I won't pretend I'm good at forgiving

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

26/06/88 : Stronger Than Pride - Sade


Our fourth visit with Sade and considering how much I liked Sade's first two albums, it's somewhat peculiar that I don't believe I've ever listened to this one - I guess the three year gap was just enough to make me lose interest but it feels like I should have made the effort at some point in the intervening period. I'm expecting to enjoy it though.

Well, I certainly didn't hate it and it's all very pleasant, but I feel "enjoy" would be overstating matters. It just all kinda slid by without leaving an impression - maybe multiple listens would settle them in there, but when you compare this on first listen with the absolute classics you get on their first two albums there's just nothing here. Which is a shame.

We're at #10 in the charts this week on their eighth week of a seventeen week run with it having peaked at #3 in its first two weeks. The top five this week were Tracy Chapman, Bros, Billy Idol (a new entry which spent its first ten weeks in the top ten), Steve Winwood (another new entry) and a compilation called Nite Flite which is an R&B collection with an impressively well-known roster of artists singing an impressively unknown selection of tracks. The next highest new entry was The Voice Of The Beehive (#13) - it would have been nice to catch up with that.

Wikipedia tells us it's their third album and the first one they produced themselves - because their previous producer, Robin Millar (I don't think I was previously aware of him, but he produced quite a few albums I like) unfortunately went blind. However, given that he's gone on to be knighted and is currently the chair of Chrysalis Records and Scope, it's not exactly held him back. Critically, the reviews were pretty decent but it felt like everyone wasn't quite happy with it, either because it was less or more intense than their previous offerings (I would say it's more intense sonically, but less intense lyrically). Commercially, it did well globally, making the top ten in most countries including #7 in US, #2 in Switzerland and #1 in Italy and The Netherlands. 

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for a couple of quid but if you want an unopened Minidisc version then it's £200 - the limited edition gatefold 180 gram version for £150 seems better (and more useful) value to me. But, whilst there was nothing wrong with any of this, I just didn't get pulled into it in the way I was hoping I would so I will stick with their first two albums.

19/06/88 - A fairly successful album
03/07/88 - Nice enough voice, nice enough songs

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