Britain barely charted it. American R&B radio did not
On 15 August 1988 Epic released Nothing Can Come Between Us, the third single from Stronger Than Pride. The album had been out since 3 May. Sade Adu wrote the lyric. The music is credited to Adu, Stuart Matthewman and Andrew Hale. Sade produced the album, with Mike Pela and Ben Rogan beside her. The album cut is 4:21. The 7-inch is a remix, about 3:55. Record Mirror, noting the release in its 27 August issue, said the flip was a new song, Make Some Room, and that the CD also carried You’re Not the Man.
The record was made in 1987 and 1988 at Compass Point in Nassau, Studio Miraval in the south of France, and Studio Marcadet in Paris. Paul Denman plays bass. Matthewman plays guitar and saxophone. Hale plays keyboards. Dave Early and Martin Ditcham handle drums and percussion, with Paul Cooke also on drums. Trumpet comes from Terry Bailey and Gordon Matthewman. The lyric stays plain: in the middle of the madness, hold on. It is about faith and trust, sung without a speech.
The same Record Mirror week carried a review with no patience for the remix, and Ben Thompson in NME, on 27 August 1988, heard the band in a rugged, windswept vein and called the single a disappointment after Paradise. The British notices and the American airplay did not match. Record Mirror also reported that Sade was starting a two-month tour of the United States that month, with British dates expected in the autumn.
Perfectly sung. Perfectly packaged. Perfectly produced. Perfectly marketed. Perfectly dull.
(Record Mirror, 27 August 1988)
The UK chart gave it one week at number 92, on 3 September 1988. The Dutch single chart peaked at 89. In the United States, Billboard’s Hot R&B chart took it to number 3, and Cash Box’s black contemporary chart to number 2. Adult Contemporary stopped at 21. It finished 1988 at number 90 on Billboard’s year-end R&B list. Make Some Room, the B-side, was not on Stronger Than Pride. The 7-inch buyer got a new song. The album buyer already had the longer Nothing Can Come Between Us, placed after Paradise. The song that British pop radio filed as another smooth Sade record was, on R&B radio, one of the band’s biggest singles of that album cycle.
The official video is the band in performance, not a concept film with a horse or a desert. On Stronger Than Pride the track sits between Paradise and Haunt Me. Later compilations, including The Best of Sade in 1994, kept the album length, not the 7-inch. The argument in the lyric is short. The chart argument is shorter. Britain let it pass. American R&B radio did not.
