Sade — Where my taste in music may have begun

There are artists you enjoy listening to. Then there are artists you eventually realise have probably shaped your own taste in music.

For me, that is Sade.

When I first heard Diamond Life in 1984, I was immediately fascinated.

If you look at what was in the charts at the time, you may understand why this record felt so different to me.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood with “Relax” and “Two Tribes”, Wham! with “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, Duran Duran with “The Reflex”, Nik Kershaw, Culture Club, Nena…

It was the great era of synthpop, new wave, striking productions and grand gestures.

Then came Sade.

Diamond Life: my first Sade moment

Diamond Life was released on 16 July 1984.

Soul. Jazz. A little funk and pop. Elegant, spare and yet full of atmosphere.

And that voice above it all.

Smoky, quiet, sometimes almost fragile, but incredibly present. Sade never had to raise her voice to make you feel that what she was singing mattered.

Almost always, there was that light melancholy.

I devoured that record back then and played it over and over.

“Smooth Operator”, “Your Love Is King”, “Hang On to Your Love”, “When Am I Going to Make a Living”: songs that, for me, have barely aged to this day.

She actually wanted to work in fashion

It is quite fortunate that Sade exists as a musician at all, because music was not originally her plan.

Helen Folasade Adu, born in Nigeria and raised in England, studied fashion at St Martin’s School of Art in London. She then worked in fashion, designing menswear among other things.

She came to singing almost by chance. Old school friends had a band and needed help with vocals. They asked Sade, and she joined in.

At first, she did not think of herself as a singer at all and suffered enormous stage fright.

Eventually, though, she made a decision that, looking back, may explain her whole career: if she was going to sing, she would sing as she spoke. Without imitating a big soul voice. Without being anyone else.

What a stroke of luck.

Sade — the band

She eventually joined the eight-piece London Latin-funk band Pride. Their concerts included a smaller section in which Sade played quieter, jazzier pieces with some of the musicians.

That particular section became increasingly popular. One of those songs was “Smooth Operator”.

Record labels suddenly became interested. But they wanted Sade, rather than Pride. Sade initially said no. She did not want simply to leave her fellow musicians behind. Only later did she sign with Epic, on the condition that Stuart Matthewman, Andrew Hale and Paul Spencer Denman came with her.

That was how Sade, the band, came into being.

This matters: Sade was always more than Sade Adu with a few backing musicians. Matthewman, Hale and Denman were crucial to that unmistakable sound.

But of course, this band had a face. And what a face.

Restraint as a style

Almost overnight, Sade Adu became one of the best-known singers of the 1980s and a style icon.

The tied-back hair, red lips, large hoop earrings and simple clothes: in a decade full of neon colours, big hairstyles and even bigger productions, her restraint looked incredibly modern.

She had originally come from fashion, after all. Perhaps that explains the confidence in her appearance too. Interestingly, though, she has said this look was not an elaborate marketing strategy.

It was simply her.

Then, of course, there were the videos. One has stayed particularly clearly in my memory: “Never as Good as the First Time”.

Sade on a white horse, travelling alone through a vast landscape. It could look incredibly kitsch. With her, it simply looks incredibly cool.

Perhaps there is even a little irony in it: while other 1980s pop stars filled their videos with ever bigger sets, stories and effects, Sade essentially needed a horse, a landscape and Sade. Nothing more.

You find precisely that spareness in her music too.

She could stand out without being loud, visually or musically. Perhaps that was her greatest style: she never seemed to have to try particularly hard to be stylish.

Six albums, one unmistakable sound

Musically, the story continued.

1985 – Promise
„The Sweetest Taboo“, „Is It a Crime“, „Jezebel“, „Never as Good as the First Time“.

The Sade sound became darker, deeper and more confident.

1988 – Stronger Than Pride
„Love Is Stronger Than Pride“, „Paradise“, „Nothing Can Come Between Us“, „Turn My Back on You“.

Even more spare and incredibly elegant.

1992 – Love Deluxe
„No Ordinary Love“, „Kiss of Life“, „Cherish the Day“, „Pearls“, „Bullet Proof Soul“.

For me, perhaps one of the albums that best explains why Sade still sounds so modern.

Lots of space. Deep bass. Sparse arrangements. Atmosphere. And that voice above it all.

Then things became quieter.

2000 – Lovers Rock
„By Your Side“, „King of Sorrow“, „Somebody Already Broke My Heart“, „Flow“.
Warmer, more intimate and, in places, almost acoustic.

After that, Sade disappeared again.

No studio album for ten years, until Soldier of Love arrived in 2010.

The title track alone was a surprise: more modern, harder, almost martial, yet you needed less than five seconds to recognise who was singing.

Alongside it were “The Moon and the Sky”, “Morning Bird”, “Babyfather” and “The Safest Place”.

Six studio albums in more than four decades:

Diamond Life – 1984
Promise – 1985
Stronger Than Pride – 1988
Love Deluxe – 1992
Lovers Rock – 2000
Soldier of Love – 2010.

To this point, the band had needed no more. Perhaps that is part of Sade’s story too.

The band releases music when there is something to say, rather than because a release schedule says another album is due. Sade Adu has repeatedly made that clear.

Perhaps that explains those long pauses better than anything else.

Bring Me Home: pure magic

Unfortunately, I have never seen Sade live myself. I really regret that.

A while ago, though, I watched the concert from the 2011 Soldier of Love tour on television, later released as Bring Me Home: Live 2011.

For me, it is pure magic. No exaggerated show. No one has to keep proving how wonderful they are. This woman stands on stage and begins to sing, and suddenly all those songs are there again, some of which have been with you for decades.

„No Ordinary Love“.

„The Sweetest Taboo“.

„Smooth Operator“.

„By Your Side“.

„Is It a Crime“.

„Your Love Is King“.

You recognise many of them after just a few bars.

Then there is that voice: smoky, quiet, meaningful and always carrying that small shadow of melancholy.

Simply unmistakable.

What stays in my taste in music

Perhaps only now do I really realise how much Sade has shaped my own taste in music.

These days, I listen to an extraordinary range of music: soul, jazz, electronic R&B, electronic and experimental music, and artists who can barely be placed in a genre.

But certain things run through much of what excites me:

Voices with character.
Soul and jazz.
Atmosphere.
Space.
Deep bass.
Restraint rather than attention-grabbing effects.
And that melancholy that makes music emotionally deep rather than sad.

When all that comes together, I am usually drawn in quite quickly.

Perhaps some of it really does lead back to a record I first heard in 1984 and then played over and over.

What stays with me

Where my taste in music began

Diamond Life.

By a woman who actually wanted to work in fashion, came to singing rather by chance and eventually decided simply to sing as she spoke.