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On Lovers Rock, Sade gives them space, wisely surrendering Matthewman’s velveteen saxophone, the signature instrumentation that threatened to calcify them as a relic of the ’80s easy listening cohort. Instead of the sumptuous boudoir Sade had unintentionally helped turn into a cliche with the ubiquity of songs like “Smooth Operator” and “Your Love Is King,” they turn up the natural sensuality of a winding breeze and a low, gibbous moon. Adu’s instinct for sexiness carries across Lovers Rock, this time her lower register hinting at the kind of intimacy that comes from gentle restraint and sustained eye contact. Sade’s prolonged hiatuses now function as a social contract between the band and its fans, the gap steadily growing between each album.

But the eight years between Love Deluxe and Lovers Rock was unusually long, even for the market demands of the pre-streaming era. In Sade’s case, the ’90s equivalent of “drop the album” memes manifested as gossip: that Adu had deep psychological or addiction issues, that only something dark and catastrophic could explain a desire for privacy. The rumors were so persistent, and so vague, that even in 2020, YouTubers can draw in hundreds of thousands of views to videos promising to explain Adu’s sabbaticals. In fact, Adu says, she was simply living, collecting personal life experiences to use as the source material for Lovers Rock. Slivers of those years are evident across the album: in the electricity of new love on “Flow,” the transformative joy of motherhood on “The Sweetest Gift,” and the torturous anticipation of heartbreak on “Somebody Already Broke My Heart.” 

Lovers Rock further expands the conventional understanding of love in pop music. Adu places social, humanist love right alongside romantic and interpersonal love. “Slave Song” and “Immigrant” are among the most moving of the band’s oeuvre: “Teach my beloved children, who have been enslaved, to reach for the light continually,” Adu prays on the former. “Isn’t it just enough how hard it is to live? Isn’t it hard enough just to make it through a day,” she begs on the latter. The cultural influence of Caribbean Britishness had long shaped Sade, but here it’s literalized. The album’s title and the sounds throughout point to the specific style of romantic reggae that shaped much of London youth culture in the 1970s. Lovers Rock was also, for Adu, who was then approaching middle age, a full circle meaning: She was spiritually indebted to the genre, as her career in music had accidentally been kickstarted by a chance run-in at a lovers rock concert. And the relationship that underscored much of it had led her to spend years in Jamaica during that sabbatical. — via Pitchfork

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The album was recorded at Power Plant Studios (England). The vinyl audio uses high resolution digital transfers of the stereo master mixes, from the original studio recordings, remastered at half-speed at Abbey Road Studios. The elaborate, half-speed mastering process has produced exceptionally clean and detailed audio whilst remaining faithful to the band’s intended sound. No additional digital limiting was used in the mastering process, so the album benefits from the advantage of extra clarity and pure fidelity, preserving the dynamic range of the original mixes, presented on pure 180-gram heavyweight black vinyl. The original album sleeve and packaging elements have been meticulously reproduced in exact detail with authentic paper and printing methods.

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Label: Epic, Sony Music
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Half-Speed Mastered, 180g
Reissued: 2024 / Original Release: 2000
Genre: Funk / Soul
Style: Soul

File under: Contemporary R&B
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