Early this year, I finished up my Decades look at 1984 by featuring Sade’s debut album Diamond Life. A year later, the band (and the woman it’s named after) returned with Promise, an equally successful follow-up.
I don’t know this album as well as its predecessor. I’m familiar with the hits — ‘Is It a Crime?,’ ‘The Sweetest Taboo,’ and ‘Never as Good as the First TIme’ — and they’re all wonderful. The rest of the album coasts along on a similar jazzy vibe, though the songs don’t measure up to those high points. That wasn’t the case with Diamond Life, which is all bangers, start to finish.
Does that make Promise a sophomore slump? I wouldn’t go that far. The atmosphere of this music is too alluring, and Sade’s vocals too intoxicating, to dismiss. If nothing else, this is a perfect album to play in the background at a sophisticated dinner party.
On a superficial note, Sade Adu has to be one of the five most beautiful women to ever step in front of a microphone. Maybe that’s a future countdown I should plan.
This may come, this may come as some surprise
But I miss you
I could see through all of your lies
But still I miss you
He takes her love, but it doesn’t feel like mine
He tastes her kiss, her kisses are not mine, they’re not mine
He takes, but surely she can’t give what I’m feeling now
She takes, but surely she doesn’t know how
[Chorus]
Is it a crime?
Is it a crime?
That I still want you
And I want you to want me, too
[Verse 2]
My love is wider, wider than Victoria Lake
My love is taller, taller than the Empire State
It dives and it jumps and it ripples like the deepest ocean
I can’t give you more than that, surely you want me back
[Chorus]
Is it a crime?
Is it a crime?
I still want you
And I want you to want me, too
[Verse 3]
My love is wider than Victoria Lake
Taller than the Empire State
It dives, it jumps
I can’t give you more than that, surely you want me back
[Chorus]
Is it a crime?
Is it a crime?
That I still want you
And I want you to want me, too
[Bridge]
It dives, it jumps and it ripples like the deepest ocean
I can’t give you more than that; surely you want it back
[Outro]
Tell me, is it a crime?
Meet Me In Montauk 
I owned this album and mostly played it as you suggested – as background music – but it’s definitely high quality background music.