Sade

Sade has always been more than a design for living but roughly half the songs on her third release seem like studio funk jams hastily turned into songs. Thankfully, the ballad half of the disc carries the day, with the title track, "Haunt Me" and "I Never Thought I'd See The Day" showing off her strong songwriting chops as well as her stylistic elegance.

Like Wally Pipp, who took a day off from the Yankee lineup and was permanently replaced
by Lou Gehrig, Sade has risked usurpation by more talented players during her long
weekend away from recording. In that three-year break, the soft-female-soul market,
which the remarkable success of her 1984 debut stimulated, has been filled by a rush of
other artists, some far superior (Anita Baker, Regina Belle), some nearly inept (S... More >

I'm glad this self-made aristocrat has a human side, but I prefer her image: now that she's singing billets-doux, she's even further from rewarding the concentration she warrants than she used to be. Touching your beloved with a few true cliches is hard enough. For an audience you have to come up with something that doesn't fade into the background like the new age jazz she went pop with. (Grade - B-)