“I Would Never Have Guessed,” a new offering from Sade’s forthcoming 28-track two-disc hits package The Ultimate Collection, turns every candle-lit romantic notion about her music on its ear.
Instead of pulling in close, she is turning her back on a lover – despite the conflicting emotions that it stirs up. After a lonely piano intro, Sade takes the lyrics into a twilight shadow that’s unhinted at in the urbane silken grooves of “Smooth Operator” or “The Sweetest Taboo”: “I know that the damage is already done; there’s no going back,” she sings, with a tender firmness. “I would never have guessed … we’d come to this.”
In keeping with this nervy new attitude, Sade’s also shed the lithe island rhythms that defined her initial sound. In fact, they’d almost seem like a busy artifice within this new, bluntly honest context. Anything louder than a whisper would be too showy.
By the end, as a quiet solitude envelops her, Sade sounds torn to bits, stripped down to a shivering rawness. The built-in romanticism of her oaken purr starts to work in direct contrast. It’s a new sound, from a familiar voice, one that’s learned some things along the way.
Sade will release ‘The Ultimate Collection’ on May 2 in the UK and on May 3 in America, then is set to launch a tour through Europe, the UK, and North America beginning April 29. The North American leg of the tour, also featuring John Legend, is Sade’s first tour in the region in 10 years. Tickets for the North American shows can be purchased via Ticketmaster and LiveNation. To purchase tickets for the European tour, visit www.sade.com.
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