Diamond Life (1984) B

1. Hang on to Your Love

"We move in space with minimum waste" -- from "Smooth Operator"

Sade oozes class. Diamond Life, the first in her string of multi-million selling albums, is filled with laid back grooves and tasteful horn charts. But she's a constitutional monarch of an ice queen, not the kind that inspires patriotic fever in her subjects. Her pleas for unity are sincere yet passionless; most of the album is professional yet distinctive only in its detachment.

When there's a hint of eroticism, however, the results are worthwhile. "Smooth Operator" is useful for seducing semipretentious girls, or so I hear. In "Hang on to Your Love" she musters enough passion for the dense prechorus above her comfortable range to convince listeners that she knows what love is. Enough to convince semipretentious boys, anyway.

In the following years Sade has produced a number of good singles. "The Sweetest Taboo" has the aura of the forbidden, in a sex-after-marriage sort of way. The ethereal "No Ordinary Love" features improved lower register singing. "By Your Side" is a straightforward ballad for the adult contemporary market, a niche that should learn that some restraint goes a long way.