For awhile now, I’ve had “Best Debut Albums” written in my notes as a potential theme week. I’ve come close to compiling my list of favorites a couple of times.
But I put the brakes on it because I knew I’d end up with a roster of my usual suspects: Ben Folds Five, R.E.M., Miranda Lambert, The Smiths, Lana Del Rey, The Beatles, Talking Heads, etc., etc. All of those acts have amazing debut albums, sure, but it’s not exactly illuminating for me to trot them out one more time.
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.
Closing out my look at the year 1984, here’s an album I had forgotten I knew so well: Diamond Life, the debut release by English band Sade (fronted by Nigerian-born Brit Sade Adu).
This release kicked off a 26-year career that saw every album (six in total) achieve multi-Platinum status. Most of those records came out between 1984 and 1992, with eight and 10-year gaps between the final two albums. But through it all, Sade’s smooth jazz meets R&B groove hit a consistent sweet spot.
‘Cherish the Day’ is the fourth Sade song to show up on Random Weekends, and the second in a little more than a month (‘The Sweetest Taboo’ had its day back in June).
This song was the fourth single from Sade’s 1992 album Love Deluxe, which also featured the excellent ‘No Ordinary Love’ and ‘Kiss of Life.’ All of those songs create such a gorgeous, seductive mood.
‘The Sweetest Taboo’ was the lead single on Sade’s 1985 album Promise. It stayed on the U.S. Hot 100 for six months, while the album topped the charts in both the U.S. and the U.K.
This was back when an easy listening light jazz/soul act could become a chart-topper. I guess the closest we get to this sort of thing these days is Adele, but she’s not quite in the same mold.
Meet Me In Montauk 