SADE - LOVE DELUXE Price: €12.99 Format: Compact Disc Availability: Immediate Dispatch

With her smooth, smoky, soul-pop sound and elegant image, Sade became a ubiquitous figure in the mid 1980s, turning out hit after hit with her first three albums. After an unusually long gap of four years, she delivered the final album of her career's initial phase, LOVE DELUXE.
None of the songs here radically depart from the style Sade established on her earlier recordings; her soft, cooing, breathy vocal style--sort of a Julie London for the '80s--and mellow, jazz-tinged arrangements are still at the forefront. If anything, there's an even more languorous feel to such tunes as "No Ordinary Love" (which would be her last Top 40 hit) and "Cherish the Day". No matter how close to slow-jam/quiet-storm heaven things get, though, the low-key funk inflections that pop up periodically still keep things percolating--simmering but never boiling over. Sade wouldn't release another album until 2000's LOVER'S ROCK, but she left her fans plenty to remember her by with LOVE DELUXE.