FEATURE:
A Buyer's Guide
Part Ninety-Five: Sinéad O'Connor
___________
ALTHOUGH she is known as…
PHOTO CREDIT: Donal Moloney
Shuhada Sadaqat, professionally, she is known as Sinéad O'Connor. One of the most inspiring and wonderful artists we have ever seen, her eleventh studio album, No Veteran Dies Alone, has been announced (though I am not sure when it is being released). To showcase the brilliant work of O’Connor, this A Buyer’s Guide is all about her. Before getting there, AllMusic give us some biography about an incredible artist:
“Sinéad O'Connor ranked among the most distinctive and controversial pop music stars of the alternative era, the first and in many ways, the most influential of the numerous female performers whose music dominated airwaves throughout the last decade of the 20th century. Brash and outspoken -- her shaved head, angry visage, and shapeless wardrobe a direct challenge to popular culture's long-prevailing notions of femininity and sexuality -- O'Connor irrevocably altered the image of women in rock. Railing against long-standing stereotypes simply by asserting herself not as a sex object but as a serious artist, she kick-started a revolt that led the way for performers ranging from Liz Phair to Courtney Love to Alanis Morissette.
O'Connor was born in Dublin, Ireland, on December 8, 1966. Her childhood was often traumatic: her parents divorced when she was eight, and she later claimed that her mother, who was killed in a 1985 automobile accident, frequently abused her. After being expelled from Catholic school, O'Connor was arrested for shoplifting and was shuttled off to a reformatory; at the age of 15, while singing a cover of Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen" at a wedding, she was spotted by Paul Byrne, the drummer for the Irish band In Tua Nua (best known as protégés of U2). After co-writing the first In Tua Nua single, "Take My Hand," O'Connor left boarding school in order to focus on a career in music, and began performing in area coffeehouses. She later studied voice and piano at the Dublin College of Music, and supported herself delivering singing telegrams.
Upon signing a contract with Ensign Records in 1985, O'Connor relocated to London; the following year, she made her recorded debut on the soundtrack to the film Captive, appearing with U2 guitarist the Edge. After scrapping the initial tapes for her debut LP on the grounds that the production was too Celtic, she took the producer's seat herself and began re-recording the album, dubbed The Lion and the Cobra in reference to Psalm 91. The result was one of the most acclaimed debut records of 1987, with a pair of alternative radio hits in the singles "Mandinka" and "Troy." Almost from the outset of her career, however, O'Connor was a controversial media figure. In interviews following the LP's release, she defended the actions of the IRA, resulting in widespread criticism from many corners, and even burned bridges by attacking longtime supporters U2, whose music she declared "bombastic."
Nonetheless, O'Connor remained a cult figure prior to the release of 1990's chart-topping I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, a harrowing masterpiece sparked by the recent dissolution of her marriage to drummer John Reynolds. Boosted by the single and video "Nothing Compares 2 U," originally penned by Prince, the album established her as a major star, but again controversy followed as tabloids took aim at her romance with Black singer Hugh Harris while continuing to attack her outspoken politics. On American shores, O'Connor also became the target of derision for refusing to perform in New Jersey if "The Star Spangled Banner" was played prior to her appearance, a move that brought public criticism from no less than Frank Sinatra, who threatened to "kick her ass." She also made headlines for pulling out of an appearance on the NBC program Saturday Night Live in response to the misogynist persona of guest host Andrew Dice Clay, and even withdrew her name from competition in the annual Grammy Awards despite four nominations.
O'Connor also continued to confound expectations with her third album, 1992's Am I Not Your Girl?, a collection of pop standards and torch songs that failed to live up to either the commercial or critical success of I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. However, any discussion of the record's creative merits quickly became moot in the wake of her most controversial and damaging action yet: after finally appearing on Saturday Night Live, O'Connor ended her performance by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II, resulting in a wave of condemnation unlike any she'd previously encountered. Two weeks after the SNL performance, she appeared at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at New York's Madison Square Garden, and was promptly booed off the stage.
By then a virtual pariah, O'Connor's retirement from the music business was subsequently reported, although it was later claimed that she had merely returned to Dublin with the intent of studying opera. She kept a low profile for the next several years, starring as Ophelia in a theatrical production of Hamlet and later touring with Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival. She also reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown and even made a half-hearted attempt at suicide. In 1994, however, O'Connor returned to pop music with the LP Universal Mother, which, despite good reviews, failed to relaunch her to superstar status. The following year, she announced that she would no longer speak to the press. The Gospel Oak EP appeared in 1997, and in mid-2000 O'Connor issued Faith and Courage, her first full-length effort in six years. Sean-Nós Nua followed two years later, and was widely hailed for its return to the Irish folk tradition as its inspiration.
O'Connor used the press exposure from the album to further assert her pending retirement from music. In September 2003, the two-disc She Who Dwells... appeared through Vanguard. It collected rare and previously unreleased studio tracks, as well as live material culled from a late-2002 date in Dublin. The album was positioned as O'Connor's swan song, though official word was not forthcoming. Collaborations followed in 2005, a compilation of appearances on other artists' records throughout her long career. Later that year, she released Throw Down Your Arms, a collection of reggae classics from the likes of Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, and Bob Marley that managed to reach the number four spot on Billboard's Top Reggae Albums chart. O'Connor returned to the studio the following year to begin work on her first album of all-new material since Faith and Courage. The resulting Theology, inspired by the complexities of the world post-9/11, was released in 2007 through Koch Records on the artist's own imprint, That's Why There's Chocolate & Vanilla.
O'Connor's ninth studio album, 2012's How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, tackled familiar subjects like sexuality, religion, hope, and despair, all of which were topics that dominated her post-Theology personal and public life. After a relatively quiet period, O'Connor found herself once again embroiled in controversy in 2013 after a personal dispute with singer Miley Cyrus, whom O'Connor wrote an open letter to warning her of exploitation and the dangers of the music industry. Cyrus also responded with an open letter, which seemed to mock the Irish singer's documented mental health issues. O'Connor's tenth album, I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss appeared in August 2014. Inspired by Lean In's female empowerment campaign "Ban Bossy," the set was a rock-oriented and melodious affair as heard on the lead single "Take Me to the Church”.
As we await a new album from the magnificent Sinéad O'Connor, have a listen back to her amazing back catalogue. I have recommended the four albums you need to own, one that is underrated and worth a listen, her latest studio album, in addition to a book related to her. This is the lowdown about…
ONE of music’s finest.
_______________
The Four Essential Albums
The Lion and the Cobra
Release Date: 4th November, 1987
Labels: Ensign/Chrysalis
Producers: Sinéad O'Connor/Kevin Moloney
Standout Tracks: Jerusalem/Troy/I Want Your (Hands on Me)
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=51566&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/60gQ6EG1JFQWWUcasx7wKc?si=HzAVxjs2SROS3naV6VQjSQ
Review:
“The Lion and the Cobra, like all of O’Connor’s albums, requires active participation: a listener on the edge of their seat, a hand near the volume knob, a constant feeling of unease. O’Connor has confessed to furnishing the Irish mountaintop home where she lives alone with “deliberately” uncomfortable chairs: “I don’t like people staying long.” Her albums take a similar approach. They seem to peak with negative space. Even at her most accessible, O’Connor wants you to hear the way she summons this music from the dark, quiet places where it has been buried; it floods and calms and stretches beyond our sight, like the sky after a storm.
In songs like “Mandinka” and “Jerusalem,” the magic is in the interplay between O’Connor’s voice and the bed of cavernous rock music: how she stretches the titles into one-word choruses, weaving the syllables through their knotty arrangements. In the refrain of “Mandinka,” a song about a young woman refusing tradition, the guitar riff rises and falls as drum rolls echo in the right and left channel. Even with these flourishes, her voice, double-tracked and coated in reverb, is the center of everything. The song is delivered like a miniature symphony. You can sing along with every little moment, each placed just so in the soundfield.
O’Connor never considered herself a pop artist, but she immediately had a knack for getting in people’s heads. Before she broke through with a ghostly rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” she sought a different thrill in The Lion and the Cobra’s “I Want Your (Hands on Me).” It’s her rare song that feels modeled after hits of the era, an early attempt at blending her blunt-force, hip-hop influence with gentler melodic gifts. At the time, she called it a “tongue in cheek song about sex,” and it would eventually receive a dance remix with a verse from MC Lyte about how, despite the seduction in its title, “When I say no, yo, I mean no.” The hook feels almost preverbal as she finds ways to subvert the directness: “Put ’em on, put ’em on, put ’em on me,” O’Connor sings until the words bleed into the rhythm.
These simple pleasures exist in a different universe than “Troy,” a dark, ambitious ballad with lyrics ranging from Yeats allusion to dragon-killing fantasy, breathless apology to full-throated rage. On the album, her words are backed by a string section responding to each shift in her inflection. In concert, she would sing it with just a 12-string guitar, her voice trembling then crashing like something heavy dropped suddenly from above. It is one of the only songs on the album she admitted to being autobiographical at the time. The lyrics were addressed in part to her abusive mother who died in a car crash when O’Connor was 19, but who would haunt her life and work long after. “I couldn’t admit it was her I was angry at,” she would later reflect, “so I took it out on the world” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: Mandinka
I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Release Date: 20th March, 1990
Labels: Ensign/Chrysalis
Producers: Nellee Hooper/Sinéad O'Connor
Standout Tracks: I Am Stretched on Your Grave/The Emperor's New Clothes/Jump in the River
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=51591&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/34hQFIwGTLf03BZQmGL0iy?si=mMmyuuy2TiCJF4DX_eRKMw
Review:
“Second albums — especially much-anticipated second albums — are a well-known jinx. And so after her debut two years ago with the sometimes lush, sometimes hard- rocking The Lion and the Cobra, Sinead O’Connor might have given us almost anything. A pop album, a rock album, an impossibly mannered album — anything.
Instead, it’s as if she tore her skin off. ”God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” she mutters at the beginning over sober strings, intoning a prayer that serves — however O’Connor might have found it — as a credo for people in 12-step programs. But she sounds tense. Maybe God hasn’t granted her that serenity yet.
Strings keep cropping up on the album, as they did on The Lion and the Cobra. There they sounded passionate; here they seem spiritual, like a musical halo or a continuing prayer.
But then there are songs without strings, songs that blow on a rock & roll wind, even a denunciation of British racism called ”Black Boys on Mopeds,” which balances mainly on a single acoustic guitar. And of course there’s O’Connor’s voice, which, despite widespread amazement at its range and strength, is in no way dependable. It pales and cracks. And through those cracks pours truth, as if O’Connor were strong enough not to be afraid to let herself break.
She sings several songs about how to carry on after losing love, among them the album’s first single, a song written by Prince called ”Nothing Compares 2 U.” But mostly she sings about her quest for serenity. That quest gives the album a large-scale arc, in which the prayer at the start is answered at the end by the title song, ”I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.” This O’Connor sings unaccompanied, letting her philosophy, like her voice, stand before us naked. It’s not a polished or nuanced philosophy (O’Connor is only 23), but she does sound as though she earned it, not just picked it up from an inspirational book.
Astounding things happen. There’s one song luridly titled ”I Am Stretched Out on Your Grave.” It’s not the horror-film scenario you might expect; instead, it’s almost like an ancient romance, in which a woman won’t be separated from her lover even by death. O’Connor intones it over a stark but absolutely unexpected accompaniment: a bare-bones dance track, clattered out on what sounds like a drum machine. The result is like a marriage of the 14th and 21st centuries, ancient myth played out against a backdrop of urban decay.
In this way, O’Connor transforms pop-music styles, never doing quite what you’d expect. But will she wander outside pop and fall into clichés in styles she doesn’t know as well? There’s a distantly secondhand smell, for example, in the quasi-classical way she uses strings. But let her confront that danger later. This album continues a journey into unexplored country, a journey whose end I wouldn’t dare try to predict. A” – Entertainment Weekly
Choice Cut: Nothing Compares 2 U
Universal Mother
Release Date: 13th September, 1994
Labels: Ensign/Chrysalis
Producers: Sinéad O'Connor/John Reynolds/Tim Simenon/Phil Coulter
Standout Tracks: My Darling Child/Famine/Thank You for Hearing Me
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=51634&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0zQllKtOtx3i7QFccbAWvL?si=TvTnxbDlQaO7CfpMy9FI0w
Review:
“It seems that when pop stars address their own family sagas, they turn to the pop psychology of their times: John Lennon screamed ”Mother!” primal-therapy- style in the ’70s. Now Sinead O’Connor exorcises her inner child on her latest, most reflective album, Universal Mother (Chrysalis). Interweaving meditations on her late mother and her own maternity, O’Connor finds metaphors for religion, reproductive rights, and even the infantilization of Ireland. In the album’s opening, she cleverly probes the contradiction between mother- worshiping and mother-blaming: An excerpt from a speech by Germaine Greer calling on women to change government by finding the ”trick of cooperation” is answered with ”Fire on Babylon,” a song that screams ”What about Margaret Thatcher!” without ever mentioning her name. As usual, O’Connor is uncompromising when on the attack-she has the zeal of religious fervor behind her-although she’s primarily interested in healing and love. ”Fire on Babylon” has flashes of passion, and ”Famine” is an assured rap, but these songs are mostly soft and small; a few are actual lullabies. Happily, her voice is emerging from effects-land, although its tremulous quality still sounds overdone. B+” – Entertainment Weekly
Choice Cut: Fire on Babylon
How About I Be Me (and You Be You)?
Release Date: 20th February, 2012
Label: Shamrock Solutions Republic of Ireland
Producer: John Reynolds
Standout Tracks: Reason with Me/Queen of Denmark/I Had a Baby
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=412190&ev=mb
Review:
“Ever colourful and controversial, Sinead O'Connor returns with her ninth album, following her Twitter pleas for a partner, the marriage to a drug counsellor that was almost scuppered by a wedding-night attempt to score weed, and contemplations of suicide. Business as usual then – although the songs address love, hypocrisy and parenthood to surprisingly breezy, even humourous effect, that unscathed stark, crystal voice notwithstanding. The sublime Reason With Me sees her adopt the character of a junkie pleading for redemption, but the album's most startling moments come when the 45-year-old lays herself wide open. Take Off Your Shoes lambasts the Catholic church paedophilia scandal with scathing vigour ("I bleed the blood of Jesus over you"). Very Far from Home is a serene, touching confession of vulnerability. Elsewhere, V.I.P. skewers celebrity culture, materialism, MTV and (surely) Bono in one mighty, pious rage; Old Lady is pure pop, and John Grant's savagely funny Queen of Denmark could have been written for her. The album is a tuneful emotional rollercoaster, and it's thrilling to hear such vitriol and indignation – qualities in short supply in current pop” – The Guardian
Choice Cut: Take Off Your Shoes
The Underrated Gem
Am I Not Your Girl?
Release Date: 22nd September, 1992
Labels: Ensign/Chrysalis
Producers: Phil Ramone/Sinéad O'Connor
Standout Tracks: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered/Don't Cry for Me Argentina/Gloomy Sunday
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=51619&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1186Oo3LkL5tauDVEemxGU?si=mWyoeteuRmKrM2ZhQjVNRw
Review:
“Based on Sinéad O'Connor's version of "You Do Something to Me" (a highlight on the Red Hot + Blue album), an album of pop standards performed with a big band might have actually worked. At times, such as on "Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home" and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," Am I Not Your Girl? does work. However, O'Connor runs into trouble with acknowledged standards and songs heavily identified with other vocalists. She doesn't offer a new perspective on these songs, and her airy voice is buried by overwrought string arrangements. Plus, there's O'Connor's bizarre two-minute rant on love, hatred, herself, and the Catholic Church” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home
The Latest Album
I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss
Release Date: 11th August, 2014
Label: Nettwerk
Producer: John Reynolds
Standout Tracks: How About I Be Me/Your Green Jacket/8 Good Reasons
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=718722&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6Fhg99Hdf8ycurebhHq0WD?si=iuWRGckCQ76b8t8c4TnCvg
Review:
“Look no further than the title and striking cover photo of Sinead O’Connor’s tenth studio release to understand that this is a remake/remodel. When she opens the disc with the declaration “I wanna make love like a real full woman, everyday” in a dusky, husky, lioness voice then shifts up a few octaves to continue “I’ve got to find what I’m dreaming of,” it’s clear that the singer-songwriter, never shy to begin with, has hit a feisty, middle aged, sensual I-want-your-hands-on-me swagger.
O’Connor is also upping the volume, even heading into blues rock territory with the crushing, nightmarish “The Voice Of My Doctor” and the swampy “Kisses Like Mine.” She gets Afro-funky and invites Fela’s son Seun Kuti for the groove-a-thon rhythm of “James Brown,” arguably the most fun track she’s done. Her voice has taken on a deeper hue but remains instantly recognizable.
One spin of the mid-tempo “Your Green Jacket” where she smells her boyfriend’s titular coat and wishes her nose was buried in her lover instead will convince even doubters that O’Connor remains one of the most talented and distinctive singers of her generation. Occasionally, as on the album’s first single “Take Me to Church” (“I’ve done so many bad things it hurts”), the old anger takes over, amping up the drama over a throbbing beat. The album’s two ballads, “Harbour” which morphs from a gentle first third to a raucous end, and the closing, piano based “Streetcars” spotlight the shape shifting vocal dynamics that have always been O’Connor’s most striking attributes. On “8 Good Reasons” she slides from a subtle whisper to a defiant roar as she rails against the industry that both gave her fame and took her down (“you know I love to make music/but my head got wrecked by the business”) with honesty and a bit of reflective introspection.
While O’Connor never really went anywhere, this self-assured and confident release feels like a comeback. It has elements of what made her so strong and startling back on her still dynamic 1987 debut but tempered and matured with the wisdom of a quarter century of experience” – American Songwriter
Choice Cut: Take Me to Church
The Sinéad O'Connor Book
Rememberings
Author: Sinéad O'Connor
Publication Date: 1st June, 2021
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Synopsis:
“Outspoken, provocative and enormously talented, singer Sinead O’ Connor has lived her life very much on her own terms and, in this forthright and considered memoir, she reveals all about stardom, motherhood and calling out hypocrisy.
The landmark memoir of a global music icon.
Sinead O'Connor's voice and trademark shaved head made her famous by the age of twenty-one. Her recording of Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U' made her a global icon. She outraged millions when she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on American television. O'Connor was unapologetic and impossible to ignore, calling out hypocrisy wherever she saw it. She has remained that way for three decades.
Now, in Rememberings, O'Connor tells her story - the heartache of growing up in a family falling apart; her early forays into the Dublin music scene; her adventures and misadventures in the world of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll; the fulfilment of being a mother; her ongoing spiritual quest - and through it all, her abiding passion for music.
Rememberings is intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and full of hard-won insights. It is a unique and remarkable chronicle by a unique and remarkable artist” – Waterstones.co.uk
Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/rememberings/sinead-oconnor/9781844885411