Sade Soldiers On
“Soldier of Love,” Sade
I used to work out of this coffee shop in Bed-Stuy that was always playing 80s/early 90s urban adult contemporary over the speakers: Anita, Toni, Terence Trent, Whitney, Chaka, Luther, Sade. You could look out the window, across the street, at run-down old Brooklyn storefronts, the signs unchanged since the days of “Sweet Love,” and for a few seconds it was possible to feel like it was 1985. Then some new, incredible song would come over the speakers, and I would snap back into the now, Google the lyrics, download the shit out of that song, and, when I got home and was confident I was alone, sing and dance along to it, loudly, perversely, in a way that would frighten you.
I mention this because Sade’s got a new album coming out next month, and the single’s dropped, and – big surprise – it’s another perfectly executed epic love song. Ain’t nobody in the game can touch Sade on a track like this. Nobody. As befitting the lyrics, the song has a militaristic aesthetic. (This vibe is getting a little played out but I give it a pass because 1. The instrumentation is varied and innovative, and 2. This is Sade we’re talking about here.) The mood is tragic, like we’re marching down some perilous path, our lives uncertain. But this is how Sade has always seemed to view love – as a deadly serious endeavor. Even if you don’t agree, it’s hard not to get swept up in the way Sade presents it. As ever, her voice is rich, thick, pure, haunting, angelic: beautiful in every way. She looks and sounds just as she did in 1985, when I was three years old, a period of my life I don’t remember but have the pleasure of imagining when I hear Sade Adu’s voice.
FYI
Trey Songz and R. Kellz
His wack attempt at a beef with R. Kelly notwithstanding, Trey Songz had the best fuck jam of 2009. *fans face with newspaper*
Related: Have you guys heard “Echo,” one of the singles on Kellz’z new album? It is hilarious.
Cascada, “Evacuate the Dance Floor”
Cascada is the name of the group, not the blonde girl who sings. Her name is Natalie Horler, and she’s German, and the other two guys in the group are DJ/producers, and they have eurotrash German DJ names that I can’t remember. With “Evacuate the Dance Floor,” together this trio dropped maybe the most average dance-pop song of 2009, a fiercely unremarkable and unoriginal piece of music.
The verse is a Britney crib job. The chorus is all Gaga laser synths. The bridge is a weird “cameo” from some rapper who looks like Bow Wow but whose terrible name is Carlprit. He sounds like Sean Paul doing an Eminem impression, and he opens his breakdown verse by saying, “Guess who’s back?” I was like, “Wait a second, is that Carlprit? He’s back already? I had previously thought he would not be coming back – what’s he going to do now?” Well, then he tells us, on his verse. Actually no wait he doesn’t. He just says a bunch of stuff about dancing on the dance floor. There seems to be some confusion among the performers on this song about whether the dance floor is a destination of fun or an area to be hastily abandoned. Then Horler says “Hey, Mr. DJ…!” through a vocoder and who cares about anything after that because we are dancing right and it’s best not to think very hard about the words why bother because we are having fun and words are only there to fill in the spaces we don’t really even need words right and if I do have to think about the words I prefer them to be words I’ve heard before like Hey Mr. DJ or Guess Who’s Back!!
2010 is going to kick ass. Enjoy:
Here is another list
The Worst Songs of 2009 Featuring a Lyrical Gimmick That Its Writers Hoped Would Turn The Song Into A Long-Term Investment Of Sorts
“Birthday Sex,” Jeremih
“I Love College,” Asher Roth
“Hoedown Throwdown,” Miley Cyrus
“Waking Up in Vegas,” Katy Perry
“Kiss Me Thru the Phone,” Soulja Boy (I actually kind of like this song.)
“LOL,” Arab (this might also be the worst rap of the oughts)
“Small Town USA,” Justin Moore
