djzyonseven
I almost did the Best of The S.O.S. Band.
But… I couldn’t get past this album.
This album….Whew!
Sands of Time reminds me of the exact moment my life changed direction. ⏳
The S.O.S. Band released the album on April 9, 1986.
I’d turned seventeen less than two months earlier.
By summer, I left my small Georgia town during my senior year and moved to Orlando to live with my birth mother.
I had no idea what was waiting for me.
I only knew a new life was beginning.
And this album was part of its soundtrack. 🎶
Sands of Time was the group’s sixth studio album and the final one from its original era with lead singer Mary Davis.
Primarily written and produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it brought Atlanta musicianship together with Minneapolis technology.
Drum machines hit hard, keyboards created atmosphere, and those bass lines didn’t merely support the groove.
They knew the assignment! 🎹🔥
The album sounded futuristic without losing its soul.
Mary was the reason.
She could sound confident, vulnerable and cool in the same performance without turning every song into a vocal competition.
She knew how to sit inside a groove and let it breathe.
My favorite was The Finest.
Everything about that record felt perfect.
The groove was pure Jam and Lewis: polished, warm, electronic and funky as hell.
Mary leads with complete confidence, while Alexander O’Neal and Cherrelle add guest vocals without pulling the spotlight away from her.
I used to sing and dance to it in my bedroom over and over.
Don’t judge me.
That bedroom was booked, busy and sold out. 😂
The song reached No. 2 on Billboard’s R&B chart, No. 44 on the Hot 100, No. 8 on the dance chart and No. 17 in the UK. But numbers can’t explain why it still feels so good.
That 6:09 album version takes its time because a groove that fine shouldn’t be rushed.
My other picks are Even When You Sleep, Borrowed Love and the title track, Sands of Time.
Even When You Sleep opens the album with quiet tension. Borrowed Love is smooth, moody and emotionally messy, which is exactly where great slow jams like to live. 😏
Sands of Time feels different to me now than it could have at seventeen.
Back then, time meant possibility.
Now I understand what time carries away, and what music somehow allows us to keep. ❤️
The nine-track album also includes Nothing But the Best, No Lies, Two Time Lover and Do You Still Want To?
The latter two were produced by the band, an important reminder that real musicianship lived beneath all that technology.
Commercially, Sands of Time reached No. 4 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart, No. 44 on the Billboard 200 and No. 15 in the UK.
It was certified gold in the United States.
It also arrived the same year Jam and Lewis produced Janet Jackson’s Control.
That was another of my favorite albums from ’86.
You can hear the shared DNA, but neither artist loses her identity.
That’s elite production.
A couple of years later, I would begin DJing.
From house parties to the ice rink.
Then college radio. Much later, 1.FM.
But in 1986, I was still in my bedroom singing The Finest, standing at the edge of Orlando, adulthood, love and a completely different trajectory.
None of us can stop the Sands Of Time.
But music gives us somewhere to keep what time carries away. ⌛🎧
DJZ7
#TheSoundtrackOfWhoIBecame, #TheSOSBand, #SandsOfTime, #TheFinest, #MaryDavis, #JimmyJamAndTerryLewis, #BorrowedLove, #EvenWhenYouSleep, #80sRnB, #QuietStorm, #TabuRecords, #AlbumBlast
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