Sad

Vinyl Discography (complete):

Biography:

Since their debut with the 1984 UK Top Ten hit “Your Love Is King,” Sade have, on and off, remained a deft synthesizer of classic jazz, cutting-edge R&B, and adult pop over the ensuing four decades. While best known for their stylishly seductive ballads, including the international hits “Smooth Operator” (1984), “The Sweetest Taboo” (1985), “No Ordinary Love” (1992), and “By Your Side” (2000), they have also recorded poignant songs about slavery, immigration, illegitimate parenthood, and everyday struggles, often told through the third-person narratives of Sade Adu. From 1984’s Diamond Life to 2010’s Soldier of Love, the gaps between Sade albums have stretched from eighteen months to ten years, but each return has been warmly welcomed. All six of Sade's albums have entered the UK Top 20, the US Top Ten, and achieved platinum status in both countries. Moreover, Sade is a four-time Grammy winner, having broken the Best New Artist curse with subsequent wins for "No Ordinary Love," "Lovers Rock," and "Soldier of Love." Seven years after the latter won the award for Best R&B Performance, they returned with contributions to the soundtracks of A Wrinkle in Time and Widows.

Sade is named after singer and songwriter Helen Folasade Adu. Born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, Adu moved with her mother and brother to southeast England, outside Colchester, at the age of four. A devotee of early 1970s soul, Adu tentatively became involved in music after enrolling at Saint Martin's School of Art to study fashion, when friends asked her to help with their group's vocals. After graduating in 1981, she joined the band Pride and toured the UK with them in 1983. Their performances eventually included a mini-set spotlighting Adu, backed by several of her bandmates on intimate, jazz-influenced material. These segments, particularly "Smooth Operator"—composed by Adu and the band's Ray St. John—caught the attention of label representatives. Adu was approached as a solo act, but she signed with Epic after demanding to bring along several of her partners in Pride: bassist Paul S. Denman, keyboardist Andrew Hale, and saxophonist and guitarist Stuart Matthewman.

The London quartet made their recording debut in February 1984 with the restrained yet expressive ballad “Your Love Is King,” which quickly entered the UK singles chart and peaked at number six the following month. Another single, the down-but-not-out soul anthem “When Am I Going to Make a Living,” preceded the July release of the full-length Diamond Life. Produced by Robin Millar, the album was primarily co-written by Adu and Matthewman and concluded with a cover of Timmy Thomas’ 1972 hit “Why Can’t We Live Together.” Bolstered by the number 19 UK single “Smooth Operator,” Diamond Life—which itself narrowly missed out on the top spot in the UK album chart—became one of the biggest debuts of the mid-1980s. In the US, it was released in early 1985 on Epic's subsidiary Portrait, reaching number five in June. "Smooth Operator" gained the most traction as a crossover hit, climbing to number five on the pop and R&B charts and topping the adult contemporary chart. Diamond Life eventually went quadruple platinum in the UK and US and received sales certifications in several other territories.

Sade continued to gradually refine and expand their cosmopolitan blend of jazz, R&B, and pop, and their writing and recording process was continually slowed down. They collaborated again with Robin Millar and began recording their second album around the time Diamond Life was distributed in the US. On their way to international multi-platinum success, Promise topped the British and American pop charts, led by "The Sweetest Taboo," which reached the Top 40 in the UK and peaked at number five in the US the week after the band won Best New Artist at the 28th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly after, "Never as Good as the First Time" consolidated their hold on urban and adult contemporary radio.

Despite a gap of nearly two and a half years between two full-length albums, Sade remained a major commercial force with their third album, Stronger Than Pride. This time, the band handled the production themselves with help from Mike Pela and Ben Rogan, established Sade collaborators who had previously played a relatively minor role. Featuring some of the band's airiest arrangements and deepest rhythms—exemplified by the title track and "Paradise," two of the four singles, respectively—the album climbed to number three in the UK and US charts. A longer studio break followed, followed by the October 1992 release of Love Deluxe, produced by the band with Pela. This album, more electronic and atmospheric than the band's previous releases, entered the UK Top Ten and missed the US chart by two places. "Feel No Pain," "Kiss of Life," and the pulsating trip-hop precursor "Cherish the Day" all charted, but the LP's biggest single was undoubtedly its first, "No Ordinary Love"—it reached number 14 in the UK and the US and won another Grammy award, this time for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song had a lasting impact strong enough to keep its parent release on the Billboard 200 for nearly two years.

The band responded with their longest hiatus yet. In 1996, Matthewman resurfaced as co-writer and co-producer on Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, beginning a lasting close relationship with the album's outlier. Later that year, Matthewman, Denman, and Hale released Sweetback, named after their new side project. Maxwell, Amel Larrieux, and Bahamadia were among the album's featured artists, a stylistic successor to Love Deluxe that pushed the boundaries a bit further without worrying about creating hits. Towards the end of the decade, Sade reunited to record their fifth album, Lovers Rock. Distinguished by some dub-influenced rhythms and a greater emphasis on Matthewman's acoustic guitar, the LP broke into the UK Top 20 and was another number three hit in the US when it arrived in November 2000, buoyed by "By Your Side" (number 17 pop in the UK, number 75 pop in the US). The Recording Academy awarded the album Best Pop Vocal Album at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. After a customary album promotion tour, the band appeased fans in February 2002 with Lovers Live. A second Sweetback project, Stage [2], followed two years later.

In December 2009, “Soldier of Love” ended a period of silence during which Adu raised her daughter and was honored with an OBE (Order of the British Empire). The song’s stark, theatrical feel made it feel more like an event than any other Sade re-entry. An album of the same name was released the following February, debuting at number four on the UK chart and topping the US chart. The song earned the band their fourth Grammy award, again winning Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. A 2011 catalog, The Ultimate Collection, provided an overview of the band’s discography and included a handful of previously unreleased tracks. Seven years passed before Sade released new recordings, both of which were made for soundtracks: “Flower of the Universe” for Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time and “The Big Unknown” for Widows.