Sade

Most of the videos here were made by photographers, or by a director who was still starting out when the band found her.

Sophie Muller had only just started — her debut was Eurythmics' "I Need a Man" in 1987 — when Sade hired her the following year for "Love Is Stronger Than Pride". She stayed. Three of the videos here are hers, including "No Ordinary Love" and "By Your Side" eight years apart, and beyond this archive she has made more than a dozen for the band, filmed their live tours and shot their album booklets. She also became one of the most in-demand directors in the business, which makes the arrangement unusual: the collaboration outlasted the moment when either side needed it.

Albert Watson came at it from stills. He photographed the portrait of Sade Adu that became the cover of Love Deluxe in 1992, then directed two of that album's videos, "Kiss of Life" and "Cherish the Day". It is the same move Depeche Mode made with their own photographer — hand the camera to the person who already knows how the band should look.

The exception is the earliest and loudest one. "Smooth Operator" in 1984 was shot by Julien Temple, who had made his name filming the Sex Pistols. What he delivered could hardly be further from that: a nightclub, a saxophone, and a singer who refuses to raise her voice.

Fourteen videos across seventeen years, and the through-line is restraint. No narrative reversals, no costume changes, no reinvention between albums. The band picked people who could light a face and then let them do it.