Sade (Band)

Rhye

SWEET TALKER

Brit Jessie Ware invades the Bowery

Aaliyah- and Sade-Inspired Jessie Ware Brings Her "British Electronic Soul Music" To Town

Jessie Ware, 28, is British soul's new leading lady. Her penchant for smooth, '90s r&b has played a major part in shaping her elegant sound, while a strong appreciation for British bass music has enabled her to put a different spin on things. Ware's debut LP, Devotion, entered the UK album chart at ... More >>

A Father's Day Mix Of Songs With Mixed Feelings About Fathers

Every May, there's no shortage of mawkishly sentimental songs to play on Mother's Day, but a month later, there are comparatively few Father's Day equivalents. Sure, there are some treacly tracks like Bob Carlisle's 1997 adult-contempo hit "Butterfly Kisses," but fatherhood is more often than not in ... More >>

The Secret History Sing Their Life

Cataloging the beautiful losers

Live: Yann Tiersen Gets Playful At Irving Plaza

Yann Tiersen Irving Plaza Friday, April 27 Better than: Most of the Philip Glass and Stephin Merritt music I've heard. Skyline, Yann Tiersen's seventh studio album, is only the second album of his current deal with Anti- and, like 2010's Dust Lane, it pioneers sonic territory structurally differen ... More >>

RISING SON

Asia Society presents Arif Lohar

Dirty Money Honeys: Dawn Richard And Kalenna Get Off The Bad Boy Train

When Last Train To Paris, the sole album by the hip-hop/R&B trio Diddy-Dirty Money, landed in stores 16 months ago, it would've been fair to assume it was the end of something, not the beginning. The mogul formerly known as the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy had been more of a professional cele ... More >>

Sade Pendavis, RIP

One of the things I loved about Sade Pendavis is that, even though I'd written about her more than once, she had no idea who I was and would always greet me with "What was the name again?" Normally that kind of thing would make me crazy, but since so many downtown performers delightfully crawl so f ... More >>

Adele Wasn't The Top Brit Music Star Of The Year

Adele only made a measly $13.1 million last year, though she certainly would have earned way more had she not had to cancel U.S. concert dates when her luscious throat got sick.

Live: Robert Glasper Brings His Glow To The Highline Ballroom

Robert Glasper Experiment Highline Ballroom Tuesday, February 28 Better than: Sitting at home with the radio. "About what time does ?uestlove finish up at the Fallon show? It couldn't have been that long ago, right?" That query, overheard amid the big beats pumping from the Highline Ballroom's s ... More >>

Pazz & Jop 2011: Alex Macpherson On Pistol Annies, PJ Harvey, And Why You Should Always Trust Diddy

To supplement this year's Pazz & Jop launch, Sound of the City asked a few critics to expand on the reasonings behind their voting. Here, the British critic Alex Macpherson finds protest music and love songs that were worth holding on to past the end of the calendar year. Every year, I cavil about ... More >>

Bruce Springsteen's New Single, And Four Other Songs That Might Show Up On Pazz & Jop 2012

Last night at midnight—just like the old days!—the new single from Bruce Springsteen, "We Take Care Of Our Own," premiered on the radio—just like the, oh, you know. The song, taken from Springsteen's forthcoming Wrecking Ball (out March 6), is a slow-build, string-spangled anthem t ... More >>

This Week in the Voice: The Year in Film, 10 Best Live Shows

​This week in the Voice, out today: our new Year in Film poll along with criticism from J. Hoberman, Karina Longworth, and others. Winner of Best Film: The Tree of Life. Winner of Worst Film: I Melt With You. Maura Johnston rates the 10 best live shows she saw this year, including Beyoncé, ... More >>

Frank Ocean Calls In Sick To His New York Show

​Last night Frank Ocean was scheduled to play his first New York show at the Bowery Ballroom, but about an hour before the 9 p.m. scheduled showtime the word came down via his Tumblr: He was too sick to perform, having contracted some sort of illness in Los Angeles a few days ago that apparent ... More >>

Live: Sade Reaches Out To The People At Nassau Coliseum

Sade w/John Legend Nassau Coliseum Tuesday, June 21 Better than: Date night at home. It's probably obvious to say that Sade makes "mood music." The velvety, sultry voice of Sade Adu serves as the emotional center, radiating feeling even when it's seemingly at its most reserved; her phrasing open ... More >>

Summer Guide: Don't Take Brad Paisley to the Airport Strip Club

The country star likes six strings, not G-strings. Plus, summer music picks

Live: Diddy Has A Family Reunion At The Hammerstein Ballroom

Diddy-Dirty Money, Tyga, Lloyd Hammerstein Ballroom Friday, April 22 Better Than: That time Diddy's son took Nicki Minaj to his 16th birthday party. "Diddy's not so much my thing," said a friend as we waited amid hundreds of fans and at least ten gigantic spinning cardboard cutouts of Ciroc bott ... More >>

Live: Hooray For Earth Throw A Wednesday-Night Dance Party At Pianos

Hooray for Earth's Noel Heroux, settling in. Pics by Puja, more below.​Hooray for Earth/ArpLine Pianos Wednesday, November 3 Better Than: Most Wednesday-night DJ residencies. Last night, Hooray For Earth kicked off their month-long residency at Pianos, the first of four such November shows, ... More >>

Live: GAYNGS Bring Justin Vernon, Sax Solos to the Music Hall of Williamsburg

Photos by Shoshanah TarkowOne heck of a Minneapolis "Musical Super-Family." Better than: a sax solo, by any other name GAYNGS is not a small concept. The slow-jammin' Minneapolis collective, led by Ryan Olson, is a rotating crew of 23 musicians that includes Zack Coulter and Adam Hurlburt of So ... More >>

Jay-Z+Alicia Keys+Janelle Monae+Sade

What This Year's Bizarre Chart Results (Arcade Fire! #1!) Say About the State of Music in 2010

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!​If the band Spoon can be trusted, then Billboard is about to announce (and here we are!) that the Arcade Fire and their label, Merge, have the #1 record in the country. (They've already done it in the UK.) The Suburbs sold 156,000 copies its first week out, ... More >>

Explaining the Success of Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Which Has Sold More Copies Than 50 Cent's Before I Self-Destruct and That Joanna Newsom Record Combined

​A small shift at the top of the charts this week -- snoozy country act Lady Antebellum retakes the top spot, with Need You Now selling 126,000 copies to the smoky Sade album Soldier Of Love's 79,000 -- is followed by a slew of debuts from artists of varying notoriety. Polarizing American Idol ... More >>

Week in Review: I Sweat Nonsense

Ever feel like Sid Vicious is just kinda watching you? Photo by Sam Horine.​In the week we made Jay-Z's signature gas face at the bunch of hacks and pretenders posing as Guns N' Roses until dudes got the hell out of town, we also posted rants about everything from LMFAO not punching Mitt Romne ... More >>

On Sade and the Virtues of Scarcity

Sade, hiding. Photo courtesy ThinkTank Marketing.​This week's album charts were topped by Sade's Soldier Of Love, the smoky soul singer's sixth full-length and first since 2000's Lovers Rock. Soldier accomplished the rarer-than-ever feat of going gold in its first week of release, selling 502, ... More >>

Listening To Rappers Gush Over Sade Will Seriously Never Get Old

Sade media-blitz week is winding down (much to David Letterman's dismay) -- looks like her Soldier of Love, despite its rampant iciness, will top next week's Billboard chart with ease. It's nice to have something/someone we can all agree on. With that in mind. our arch-enemies over at Vulture corr ... More >>

Q&A: Hot Chip on One Life Stand, Recording With Peter Gabriel, and How Kebab Fat Ruined Their Studio

Ever since Hot Chip got home from its seemingly never-ending world tours in support of Made in the Dark, the English quintet has been laying groundwork for their next five years. Guitarist Al Doyle and synth player Felix Martin built their own recording studio. Vocalist and synth player Joe Goddar ... More >>

Sade Does "Soldier Of Love" For David Letterman, Who Has Occasional Trouble Saying Craig Ferguson's Name

It's media-blitz week for the Ice Queen, which, if she herself is to be believed, Sade does not enjoy, at all. But she rips into "Soldier of Love" here anyway -- everyone's ultra-somber expression might amuse you at first, but eventually she tears into her new record's title track with aplomb. Dav ... More >>

Talking With Meshell Ndegeocello

She's partial to the occasional $200 bottle of wine (and Sting)

Week in Review: We Got Arrested at Your Benefit Show

In the short week that we outsourced absolutely nothing to India (not even the phoner we didn't do with the guy who plays trumpet for Cake), we got even less cosmopolitan and global when Cannes correspondent J. Hoberman came back and showed up at the office like the rest of us. Except, unlike him, w ... More >>

Long-Dormant Pop-Soul Icon Report: The Imminent Return of Both Sade and Maxwell

Yeah, that Sade, she of "Smooth Operator" and "By Your Side," maybe the best first-dance wedding song of the past decade. The latter hails from her last record, 2000's elegant Lover's Rock; the follow-up -- which longtime fans knew better than to even bother anxiously awaiting, as Sade clearly lov ... More >>

Are You In Love?

Rock stars, dating experts, and cartoon characters talk about Valentine's Day

Drunk and Disorderly: A First-Time Director's Bawdy Goblet of Dire

The 'Other' R&B

Sophistipop at summer's end, remembering the global fusion of the '70s

The Resurrection and the Light

Ray Charles compels 12 disciples to tell us just exactly who they are

Smooth Saxman Unveils Harmonic Heat and Stretches Style

Music

Get My Fill I'm Chilly Chill

TV Commercials, Old Ravers, and Australian Weirdos Surrender to Chillout's Narcoleptic Bliss

The Highest, Most Exalted One

Aaliyah, 1979–2001

Good Fly, No?

The Nerd Behind the Mask

Listings

Waking the Dread

Higher Ground

Erykah in Stanklove

Fool’s Paradise

Tombstone Blues

Electric Dinner Party

In the Clear

He Wants You To Want Him