentality that if something seems simple, there must be something funny going on." During one gruelling interrogation by a female tabloid journalist about her love life - which, as we'll see, has been far from straightforward - she burst into tears and vowed there and then to give up interviews altogether. "It started to feel like opening yourself up to everybody you'd ever sat next to on a bus. Why would you do that?" Nor did she enjoy being promoted as "this sophisticated lifestyle accessory", though she doesn't regret it. "If the music didnt outshine the image, it just wasn't being listened to in the right way." She doesn't look to have aged much during her long absence. On the eve of her 51st birthday, her face is unlined and she is still striking. Taller in person than she appears on stage (she is about 5 ft 8 in) with that large, domed head, wide-set eyes and coil of jet-black hair, she has an exotic allure that she professes not to care a fig about. "People always used to say, 'What's it like to see your face on the cover of a magazine?' But it doesnt mean anything to me at all. I don't really see it. I'm not trying to promote an image." Despite being awarded an OBE in 2002, nowadays her largest fanbase lives in the States, where Lovers Rock sold nearly 4 000 000 copies. Her dressing rooms at American concerts are regularly festooned with flowers sent in by star admirers such as Aretha Franklin. Audiences are noisily ecstatic in the presence of a performer who, unlike every other Brit-soul export, doesn't try to play the gospel diva or even an American accent. Our transatlantic cousins like Sade, it seems, because she sounds like nobody but herself. Reviewers here meanwhile complain that she can't really sing. The first time I put this to her, she giggles, the way she often does when fending off jibes. "It can be very hostile, England. Not just to me, to everybody. England's like a sour old auntie. You go and stay with her although she criticises you all the time and doesn't treat you right, even when you're doing your best. But you keep on loving her, in a certain way. And then you die." She laughs. "Those bitches always outlive you!" So here she is, still cheerfully resident in the unkind UK, with no plans to leave if higher-rate income tax goes up or Soldier Of Love performs no better here than her previous two studio albums. She keeps her London house for business meetings, but her home is now a village near Stroud, Gloucestershire, where she has been based since 2005 with her daughter, Ila, 13, and her boyfriend for the past four years, Ian, a former Royal Marine. Stroud may seem a strange choice for a half-Nigerian soul singer whose music and lifestyle are usually construed as consummately "urban". She has never lived down the image of her sashaying around in a designer frock singing Smooth Operator. But like so much of the little that is known - or believed - about Sade Adu, that's not right. She is very clear that her family roots lie deep in the English countryside. In her mind Sade is, and always has been, a country girl at heart. Sade was born Helen Folasade Adu in Ibadan, Nigeria, the daughter of an English district nurse, Anne Hayes, and a Nigerian university teacher, Bisi Adu, who had met in London five years earlier. The marriage broke down and the four-month-old Sade - her Ibadan neighbours refused to bother with her English name - returned to England with her mother and older brother Banji. Her parents' divorce left an abiding impression that comes through in her songs: "There's a lot of me in them, probably more than I realise." Love often figures as unattainable yet powerfully enduring, or a long hard struggle. All of this, she acknowledges, can be traced back to her parents' troubled marriage. "My mother left my father because she found it impossible to live with him, although they loved each other very much. It was hard for my mother because he was the man of her life. On her wedding day my father gave her a red rose and when he died she threw it in his grave. Shed kept it for 30 years. That was the moment I realised how deeply she cared for him." The couple stayed in touch and even talked of getting back together when Sade was 21, but it didn't happen. "He was a very strange man, my father, very boyish. But he definitely loved my mother very much." This despite his having fathered four more children - two boys, two girls - by three different women. Sade stays in touch with all of her step-siblings, who live in Switzerland and America. The broken family went to stay with her English grandparents on the Essex-Suffolk border near Colchester, and while her mother worked all hours nursing in local villages, Sade was largely raised by her grandparents. Theirs was an unusual story of radical English non-conformism. Grandfather Hayes was a Catholic socialist small farmer, the son of upper-middle-class parents who were involved with Whiteway, a quasi-socialist utopian community, formed around the turn of the century on a back-to-the-earth ideology promoted in Russia in the late-19th century by the writer Leo Tolstoy. Her great-grandparents had eventually left Whiteway, Sade learnt, "because they were devoutly religious and found some of the communal stuff at Whiteway a bit risqué. They weren't into the 'open unions', which basically meant sharing partners." Her grandfather stayed in the Stroud area, briefly trained as a monk, and tried to enlist on the leftists' side in the Spanish civil war. After marrying, he moved east. "But he was always waxing lyrical about the West Country. He knew the novelist Laurie Lee and he loved that area. We've ended up five minutes from his old stomping ground in the Slad valley." There's a spot near her cottage where Sade says she always pictures her grandfather as she drives past. When Anne Hayes announced in 1955 that she was marrying a Nigerian, her parents "found it difficult, but fortunately my granddad was a big fan of the black-American singer and human-rights activist Paul Robeson, which made it easier". In recognition of this, Anne gave her firstborn son, Banji, the middle name of Paul. Sade grew up not, as has often been reported, an Essex girl but an East Anglian tree-climbing tomboy who loved watching cowboy movies. She has retained many guy-ish characteristics - a deep, mannish voice, a loud, ready laugh, and a legs-apart stance - which sit oddly with her elegant looks. She betrays a rare hint of embarrassment when this is pointed out. "There were no girls of my age around, so I played with the boys on the fringe of my brother's circle. I didn't have a girl friend till I was nine. But I had complete freedom, out on my bike from morning till night, helping my grandparents dig their garden. I was very independent. My mum gave me that freedom, though she didnt have much choice because she was working full time." She still loves gardening. "It's so satisfying after youve spent a day trying to write songs!" When her mother's job changed, at 11 Sade moved to a coastal town near Clacton "which I didn't like. The majority of people living there were over 65 and it wasnt country enough for me". Next stop was London where, having shown a talent for art at school, she won a place at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Here she eventually traded the earthiness of the country for a rough urban equivalent: slogging around in a battered transit van, usually driven by herself, singing backing vocals in a soul band called Pride. Her London home was a squat in a disused fire station with an outdoor bathroom shared briefly with her then-boyfriend, the style journalist Robert Elms. Music wasn't her first choice. After graduating Sade set up as a clothes-maker. But she was a fan of the American soul giants Donny Hathaway and Bill Withers, and being a black singer in a largely white ersatz soul outfit lent credibility to the outfit. "I didn't have any confidence as a singer, but I found that I liked writing songs." Smooth Operator, which she sang solo, soon attracted record-company talent scouts, although at first, her fierce loyalty to her band meant she ignored them. Sade is keen on "loyalty to the point of clannishness", according to one longtime friend. Finally, in 1983 she signed to the Epic label, on condition that she took three of her bandmates with her (guitarist and saxophonist Stuart Matthewman, keyboard player Andrew Hale and bassist Paul Denman). Their earnings from recording and live work have always been an even four-way split. There have been arguments over the years - "because my naffometer is much more sensitive than theirs", she claims - but no break-ups or new members. The band remains one tight unit under the control of a matriarch who likes the nickname "Auntie Sade". None of the other three has ever spoken a word against "Shard". "They're like old family friends," she says. "There are moments when it's like Christmas and the skeletons come out. But generally it's good." What wasn't good in the early days was being branded cheerleaders for aspirational Thatcherite values. To be fair, they did themselves no favours, titling their debut album Diamond Life and exuding a glamorous aura very much in keeping with the materialistic impulse of Britain in the 1980s. Sade defends her youthful image as an echo of the dressy style favoured by her American soul heroes. But the old charge that Sade was the backdrop of the yuppie era still rankles, making her unusually tetchy. "With my family history, that really irks me. And it so annoyed me at the time, when we were secretly giving money we didn't even have yet to Arthur Scargill and the striking miners." With plenty of money in the bank - The Sunday Times Rich List recently valued her as worth 30m - Sade has moved into a lower gear career-wise and devoted more time to her personal life. This has not been an easy ride. As an obstinately independent woman, long used to looking after herself, Sade is, as one old associate puts it, "no pushover" at the dating game. "I've paid some rugged dues," she observes of her romantic relationships. Her six-year marriage to the Spanish film director Carlos Pliego ended in 1995 "because he found it hard to share me with the world". Despite her buying a flat in Madrid and spending as much time with Pliego there as she could, it wasnt enough and the marriage unravelled after her long absence on an American tour. A subsequent affair with a Jamaican musician she met in London produced her daughter, Ila, in 1996, but ended unhappily. This proved a difficult experience for a black-British woman who, with her complicated background, has at times struggled to feel she belongs. As a teenager, she saw the Jackson 5 on television and was "more fascinated by the audience than by anything that was going on on the stage. They'd attracted kids, mothers with children, old people, white, black. I was really moved by that". Encouraged to explore her boyfriend's Jamaican roots, the family visited Kingston, but got arrested for speeding, came home and split up. Relations between the three are now strained. Her new man, Ian Watts, whom she met after moving to Stroud, she believes to be The One - and the real country article. "Ian was a Royal Marine, then a fireman, then a Cambridge graduate in chemistry. I always said that if I could just find a guy who could chop wood and had a nice smile it didnt bother me if he was an aristocrat or a thug as long as he was a good guy. Ive ended up with an educated thug!" Sade laughs like a drain at this, and is still chuckling as she recalls her mother introducing Ian to someone as 'Sade's current boyfriend', like he was on a conveyor belt, or something". Ian's 18-year-old son, Jack, lives with them in the cottage in Stroud, so they make a modern "nuclear" family. "Ian is Ila's dad, really. He does all the things a dad would do, and she really looks up to him." Her daughter has a caring stepfather and an older stepbrother she adores. Sade says: "I feel like Ive won the lottery, finally." "I'm not someone who needs a lot of money. You could break into this house and leave after half an hour without finding anything worth stealing," says Sade, and it's hard to disagree. The first-floor drawing room of her London house is a large but sparsely furnished space with a couple of white fabric-covered sofas, a polished-wood floor and nothing much on the walls. For the past hour we've been sitting on a red rug in front of a one-bar electric fire that must be about as old as she is. She has several of these obsolete burners, she says. "They're my favourite." Frugality - another traditional country habit - is her style, but she's generous with it. As soon as the royalties rocked up, she helped her mother buy a house in Clacton, bought her brother Banji a place in the States, and supported various unnamed friends in "business ventures". Her touring musicians comment on how fair she has been in awarding valuable songwriting credits for their contributions a rare thing in the tightfisted world of pop accountancy. She has done this on the strict understanding that none of the beneficiaries talk about it, "or ever write anything about me", which they haven't. It's not just a personal-privacy thing, or control freakery, she claims, "I just don't like the power relationship it implies". She isn't shy about the money per se. "I always wanted to have money. When I was a little girl I used to do the football pools. But the great thing is when youve got it, your life doesnt revolve around money any more." Hers clearly doesn't. She's dressed today in a plain black top and nondescript black trousers. As we talk, she rolls her own cigarettes and blows the smoke up the chimney above the empty fireplace. (She gave up smoking for five years but reverted, as she always has, while making her new record.) Outside on the drive is her boxy old Volvo estate, which she traded for her vintage BMW after she had Ila. Her stylist, video director and friend Sophie Mueller used to say that behind the wheel Sade "drove like an immature man in a woman's body". It's hard to picture her like that in the Volvo. With her sensible country head on, she realises how fortunate she is. She has sorted out her home life, earned all the money she will ever need, and continues to make music in her own time and in her own way. "Is it still worth it? I think it is. After every album, I think, 'Right that's it, no more.' But how lucky am I at my age still to be doing this without any outside pressure?" Her place in Stroud is a small cottage she calls "a cave", a stone-built wreck that, five years after she moved in, is "finished, kind of. There are still wires hanging out of places". She and Ian are now doing up a nearby farmhouse "but God knows when well finish that". She enjoys the easygoing privacy of living in Stroud, where the local newspapers pay her no attention. "They're more interested in Eddie the Eagle, he's a bigger star in those parts than I am." And Ila appreciates the countryside. "She's fascinated with frogs and newts and worms and slimy things, just like I was." How to balance career and family is now her big issue. "Being a mother is the biggest and hardest job I've ever undertaken. I'm not complaining, but I've never had a nanny. For years after she was born I put Ila to bed every night. As soon as she arrived she became the centre of my life." She took her five-year-old daughter on her last world tour in 2002 "but I didn't let her see any of the concerts because I didn't want her to hear people shouting for her mum. She wasn't ready for that". Ila sings on one of the tracks on Soldier Of Love but Sade is in a quandary as to what to do with her when she accedes to the inevitable pressure to support her new album with a big tour. She professes to love performing, regarding her concerts as the ultimate riposte to her critics. "Whatever anybody might say about me, when I feel the warmth we get back from the audiences, particularly in America, I think it's worth all the bullshit. I actually prefer singing live now, I feel much more comfortable than I did. I used to be a bit frozen and worried about my vocal performance, as if I hadnt learnt the language properly." These days, Sade is perfectly at home with herself. "Its much easier for me to express myself now." " | |||||||||
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February 2009
February - Kulturnews: Sade Die Anti-Madonna, By Dagmar Leischow • " Sade Adu hasst es, in der Öffentlichkeit zu stehen. Doch dann hätte sie nach zehn Jahren Pause besser kein neues Album vorlegen sollen - was allerdings sehr schade gewesen wäre. Mit ihr zusammenzuarbeiten ist nicht leicht, denn Sade hat ihren eigenen Kopf. Wenn sie nicht will, läuft gar nichts. Sie lässt sich von keinem zu einem Album drängen. Ganz allein entscheidet sie, wann sie mit ihrem Gitarristen Stuart Matthewman, der zuweilen auch Saxofon spielt, dem Bassisten Paul Spencer Denman und Keyboarder Andrew Hale ins Studio geht. Ihre Musiker sind ebenso von der Willkür der Chefin abhängig wie ihr Label. Sicher hat man sich dort geärgert, dass die Sängerin zehn Jahre brauchte für ihre CD Soldier of Love. Doch was konnte man tun? Nichts. Auch nichts, als Sade, die eigentlich Helen Folasade Adu heißt, kurzerhand alle Interviews absagte. "Ich verbringe meine Zeit", sagte die Soulpopdiva, lieber mit Freunden als mit Journalisten." Also musste ein Plan B her. Die neuen Songs werden der Presse in einem feinen Berliner Restaurant vorgespielt. Man labt sich an einem deliziösen Drei-Gänge-Menü, genießt dazu ein Glas Riesling, später noch einen Bordeaux, plaudert ein wenig mit den Kollegen, während Sades sanfter Sound durch den Raum schwebt wie ein Gazeschleier oder Zigarillorauch. Die samtig-dunkle Stimme der Britin wird abermals mit Soul, Pop oder Jazz unterfüttert. In der Ballade Morning Bird gibt das Piano den Ton an. Die akustische Gitarre setzt bei Long hard Road Akzente. Beim zuckersüßen In another Time wetteifern die Geigen mit dem Saxofon, und Bring me home hat einen betörenden Groove, den an eine singende Säge erinnert. Die Band um die Tochter eines Nigerianers und einer Engländerin ist bis heute einzigartig und stilbildend. Zwar hätte manchem Stück ein stärkerer Spannungsbogen nicht geschadet, doch die 51-Jährige beherrscht einfach die Kunst, in einem Liebeslied wirklich etwas mitzuteilen. Nie gerät sie in die Nähe des Kitsches, ihre Titel kreisen um Beziehungen, um ihre persönliche Gedankenwelt. Sade hatte schon vor gut 30 Jahren ein bemerkenswertes Gespür für melancholische Plädoyers und Harmonien. Weil sie das weder in ihrem Modedesignstudium noch als Model ausleben konnte, wollte sie sich lieber ganz der Musik widmen. Also gründete sie 1983 die Band Sade, deren Debütalbum Diamond Love es nur ein Jahr später weltweit auf über sechs Millionen verkaufte Exemplare gebrachte hatte. Die Single Smooth Operator gehört zu den meistgespielten Songs aller Zeiten, und mit seiner zeitlosen Melodie und dem coolen Gesang wird der Klassiker wohl ewig bestehen können. Was nicht unwesentlich daran liegt, dass sich die Mutter einer 13-jährigen Tochter nie manipulieren ließ. Der Kategorie "naives singendes Model" verweigerte Sade sich konsequent. Sie brauchte keine Marketingstrategen, die ihr ein Image maßschneiderten. Ihre Stücke schrieb sie selbst. Von der Komposition bis zur Produktion hatte sie stets alles unter Kontrolle. Sie war eine dieser selbstbewussten und eigenständig denkenden Frauen, die sich nicht zur Marionette ihrer Plattenfirma machen ließen. Trotzdem taugte sie nicht zur Rebellin. Im Gegensatz zu Cindy Lauper färbte sich Sade keine bunten Strähnen in die Haare, auf grelles Make-up verzichtete sie ebenfalls. Sie wollte keinen Spaß, eher entwickelte sie sich zur Anti-Madonna, die mit Provokation nichts am Hut hatte. Schön war sie, kühl, ein wenig distanziert. Sexy, aber nie vulgär. Die perfekte Verkörperung der Sinnlichkeit. Im No ordinary Love Video etwa verzauberte sie ihre Anhänger als ätherische Meerjungfrau. Weniger war bei ihr generell mehr, vor allem musikalisch. Dank ihrer kongenialen Band wurde Minimalismus zum Markenzeichen. Ein edler Beat, lässige Grooves, dezente Dubvibes und schöne Basslinien prägten ihre Musik von Anfang an. Allerdings entdeckt man die Finessen eines Liedes oft erst nach mehrfachem Hören - was wohl von britischem Understatement zeugt. Die elegante Sängerin schätzt eben vornehme Zurückhaltung. Sie steht für gelebte Normalität statt für Skandale. Einzig 1997 leistete sie sich einen öffentlichen Ausfall. Bei einer Verkehrskontrolle auf Jamaika beschimpfte sie einen Polizisten derart wüst, dass sie zu einer gerichtlichen Anhörung geladen wurde - zu der sie nicht erschien. Angeblich soll damals Marihuana im Spiel gewesen sein, die Sängerin hat das nie kommentiert. Überhaupt schirmt sie ihr Privatleben weitestgehend ab. Nur wenig ist bislang an die Öffentlichkeit gedrungen: dass sie am 16. Januar 1959 im nigerianischen Ibadan geboren wurde und nach der Scheidung ihrer Eltern im englischen Colchester aufwuchs. Dass sie von 1989 bis 1994 mit dem spanischen Filmproduzenten Carlos Scola verheiratet war. Dass der jamaikanische Musikproduzent Bob Morgan der Vater ihrer Tochter Ila ist - und sie für ihre Familie ihre Karriere zurückgestellt hat. Bis 1992 veröffentlichte Sade regelmäßig Alben, auf Lovers Rock mussten ihre Fans dann aber bereits acht Jahre warten, Soldier of Love erforderte noch ein bisschen mehr Geduld. "Gute Dinge", sagt Sade, "brauchen einfach Zeit." Eine ungewöhnliche Haltung. Denn eigentlich muss heutzutage im Musikgeschäft alles schnell gehen: rascher Erfolg, Quantität statt Qualität. Nicht mit Sade. Nach 26 Jahren ist sie wie ein Fels in der Brandung. Ohne Hast singt sie ihre zehn Songs, Trends ignoriert sie bewusst. Wenn ihre erste Single "Soldier of Love" ein Hit wird: gut. Wenn nicht: auch gut. Schließlich muss sie nichts mehr beweisen; sie hat alle wichtigen Auszeichnungen bekommen, darunter einen Brit-Award und mehrere Grammys. Und das wäre bestimmt nicht so gekommen, hätte Sade nicht alle Entscheidungen allein getroffen - mit dem störrischen Stolz einer Souldiva. Soldier Of Love erscheint am 5. Februar 2010. " 1 February 2010 10:42 - The huffington Post: Global Beat Fusion: Sade Soldiers On, By Derek Beres • " Indian mythology asserts a rather dreary forecast when contemplating time. A regular kalpa lasts 16,798,000 years, and depending on what kalpa you are describing, that number could go as high as 1.28 trillion, with each kalpa representing a differing phase of existence in the universe. It's a sinister concoction, like lying in the bowels of the sand monster Sarlaac in Tattoine's Dune Sea for innumerable years, with you slowly digesting, alive yet helpless, for an eon. That's kind of what it feels like waiting ten years for a new Sade album. Yet when the wait is over, you can breath easier. You feel that listening to Soldier of Love. "In Another Time" is one of those life-soundtrack songs recalling her greatest: "Smooth Operator," "Jezebel," with a comparable saxophone to boot. These days, it's hard to throw a sax into R&B and not make it sound gratuitous. Sade (which is the band's name as well as the singer's; here she is referred to as the singer) has never been an island, something she recognizes and extends to those around her. The instrumental team, led by guitarist/sax player Stuart Matthewman (aka Cottonbelly) is highly skilled; bassist Paul Denman and keyboard player Andrew Hale complement her voice graciously. Yet these men need her too: alter-group Sweetback has its moments, but I rarely return to their albums. Sade at times merits a daily dose. Only right now it's an hourly medication. On top of that, the album arrived with high expectations. Lover's Rock was a breakthrough for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was her first deep foray into reggae. "Slave Song" still sits atop my all-Sade list, though truth be told, I can envision, on certain days, that either "Skin" or "The Moon and the Sky" could sneak into that coveted position. Nothing on Solider offers as hard a beat as her previous outing (though "Bring Me Home" and "Skin" come close). Reggae is predominantly absent, though we do find a sliver of country permeating the melody of "Be That Easy." I was not, however, looking for Lover's Rock Vol 2. What I wanted was Sade 2010, and fortunately she was listening--not to me, but to herself. She has this thing about not repeating herself, and she lives true to it. My friend Fabian commented that it's a "sexy" album. I agree, though prefer "sensual." Then again, I've always preferred that word: sexy is an overused adjective that applies to way too many things that it shouldn't, like churned pop singers and liquor ads. Sensual still salvages a bit of the intended meaning: an energetic resonance, a heartfelt connection to something greater than yourself, whether experienced in private with a lover or in the solitude of bass-heavy earbuds--the sense that more exists than our individual cravings, and to find music that speaks to those needs is the highest art. We need that warmth in our lives. We have to revolt against tinny computer speakers and the static that over-trebled made-for-Billboard music creates. More specifically, we must balance agitating frequencies in our lives with soothing ones. Sade's voice is a salve for such affliction. Sexy, too. Which is probably why this album is an organic masterpiece in the overproduced contemporary music world. Soldier of Love is not twiddled and murdered like a pop record, though with any luck (and cultural sanity) it will outsell the drivel. It comes across like the most soulful of Soul records. Sade has always been masterful at creating singles. Everyone knows "The Sweetest Taboo" within two seconds. Ninety-five percent of us can agree that we know exactly what she's singing about on "Never As Good As The First Time," and easily fall in love with her for recognizing that feeling so beautifully. I can only hope that every one of us has lived through a moment of life in which "No Ordinary Love" perfectly captures. Tragic, if not. Yet Sade never created a full album until Lover's Rock. Sad as it is, her entire catalog does not stand the test of time. She lived through the synthesized eighties; she went the cool jazz route. Her later voice begged forgiveness, rooting itself in our Cavaricci and leather prom-era photos. We gave it to her. She returned the favor, ten years ago creating a monumental album. This year, another. Sade sits among that rare pantheon of vocalists who embodies the archetypes of human emotions without sounding contrived or cheesy, without coming off as an auto-tuned prototype lifting lyrics from the book, The Secret. Credit the intention, celebrate the presentation, like Jeff Buckley being Van Morrison better than Van Morrison. It happens. Sometimes we have to move our egos aside, more often than we do. "I'm a soldier of love, every day and night of my life" could fail miserably as a lead single. Here, the military march is a call to arms. Ambiguous, it has a broad touch. Her hope is to positively affect as many people as possible with an assured and skillful hand--her loss of ego for the greater good. I'm not divinizing her. She just finds routes to your heart quicker and more effectively than most, and does not capitalize on that. How could she, releasing an album a decade? The woman rarely appears for media opps, except to tell the world about something new. She does not allow remixes, outside the epic Cottonbelly take of "By Your Side." Any other I've found is white label, and suffers the consequences of bootlegging. She dresses simply, elegantly honest. Very often she appears in your life at the perfect moment: a throwback inside a winter café, a soulful serenade lying on a sultry sandscape. Here, "Long Hard Road" could very well be that track you never forget, that warms you when things grow cold. Sade could take twenty for the follow-up to Soldier, and bets are little will change. In the meantime, we have a new mantra to attune to, and pray a speedy return. " |
www.loversrock.narod.ru
