Love Deluxe

Commercial performance

The album peaked at number three on the US Billboard 200 and has sold 3.4 million copies in the United States. The album was later certified four times platinum by the RIAA for shipments of four million copies. The album was also commercially successful else where reaching number one in France, and reaching the top ten in New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The album went on to be certified Gold in the United Kingdom.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau felt that half of the album cannot qualify with Sade's most memorable songs and particularly panned the lyric about a Somalian woman who "hurts like brand-new shoes" on the song "Pearls". Amy Linden of Entertainment Weekly stated that the album "surges with emotion, but the mostly lush ambient music on Love Deluxe is low on the oomph meter." In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Ron Wynn wrote that it "marked a return to the detached cool jazz backing and even icier vocals that made her debut album a sensation" with an "urbane sound."

Aftermath

Following the release of Love Deluxe the band would embark on a seven-year hiatus, during this time she came under media scrutiny with rumors of depression and addiction and later went on to give birth to her first child. During this time the other members of the band Matthewman, Denman, and Hale went on to other projects, including the low-key Sweetback, which released a self-titled album in 1996. Matthewman also played a major role in the development of Maxwell's career, providing instrumentation and production work for the R&B singer's first two albums.

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Love Deluxe.