Customer Reviews

Love Deluxe

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I will admit a bit of inconsistency in my way of thinking. Yes, I was a bit put off by Stronger Than Pride because I was expecting another Promise or Diamond Life. Yet when I heard "No Ordinary Love" and heard that Paul Denman's opening throbbing bass and Sade's still-sensuous vocals, I was blown away. Maybe it was because it had been four years and there was a quiet storm needed to counter all the grunge that was crawling from the woodwork (no offense intended to that genre, BTW) So, yes, I accepted the fact that the quartet were a kind of light jazz/R&B hybrid, and "No Ordinary Love", with its yearning, appealing, and affirmation, "I keep crying/I keep trying for you baby/there's nothing like you and I, baby" was the best Sade song I'd heard since the Promise album.

"Feel No Pain" paints a moving portrait of a ghetto family's hardships. All the family has been laid off. Sade pleads for them, "Help them to live life/help them to smile/don't let them stay home and listen to the blues." Done in the group's new style, Andrew Hale's held-down backing synth chords provide the sordid atmosphere. The equating of a job with pride is emphasized in the two contrasting emotions: "do you know how that feels/to walk the street with your head held high/.../did you ever see a man break down?"

The mid-paced and lush "I Couldn't Love You More" is another affirmation of romantic fealty, with piano chords and airy keyboards adding to the atmosphere. Simple lyrics, but effective.

Stuart Matthewman's gentle guitars set the mood for the love lament of "Like A Tattoo". Keyboards come into play when the mood goes up a notch.

The sound of the love celebration "Kiss Of Life" reminds me of some of their Promise material, such as "Tar Baby." The entire band's teamwork really shows up here, and Nick Ingman's strings really add to the loveliness of this tune.

One of their mellower tunes, the love surrender "Cherish The Day" follows, with the airy keyboards and drums predominating. Must be some kinda man to elicit, "You're ruling the way that I move/you take my air."

The melancholy and hearbreaking "Pearls", complete with Ingman's strings and a cello, is about a Somalian woman living a hard life, the blistering sun overhead, searching for pearls. "This is how she's dying/she's dying to survive," sings Sade, and at the same time, lauds her strength. "She lives in a world she didn't choose/and it hurts like brand new shoes." Sade's voice really reaches an emotional peak throughout the song, and especially when she sings "Hallelujah."

The slow "Bullet Proof Soul" uses the love/gun analogy, and the woman says that love hit her like a slow bullet. She then warns the man that only a bullet proof soul can resist her.

The instrumental "Mermaid" conjures up the deep blue ocean, and the otherwordly sounds the fantasy world of mermaids.

I'm still not going to try to explain why I can handle their sound here and not on the previous album. All I can say is that it soothes me. Eight years and four albums and still the same lineup of Adu (vocals), Matthewman (sax), Denman (bass), and Hale (keyboards), so not bad at all. They are tighter and cohesive, yet I notice the gradual buildup of other players on the scene that really took shape in Stronger Than Pride, such as Leroy Osbourne (vocals) and Nick Ingman (string arrangements). I'm unaware of what a near-decade break did for Sade on Lover's Rock, but I'm sure to find out sometime in the future. So a "Pearls"-style "hallelujah" for Love Deluxe!

After kicking off the retro soul movement with Diamond Life (1985) and Promise (1986), and consolidating her quiet storm appeal with Stronger Than Pride (1988), Sade took a lengthy break, beginning a second career of disappearing from her own celebrity. In 1992, she returned with Love Deluxe, a curiously appealing album that marked her apotheosis as the irresistible yet unapproachable queen of laid back, sensual soul. On first hearing, Love Deluxe sounds less radical than it actually is. That's because most artists tend to build on an established style. Here, Sade doesn't build on her tried and tested brand of mellow R&B as much as strips it down by virtually eliminating all the quasi-jazzy excesses that marked (or marred) her previous recordings. Noticeably missing are Stuart Matthewman's sax solos. More prominent is his crunchy electric guitar playing; on the gorgeous opener, No Ordinary Love, it lends an interesting flourish to the song's ethereal lounge atmospherics. Relying more heavily on the electronic medium, notably Paul Denman's growing affinity for synth bass, Sade and her combo crafted a sleek and elegant album that came to be enormously influential on a whole new generation of neo-soul singers down the horizon. Fellow one-namers like Maxwell, Aaliyah, and Pru have cited Sade's influence. Even more underground club acts like Everything But The Girl and Portishead nodded to her as they strove to emulate the group's cool quasi-lounge atmospherics and Sade's strangely sexy deadpan vocals. The world of gangsta rap sent kudos by way of Krayzie Bone's sample of Feel No Pain, Deluxe's London-clubby second track, on his recent album. Despite its endurance, Love Deluxe remains stylistically hard to nail down. Is it R&B, soul, jazz, club, electronic? A lesser band would have made an unfocused mess of an album, but in Sade's capable hands, the styles are seamlessly woven together by her distinctive voice to create one of the most captivating albums of the 90s.

Never has repetition worked so well! From the hypnotic bass groove of the opening "No Ordinary Love" this remarkable band uses space, and the lightest embellishments to wondrous effect. Paul S. Denman anchors every song with some of the most understated yet innovative bass playing ever recorded. His deep, sliding, funky bass playing makes "Feel No Pain" a virtual masterpiece of minimalism, and he gets downright buttery as he hangs in the background on "I Couldn't Love You More" and "Cherish The Day". Stuart Matthewman (guitar & sax) Andrew Hale (keyboards) and the underappreciated Leroy Osborne (backing vocals) help round out this solid, transistional effort. The spare, stripped down funky soundscapes painted here chart the the direction these men would follow 4 years later in Sweetback. Ms. Adu as always is in wonderful voice. Her achingly lovely contralto is front and center on every cut, (the instrumental piece that closes the album being the only exception) and you can actually hear tears in her delivery on tracks like "Cherish The Day", "Kiss Of Life" and the acoustic gem "Like A Tattoo". Not a bad song to be found here, and none of it ever sounds dated or pretentious. A Modern Classic.

OK. For starters, Sade is not a main-stream pop diva like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, or Celine Dionne. In fact there are very few female singers like her: past, present, and future. So if you like any of the previously mentioned cuties, don't purchase any of Sade's albums. Please don't. I beeseech you. Especially this one!

Having said this, Sade is, from my definition, the epitome of what a diva should be: soulful, honest, ethereal, and talented; and Love Deluxe, while not her most accessible album, is by far, I believe, her most emotional and can be felt in each and everyone of her songs. This honesty and soul probably stems from the fact that she writes or co-writes most of her material which creates undeniably personal atmosphere. This album transports me to her world; a very beautiful one indeed!

I simply melt every time I hear "Cherish The Day" and the phrase, "If you were mine/If you were mine/I wouldn't want to go to heaven." Now that's love - pure and simple. And that's what I found in this album: purity and simplicity. That is the formula for life!: purity+simplicity=love and is why, because of my unbridled passion for this LP, it has taken the number three (#3) slot on my "Top Thirteen Albums To Be Buried With" list. If this makes any sense at all to whomever reads this, buy it. You won't regret it. Highlights: I Couldn't Love You More, Like A Tattoo, Cherish The Day, & Bullet Proof Soul.

I'm the number one fan of Sade, of course. So I would like to
tell you that this cd (and all of her others) is a must have for
your music library! It sounds timeless, the volcals are purely
sade, smoky and breezy. At the time that this cd came out, I
was going through a 3 month seperation from my partner and my
heart felt like it had been kicked around and then run over.
Sade's song "I couldn't love you more" inspired me to mend things
back together in my relationship. Well, long story short, we are
still together, and will be celebrating 16 years together.
Believe me, there will be a lot of "Love Deluxe"
playing at our anniversary party. Sade always has the
talent to make a grown man cry. Her love songs are so eloquent, her voice like velvet.
From the rock guitar strings of "No Ordinary Love" to the simple
piano and brass in "Cherish the Day" you will understand why Sade
named this recording "LOVE DELUXE" Because it is!!!!!!

Oh yes, there definitely are spaces in time between Sade's albums, and while possibly frustrating, each one proves worth the wait.

The instrumentation has changed a bit, and I do miss the use of the sax in creating a cozy cocktail lounge type atmosphere. But that really isn't all that big a deal because this release still features Sade Adu's sultry solos and a good beat that maybe is a bit more of a world type beat now than a jazz beat.

Previous Sade records started with three or four really super strong songs and then gradually tapered off, though all were still high quality. However, this one has six varied and strong cuts spaced through the nine.

We start off with "No Ordinary Love", soulful, wistful, & a bit sexy, portraying a real woman and her feelings in a way so that any man should want such a woman in his life. Yeah, that is a strong song.

And suddenly we switch to "Feel No Pain". Sade Adu has a way with songs that portray the harsher side of life. There was "Clean Heart" on "Stronger than Pride", and while I felt (probably all by myself in that feeling) that it seemed jarring in a set of love songs, here, the transition in mood seems smoother, more right. Neither this nor "Pearls" later on are true message songs, but they do tell us of a different aspect of life. Sade Adu does well on the meaningful songs.

"I Couldn't Love You More" and "Like A Tattoo" struck me as much lighter, but giving a breathing space before going into a strong and fervent trio of songs. "Kiss of Life" is a song that's totally absorbing, and the follow up "Cherish The Day" no less so. And then comes the sad but beautiful "Pearls" where we hear Sade Adu soaring into angelic tones. That just has to be my personal favorite, hard though it is to pick a favorite from all the absolute winners. The words here tell us of a life we don't really want to know about.

I consider "Bullet Proof Soul" a slighter number, but again a breathing space before we go into the concluding instrumental. Of all the instrumentals on Sade Cds, "Mermaid" is the one that gets to me, and the first time that I thought the instrumental every bit as good as the vocals.

I really like this disk. Some won't and that's their loss. Yes, I liked "Promise" a bit more, but not all that much more. Would be nice if we could rate with half stars because this would definitely be 4 1/2 stars in my book.

Sade's wonderful singing, along with Mellow sounds & Sweeps makes this album special, different. It's a bit sparse, monotonic but this what makes you flow in its wonderful atmosphere. Warm and unforgettible melodies, great combinations of electronic and acoustic sounds, great production, great performances. I never heard lovesongs which sound so honest from the heart. This touches the listenner's heart. Sade makes me vibrate.

If I were banished to a desert island and I could only bring one CD this would be it. If you don't already have it order it today.

This is a great disc. Every song is perfect. There is a feeling about this disc. It's like it's floating in an eerie, hypnosis. Did you ever fly in a plane and it starts to descend. Very quiet. Still. Very slow hip-hop. Very comforting. The music interacts perfectly with the voice. My favorite songs are "No Ordinary Love", and "Bullet Proof Soul". That line," there's nothing like you and I baby", is something I totally relate to. I can hear that over and over. Also I wish I had a bullet proof soul, but I don't. Even the slightly cheesy sax gets integrated into the mix without offending. Very slow. I just sit in one spot when I listen to this. It's excellent music. Sometimes excellent music is so bare and innocent. You have to own this. Especially if you've ever been in a relationship. My heart is broken over mine, and Sade just digs in there. Great stuff.

It took roughly 4 years between the last Sade album Love is stronger than pride and Love deluxe. In that time music changed as it does often other groups came along that were influnced by the Sade sound , the lounge soul sound was begining to loose it's freshness. And what does Sade do? She comes back with a vengence. This time going for an a striped down sound using computer generated drums and keyboards instead of the standard piano and drums. As a long time Sade fan if I'd known of this before I hearing this album I woul've cried foul but...... This album is easily one of her best. Possibly her best. The stripped down synthsized sound which shouldnt fit their sound, fits. In fact it fits like a cowhide leather glove. A soft one. No ordinary live is not just you ordinary Sade single. It's represents a change in direction for the band. The music on Love Deluxe sounds more organic, inrtospective , deeper and hypnotic. It's a far more roamntic album that sade has ever put out to this point. Songs like no ordinary love, i couldn't love you more, kiss of life and cherish the day are romantic jewels that are a pleasure to listen to. There are no songs like is it a crime or love is stronget than pride but that doesn;'t mean that Sade hasn't forgot how to show her emotional side through song. Like a tatoo is one of the sparses songs on love deluxe but it is still none the less a powerful song because of the emotion that Sade puts into it. The same can be said for pearls another song with little instrumentation that is held together by sade's cool, restrained yet still powerful voice. As on her other albums there is an instrumental piece, mermaid which in my opinion is the best of the instrumental pieces on all of their albums is bewitchingly sweet. Another masterpiece that shows that sometimes change is good .