Sade – Soldier of Love
February 8th, 2010 | 9:00 am est |
Sade’s longest absence yet did not prevent their return from being an event. It at least seemed eventful whenever “Soldier of Love,” released to radio a couple months prior to the album of the same title, was heard over the airwaves. Even with its brilliantly placed lyrical allusions to hip-hop past and present and its mature sound, the single stuck out on stations aimed at teens and twentysomethings, as well as points on the dial that court an older audience. It was the most musical and organic, while also the most dramatic yet least bombastic, song in rotation. Crisp snare rolls, cold guitar stabs, and at least a dozen other elements were deployed with tremendous economy, suspensefully ricocheting off one another as Sade Adu rewrote “Love Is a Battlefield” with scarred, assured defiance.
While the song was an indication of its parent album’s reliance upon organic instrumentation — the band’s use of synthesized textures and programming is greatly diminished — it merely hinted at the dark, even fatalist, depth of heartache conveyed throughout the set. On “Bring Me Home,” Adu is content in resignation (“Send me to slaughter/Lay me on the railway line”), while on “The Moon and the Sky,” she projects a bruised and angered bewilderment (“You lay me down and left me for the lions”). The focus at least switches temporarily to a loved one on “In Another Time,” in what resembles a love letter to (what is likely) a young daughter mistreated by members of both sexes (“Their whispers are hailstones in your face”; “Soon they’ll mean nothing to you”). Although the bleakness is tempered with themes of survival and recovery, and (just) one song that is purely sweet (“Babyfather”), a fair portion of the album’s lyrical content comes off as drained-sounding, only echoed with vanilla arrangements that are merely functional, restrained to a fault, greatly outstripped by “Soldier of Love.” Lacking rhythmic hypnotism and relatable most to those who are experiencing solitude created by romantic desertion, this is not your mother’s Sade album.
You guys changed the ratings of every album by Sade.
Diamond Life: 4 stars, now 4.5 stars
Promise: 3 stars, now 4 stars
Stronger Than Pride: 3 stars, now 3.5 stars
Love Deluxe: 4.5 stars, now 4 stars
Lovers Rock: 4.5 stars, now 3.5 stars
Soldier of Love: now it’s a 3 stars, Sade’s lowest rating after the update.
I agree with some of the changes, but you guys should also start changing the ratings of other artists too, and report them too, that would be awesome. Upgrade some ratings would be great, specially to 5 stars! =]
I know…i hate when they do that too.
but while they’re at it…they need to change Beck’s Sea Change from 4 1/2 stars to five…it was the best album of the zeroes and defined that decade’s mood to a t.
Sea Change is awesome, and in my opinion is a definitive piece of last decade. Totally deserves a 5! =]
Demetrius and Carrie, what are you guys on about? It is one or a few reviewers opinion about a piece of music expressed as a number. Does it really matter, will you like a Sade record better if its rating is changed to a higher number? Read the words of the review, disregard the rating, just a tip.
Beck is easier to admire than love. Sea Change is 3.5 maybe 4 stars, definitely not 5. If you want to know why, you should listen to the artists that Beck took a lot of influence from on that album- John Martyn, the Zombies, other late 60s & 70s singer songwriters- that’s the real deal.
I think Sea Change is the best album Beck ever made up to now. It beat “Loser” Mellow Gold as well. It deserve a 5 stars rating.
i certainly don’t change my personal opinion about records based on reviews. I realize that it’s just one person’s opinion…but this is a respectable source and likely the best music guide on the internet…i just don’t like when they have a swooping change of opinion like they did with Sade’s entire discography. My personal views of the records don’t change but it makes me think that the reviewers here (a lot of whom i respect) may be fickle.