The Ultimate Collection (Sade album)


The Ultimate Collection is the second greatest hits album by English band Sade. It was released on 29 April 2011 by RCA Records. The album includes several singles from the band's career, including "Your Love Is King", "Smooth Operator", "By Your Side", "No Ordinary Love" and "Soldier of Love". It also contains four previously unreleased tracks—a cover of Thin Lizzy's 1974 song "Still in Love with You", a remix of "The Moon and the Sky" featuring Jay-Z, and the songs "I Would Have Never Guessed" and "Love Is Found". The band promoted the album with their first concert tour in 10 years, Sade Live. In March 2014, the album was re-released as The Essential Sade under the Sony Legacy umbrella.

Critical reception

Will Hermes of Rolling Stone stated, "Few singers have the consistency of vision to produce a career retrospective that doubles as a seamless 'let's make out on the carpet' mixtape. From 1985's jazzy 'Smooth Operator' to tracks from last year's excellent 'Soldier of Love', it's all state-of-the-art slow-jams all the time, driven by Sade Adu's touch-me-now contralto." Lloyd Bradley of BBC Music commented, "The best thing about this set is it'll allow anybody who didn't quite get the band first time around to catch up." In a mixed review, Jeff Winbush of All About Jazz wrote, "No such luck. As things stand, a more accurate title would be The Adequate Collection because there's little ultimate about this bare bones piece of product."

Commercial performance

The Ultimate Collection debuted at number eight on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 15,184 copies, becoming Sade's seventh top-10 album in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the album entered the Billboard 200 at number seven with 38,000 copies sold in its first week, earning the band their ninth consecutive top-10 album on the chart. As of August 2011, the set had sold 127,000 copies in the United States.

Track listing

Notes
Credits adapted from the liner notes of The Ultimate Collection.

Sade

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Australian Urban Albums 48

Chart Position
Polish Albums 12

Certifications

Release history