Sade: The Best Of Sade (2LP) [EPIC]

Why you'll love it

Our best-selling Sade record, which, to be fair, is a bit like being the tallest giraffe. Every single from Diamond Life through Love Deluxe, plus "Jezebel," "Like a Tattoo," "Pearls" and the Philadelphia soundtrack gem "Please Send Me Someone to Love."

This edition

• 2LP set, 16 tracks over four sides
• The singles in their original 7-inch edits, plus Sade's own remixes of "Never as Good as the First Time" and "Cherish the Day"
• Cover portrait of Sade Adu by Albert Watson

About the album

Say this for Sade Adu and her longtime band: they've never exactly overburdened the marketplace. Six full-length LPs in 40 years is the sort of work rate most of us can only dream of putting on a CV.

The Best Of Sade arrived in 1994 and gathers the singles from the first four albums, from 1984's Diamond Life to 1992's Love Deluxe, then slips in "Jezebel," "Like a Tattoo," "Pearls" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love" as if it had simply found them in a coat pocket. Three decades on, plenty have tried to bottle the cool-as-a-cucumber thing Adu and Co. do so effortlessly. The cucumber remains unbottled.

It's also that rare compilation that plays like an album, front to back, which is lucky, because getting up to move the needle would rather spoil the mood.

"The timeless sound and class always exhibited makes Sade Adu and her band a no-brainer for an appealing compilation."
Jason Elias, AllMusic

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Epic (cat# 88875180591), a reissue of the 1994 collection.