MR. DOOL

Sade’s back

The last we heard from Sade, she was crying everyone’s tears in a video that was basically a more melancholy version of this video.  That was way back in 2001, when she was still riding high of off the critical and commercial success of her last studio album Lovers Rock.  Since then a lot of things have changed, chief among them the startling fact that pop stars no longer wear pants.

But more than that, in the past ten years or so, the internet has completely changed the music industry, for better or for worse.  When Lover’s Rock was released, most people were still regularly buying their music on CD from big box stores like Virgin or Tower Records (RIP), and many of today’s most influential music bloggers were teenagers — not exactly the key demographic for Sade’s music.

So it’s been interesting to see how quickly and enthusiastically the blogosphere has embraced Sade’s newest single and release, “Soldier of Love.”  It’s been posted everywhere from music and news sites to style blogs, and while it hasn’t quite reached the fever pitch of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” the day that opus was released, it puts to shame any new video in recent memory not featuring latex body suits and sparking bras.

Which is precisely the point: it’s refreshing to see Sade whip up this attention simply by releasing a song and a video — which while atmospheric, is pretty standard adult contemporary, Sophie Muller fare — and allowing the music to speak for itself, without the typical distractions and stunts that have become so commonplace leading up to album releases, even among seasoned entertainers who probably don’t need to try as hard as they do.  By just making good music, Sade can take a decade-long break and still manage to win over a new generation of fans.

And all of this while wearing (some very shiny) pants.

See the full video at Hypebeast.  Or Bossip.  Or ONTD.  Or The Smoking Section.  Or Speakeasy.  Or anywhere, really.

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