Sade: Diamond Life (half-speed master) [EPIC / LEGACY]

Why you'll love it

Diamond Life won the Brit Award for Best British Album and introduced the coolest voice of the '80s. This 2024 edition was half-speed mastered at Abbey Road and recreates the original packaging.

This edition

• Half-speed master, cut at Abbey Road
• Recreates the original packaging
• Epic / Legacy pressing

About the album

Sade Adu studied fashion design, did a little modelling and sang backup in a London band called Pride before she and three of its members (Stuart Matthewman, Paul Denman and Paul Anthony Cook) split off to form their own group. Six weeks at Power Plant Studios with producer Robin Millar later, they had Diamond Life, and the world had a new definition of sophisticated.

It's a minimalist meeting of pop, soul, jazz and Latin rhythms that still sounds impossibly smooth: "Smooth Operator" glides along on Matthewman's sax, "Your Love Is King" is pure romance, "Hang On to Your Love" grooves, and "When Am I Going to Make a Living" has a bit of bite. It won the Brit Award for Best British Album, went multi-platinum around the world and has never once gone out of fashion. This half-speed master gives that famously spacious sound even more room.

Also at Kops: more Sade on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Epic / Legacy, a 2024 half-speed master of the 1984 album.