Required listening from the week in music. Downtempo make-out music edition!

Sade returns after an eight-year hiatus with "Soldier of Love." An interesting study would be to draw a direct correlation between the release of Sade albums and the number of births nine months later. Something for the 2010 Census, perhaps?

Also in stores:
-- Everyone from Blur's Damon Albarn to Mazzy Star frontwoman Hope Sandoval turns up on "Heligoland," the first album from Massive Attack since 2002. What is this, "awesome '90s flashback week"?
-- Brooklyn hipsters Yeasayer mix synth pop, Middle Eastern music and other disparate sounds on "Odd Blood." They're like MGMT-meets–A Flock of Seagulls, with a dash of old-school Michael Jackson ... only much better than that concept sounds.
-- Spooky alt-folky Scout Niblett's "The Calcination of Scout Niblett" is for anyone who thinks Cat Power has gone too mainstream.