Music |
Sade
By
Published: Feb 21, 2018
Category:
Soul
When was the last time you thought about Sade?
Unless you’re a connoisseur of late night romantic music, it was at least 8 years ago — because that was the last time she released new music.
Now, suddenly, she reappears.
First as an off-stage character in Harry Clarke.
Now we learn she’s written and recorded a song for the movie of “A Wrinkle in Time,” soon to be everywhere.
Let’s do the refresher course on the fomer Helen Folasade Adu. Nigerian father, English mother, raised in Africa and England. False starts in fashion and modeling, slow start in music. And then massive fame.
The fame was for the music, which was mostly quiet and smoky. Sensual, not sexy. “Hypnotic” was the critic’s shorthand back then. I prefer “atmospheric,” for, like Bryan Ferry, Sade creates a world. As with Ferry, that world is urban, rich in romance, pulsating with emotion. And epic emotion at that: She’ll have “no ordinary love.” [To buy the CD of the Greatest Hits and get a free MP3 download from Amazon, click here. For the streaming download, click here.]
I gather she’s had her torments. Married, moved, divorced, silent. But when Sade decides to record, the quality remains. Do many of her songs sound the same? Yes, because what she’s creating is a mood, and a mysterious one at that. No matter: This is Barry White for sophisticates, comfort music for stressful moments, an aphrodisiac for those who are not having their first encounter in the midnight hour.
To hear these songs is to feel refreshed, cleansed, more awake. And to think ahead to the night.
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