Love Deluxe

Love Deluxe is the fourth studio album by English band Sade, released by Epic Records in October 1992 in the United Kingdom and November 1992 in the United States. It differs from Sade's previous three albums by using modernised recording and production techniques. Love Deluxe features a "lush" aesthetic and lyrics about the complexities of love and loss.

Love Deluxe peaked in the top ten of several countries and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its performances, sound and themes. It appears in several lists of the best albums of the 1990s and of all time, including Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and Apple Music's "100 Best Albums".

During 1992, the members of Sade – Sade Adu, Stuart Matthewman, Paul Denman, and Andrew Hale – re-entered the studio after a break following the supporting tour for their previous album Stronger Than Pride (1988). The band worked on Love Deluxe for four months. Adu explained that the album's title comes from her concept of love: "The idea is that it's one of the few luxury things that you can't buy," she said in an interview at the time of the album's release. "You can buy any kind of love but you can't get love deluxe." On the songwriting process, she added: "I collect ideas in my head all the time. The things that most depress you are often the things that you write about."

Love Deluxe marks a shift in Sade's signature sound, straying from their previous live instrumentation – notably almost no live drumming – in favour of a modernised and programmed aesthetic with "lush" production. The album primarily blends the R&B, ambient, and cool jazz genres.

Critics noted the "menacing" and metal-like riffs on the opening track, "No Ordinary Love". Track two, "Feel No Pain", lyrically depicts unemployment woes. Notes of deep house appear on track three, "I Couldn't Love You More". Track four, "Like a Tattoo", was inspired by the story of a war veteran Adu met in a Manhattan bar. "Kiss of Life", track five, was compared to a jazzy Motown groove. Saxophone instrumentation "fills the margins" on track eight, "Bullet Proof Soul".

Pitchfork writer Ivy Nelson described the sound of Love Deluxe as swelling with "darkness", comparing the "yawn and lurch" of its programmed beats to the burgeoning trip hop genre and noting its art pop and chill-out elements. "The band plays with an almost fluid dynamism, audible in the oceanic churn of Matthewman's guitar on 'No Ordinary Love,' or in the way Hale's synth work tends to add long, drowsy auras to his piano chords," Nelson says. "The distance between snare hits on songs like 'No Ordinary Love' and 'Cherish the Day' seems to open a space in which lushness and dread merge."

Love Deluxe was released in the United Kingdom on 26 October 1992, and in the United States on 3 November 1992; both releases were handled by Epic Records. Following its release, the band had a seven-year hiatus, during which Adu came under media scrutiny with rumours of depression and addiction and later gave birth to her first child. During this time, Matthewman, Denman, and Hale pursued other projects and formed the band Sweetback, which released a self-titled album in 1996. Matthewman also provided instrumentation and production work for the first two albums by American R&B singer Maxwell.

Love Deluxe peaked at number 10 on the UK Albums Chart, and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 1 June 1993. In the United States, the album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, and as of May 2003, it had sold 3.4 million copies. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it four-times platinum on 9 November 1994, denoting shipments in excess of four million copies. The album was also commercially successful elsewhere, reaching number one in France and the top 10 in Belgium, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. By April 1993, the album had sold three million copies worldwide, including 220,000 copies in Italy.