Lovers Rock (2000)

Lovers Rock is the fifth studio album by English band Sade, released on 13 November 2000 by Epic Records. The album was titled after a style of reggae music known as lovers rock, noted for its romantic sound and content, which frontwoman Sade Adu listened to in her youth. Lovers Rock was seen as a departure from the band's previous use of jazz elements, opting instead for a wider use of musical elements from soul music, R&B, soft rock, folk music, dub, reggae, neo soul and lovers rock. The album's production has been characterised as sparse, with simple arrangements and reggae flourishes. A concept album, the lyrics focus on both the positive and the negative sides of love; the album's lyrical content also touches upon political themes.

Upon release, Lovers Rock was met with generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised the band's musical direction. The album earned Sade the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2002. Commercially, the album reached number 18 on the UK Albums Chart and number three on the US Billboard 200. It has since been certified platinum by the BPI in the UK, and triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having sold over 3 million copies in the United States by February 2010. The album spawned two singles—"By Your Side" and "King of Sorrow"—and was further promoted by the band's Lovers Rock Tour.

Background

The band's fourth studio album, Love Deluxe, was released on 26 October 1992. The album peaked at number three on the US Billboard 200 and has sold 3.4 million copies in the United States. It was later certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of four million copies. The album was also commercially successful elsewhere, reaching number one in France and the top 10 in the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Following the release of Love Deluxe, the band took an eight-year hiatus, during which Adu came under media scrutiny with rumours of depression and addiction, and later went on to give birth to her first child. During this time, the other members of the band—Stuart Matthewman, Paul S. Denman, and Andrew Hale—worked on side projects, including the band Sweetback, which released a self-titled album in 1996. Matthewman also played a major role in the development of Maxwell's career, providing instrumentation and production work for the R&B singer's first two albums.

Recording

Lovers Rock was recorded over the course of a year, and was influenced by Adu's experiences during the eight-year hiatus. The album's recording took place between September 1999 and August 2000 at three locations—Sarm Hook End in Checkendon, Oxfordshire, Deliverance Studios in London, and El Cortijo Studios in San Pedro de Alcántara, Spain. The band produced and arranged the album; Hale served as the album's keyboards and programmer, Matthewman served as the album's guitarist, programmer, woodwind player whilst Denman provided the album's bass. Mike Pela helped with the co-production of the album and its recording, Andy "Nipper" Davies served as the assistant engineer and Tom Coyne mastered Lovers Rock.

Additional help came from a variety of people. Karl Van Den Bossche supplied the album's percussion, while Nick Ingman supplied the string arrangements on the song "King of Sorrow". Andy Nice provided the cello on "Every Word" and Janusz Podrazik provided keyboards on two of the album's songs "Immigrant" and "It's Only Love That Gets You Through", additional vocals for the album came from vocalist Leroy Osbourne. The album's recording and themes were inspired by Adu's experiences during the previous decade, particularly of how she had become preoccupied with the complexity of other people's lives and extremely unhappy.

Content

Unlike Sade's previous work, Lovers Rock did not contain saxophones or instrumentation, but instead spare, deceptively simple arrangement—sometimes no more than an acoustic guitar. The album's music borrowed reverb and echo effects from dub as well as an ease and fluidity, tougher beats and basslines, from R&B. Ed Hogan of AllMusic stated that Lovers Rock was the first album by the band that contained a more experimental sound with the infusion of mainstream rock elements and strummed guitars. According to Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone, the groove on Lovers Rock is predominantly "light", with "slight reggae flourishes" appearing throughout. He noted that the songs, each lasting around five minutes, rarely vary from one another in rhythm. Del F. Cowie of Exclaim! described Lovers Rock as a collection of songs with sparse arrangements, based upon acoustic guitars with gently applied beats.