Stronger Than Pride
| Sade
Stronger Than Pride
Stronger Than Pride is the third studio album by English band Sade. It was released by Epic Records in the United States on 5 April 1988 and in the United Kingdom on 3 May 1988. In September 2018, Pitchfork placed the album at number 37 on its list of The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s. The album spawned five singles.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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BBC
2012. Stronger Than Pride was a confident, post-fame release, full of infectious, hushed musical sophistication, making it impossible to dislike.
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Albumism
April 3, 2018. . . . the band retreated to The Bahamas and France for some much-deserved R&R, and in the outpouring of creativity that followed, Sade lovingly crafted one of their most ambitious efforts despite its modest album title.
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The QuietUs
May 22, 2013. . . . in the context of late eighties pop, and in a world where music streaming services didn’t exist to offer listeners deep silos of self-directed musical interest, Stronger Than Pride offered a salutary lesson in the accessibility of rich contradictions, one that the musical culture is still absorbing today.
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AllMusic
. . . Sade's dry and introspective tone now had a little more edge, and the lyrics were ironic as well as reflective. This was her third consecutive multi-platinum album, and it matched the two-million-plus sales level of her debut.
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Musoscribe
September 2, 2014. Love is Stronger Than Pride, the third album from Sade (the band named after lead vocalist Sade Adu) was a commercial juggernaut on its original 1988 release, yielding four hit singles in eight months, three of which made the US charts.
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PEOPLE.com
June 20, 1988. Somewhere in the 2½ years since she last released an album, Sade has lost her edge. Rarely does a major performer release an album that has as many dreary gaps in it as this one does.
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Rolling Stone
. . . , Stronger Than Pride is even wispier than Sade's two previous albums; it's so thin and understated that it leaves a mist hanging over the turntable (or, more likely, the CD player).
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ATL Collective
May 27, 2017. Though recorded in France and the Bahamas, the sound is similar to Sade’s first two releases: gentle ballads and mid-tempo funk. Some hooks just repeat over looping grooves. And as always, Sade Adu’s vocals are buttery and smooth, blending into the arrangements at times like one of the other instruments. Sit back and let the sounds wash over you
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Pitchfork
It’s hard to find a sector of music today that hasn’t been touched by this album. It’s been endlessly sampled by hip-hop artists, and it’s found its way to house DJs and producers across the globe.
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Grown Folks Music
April 6, 2018. This music resonated with me. I think at that point in my life I figured I knew something about love. Something about heartache and heartbreak, I didn’t. What mattered and what matters is the learning, this was a soundtrack, a window if you will.
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Contactmusic.com
April 5, 2019. While it wasn't as well received as their first two records, it was still deserving of its multi-Platinum status and remains one of the greatest funk-soul records of the decade.
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The Diaily Vault
January 10, 2010. Stronger Than Pride serves as a precursor to the R&B-flavored sound the band perfected with their luxuriously sexy Love Deluxe release, from 1992. As I said earlier, this is not one of their greatest achievements, but it is still a slick, chill, and beautiful collection of songs that never seem to age or lose their luster – much like Sade Adu herself.
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AndremusictAlk
January 16, 2018. So in the context of where this took Sade rather than in comparison to what came before,this album is a resounding,romantic and hard grooving success.
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Robert Christgau
I'm glad this self-made aristocrat has a human side, but I prefer her image: now that she's singing billets-doux, she's even further from rewarding the concentration she warrants than she used to be.
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Greenway Music
On Stronger Than Pride, probably Sade's most stripped down and sparse album, the band creates the perfect groove for romance and fulfills the promise of their stunning debut by continuing a sense of sophistication and understated elegance, two hallmarks of the Sade sound. There's no visible strain inSade's singing, and what she does within the boundaries of her range is exquisite.
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