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Diamond Life
 
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Diamond Life [CD]

Sade | Format: Audio CD
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
Price: £5.47 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
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Amazon's Sade Store

Music

Image of album by Sade

Photos

Image of Sade

Videos

Music video - Sade's Soldier of Love

Biography

Helen Folasade Adu was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. Her father was Nigerian, a university teacher of economics; her mother Anne was an English nurse. The couple met in London while he was studying at the LSE and moved to Nigeria shortly after getting married. When their daughter was born, nobody locally was prepared to call her by her English name, and a shortened version of Folasade stuck. Then, when… Read more in Amazon's Sade Store

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Frequently Bought Together

Diamond Life + Promise + Stronger Than Pride
Price For All Three: £14.93

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  • In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Promise ~ Sade Audio CD £5.47

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Stronger Than Pride ~ Sade Audio CD £3.99

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    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Product details

  • Audio CD (13 Nov 2000)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: CD
  • Label: Sony Music CMG
  • ASIN: B0000517HK
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  Mini-Disc  |  MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 10,382 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Samples
Song Title Time Price
Listen  1. Smooth Operator 4:58£0.89
Listen  2. Your Love Is King 3:39£0.89
Listen  3. Hang On To Your Love 5:53£0.89
Listen  4. Frankie's First Affair 4:38£0.89
Listen  5. When Am I Going To Make A Living 3:26£0.89
Listen  6. Cherry Pie 6:18£0.89
Listen  7. Sally 5:22£0.89
Listen  8. I Will Be Your Friend 4:43£0.89
Listen  9. Why Can't We Live Together 5:28£0.89

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

It could have been that Sade (collectively, the vocalist Sade Adu and her band) would have remained the darlings solely of the British underground rare-groove scene, but the sound of Diamond Life proved irresistible to the mainstream, and the rest is history. Caught at the beginning of her career in 1985, Sade's cool vocals and exotic looks grabbed everyone's attention. But equally as important to Diamond Life's success was the velvet muscle of the band's accompaniment, a sinewy after-hours groove, laden with minimalist funk. Eight of the nine tracks are self-penned. Straddling R&B and pop, this disc lays out the hooks and sultry allure that became Sade's soulful standard--intelligent and sexy at the same time.--Derek Rath

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Pure Liquid Elegance 27 Nov 2003
Format:Audio CD
There has never been a singer quite like Sade Adu. Although she is of Nigerian origin, and her voice is clearly that of a woman of color, she is equally influenced by her English upbringing; the resulting combination of African heat and British coolness, particularly when combined with her band's elegant mixture of American and European jazz idioms and African rythmns, is as original today as when it first appeared. Superficially cool and seemingly detached, everything about the band simmers with an underlying passion.

While Adu and her band have done many memorable recordings since they debuted, DIAMOND LIFE remains their single finest recording: it is pure liquid elegance every step of the way. Opening with "Smooth Operator," which makes particularly good use of Stuart Matthewman on sax, the entire collection flows effortlessly from cut to cut--some dark, some slightly dissonate, some slightly upbeat, and every one of them memorable in the most haunting way imaginable.

Like "Smooth Operator," both "Your Love Is King" and "Hang on to Your Love" actually broke into the charts as singles--a truly amazing feat for a jazz-oriented club band in the ultra-synthetic 1980s. But in truth, be it "Cherry Pie," "When Am I Gonna Make A Living," or "Sally," there isn't a bad cut on the entire CD. Everything shimmers with a sultry yet subtle beauty, pulling you into an atmosphere in which you seem to feel the pulse of a midnight lounge, the atmosphere of the club scene fromw which Sade emerged.

As a band, Sade is sexy, cool, smart, delicately shaded, and brilliantly shaped, and the aptly titled DIAMOND LIFE is perhaps one of the best debut recordings made over the past fifty years. Mix yourself a drink, turn the lights down low, drop this on the stereo--and dream of smoke, the clink of cocktail glasses, and the murmur of voices gone suddenly silent when the band begins to play. Strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By not_a_real_folkie VINE™ VOICE
Format:Audio CD
Sade suffered from the same lazy pigeon-holing that plagued Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" and countless other albums over the years. The cliche was that you put Dire on to demonstrate your new, shiny compact disc player, and you put Sade's "Diamond Life" on to show your dinner-party guests how sophisticated, yet contemporary you were.

Playing this remastered CD just over 20 years on from the album's first release, the quality of the band's playing and the soul in the vocals comes as quite a surprise. None of these tracks are bad. Some are exceptional. "Hang on to your love" ploughs a muscular groove that is marvellously tight. "Smooth Operator" either celebrates or lampoons the yuppie male of the eighties, concluding ultimately ambiguously. "Your love is King" is allegedly about something very intimate, but I couldn't possibly comment... judge for yourself! The other tracks never really let up in terms of sheer class.

The remaster is good in terms of quality, although the original CD certainly wasn't awful. The only minor complaint - and true of so many remastered CDs - why no extra B-side-type tracks, such as the excellent "Spirit" that I remember from the "Smooth Operator" single?

Sade's next album ("Promise") was resolutely uncommercial, and pushed the soulful vibe even further. Meanwhile, however, forget the smoothie dinner-party jibes, this has got more soul than a coachload of today's chart hopefuls.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I have been listening to Sade's music since I was 12, and after 13 years, I still love it. Diamond Life is groovy, nostalgic and this is music you'd want to unwind to and to get in the mood for a slow session. Hits such as Smooth Operator, Hang On To Your Love, Your Love Is King are as timeless as Sade is. There are also some new ones that are growing onto me such as Cherry Pie and Frankie's First Affair. Sally reminds me a bit of Jezebel - not in the beat, but in the story of the song. This album is worth more than 5 stars, but I was a bit disappointed with the product that I received from Amazon because the lyrics were not included - and I felt that the product deserved 4 stars because of this.
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