Sade - Soldier of Love - Music & Performance - CD

2010 release, the sultry Pop/Jazz vocalist's first album since the multi-platinum Lovers Rock in 2000. Soldier of Love was recorded in England and produced by the band and their longtime collaborator Mike Pela. Since the release of their debut album, the band has seen all five of their studio albums land in the Top 10 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart, selling a total of more than 50 million worldwide to date. They've been nominated for American Music Awards, MT V Video Music Awards and have won three Grammy Awards. The first single 'Soldier of Love', features a pulsating and anthemic drum beat along with haunting vocals that Sade is known for.

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"). The bleakness is tempered with themes of survival and recovery, and a song that is truly sweet ("Babyfather"). Relatable most to those who are experiencing solitude created by romantic desertion, this is not your mother's Sade album. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide

Performer	Sade
Music genre	Pop Rock
Music release type	Album
Media format	CD
Original release date	2010
Language	English
Is collectible	Y
Has parental advisory label	N
Number of discs	1
Awards won	Grammy Awards
Track listing	The Moon and the Sky, Soldier of Love, Morning Bird, Babyfather, Long Hard Road, Be That Easy, Bring Me Home, In Another Time, Skin, The Safest Place
Record label	Epic
Composer	SADE
Songwriter	Sade
Music producer	Mike Pela
Track name	Soldier of Love
Duration	42 min
Music media format	CD
Is edited	N
Is enhanced	N