Sinead O'Connor: C/D?

Agreed. How About I Be Me (and You Be You)? also offers pleasures.

I noted at the time that the multi-tracking of her vocals on I'm Not Bossy was an attempt to mitigate how raspier her vice has become.

lol her voice

I really like this reworking of an older tune (I like the original too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxH16hEYuuc

this made me go back and listen to Universal Mother last night, which I'd purchased when it was released but otherwise remembered nothing about other than being disappointed at the time (though I did see her live after it came out, the only time I ever saw her). Not sure why, it's a pretty strong album. Not as good as the first two but what is?

"Fire in Babylon" though

jesus christ i had forgotten how devastating most of “i do not want what i haven’t got” is.

i’ve said this before now
you said i was childish and you’ll say it now

not really a fan of those last two albums, she sounds good on them but the songs themselves are just not up to snuff. I like the recent single though.

giving Faith and Courage a first listen ever today

"No Man's Woman" is a jam.

Too much Dave Stewart though

jesus christ i had forgotten how devastating most of “i do not want what i haven’t got” is.
I love, love, LOVE that album. I know it got a lot of attention when it was released - a multiplatinum, Grammy-winning seller that placed a strong second in Pazz & Jop - but it didn't feel like that many people were still listening to it a decade or two later. I think I was introduced to it through Greg Kot - he loved that album, comparing it in some respects to John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. He never had a reason to write about it specifically, he'd just hold it up as a masterpiece whenever he was doing some kind of overview or look back at the '90s for the Tribune. I already knew "Nothing Compares 2 U" but that whole album is amazing - just raw, brave and exposed.

giving Faith and Courage a first listen ever today

"No Man's Woman" is a jam.

I'll have to find it again, but I wasn't happy with the first "best of" they made so I burned my own. The first two albums may be her best, but there's great stuff on pretty much everything up to and including Faith and Courage. (Like Alfred mentioned "No Man's Woman," and "Jealous" and "Daddy I'm Fine" are probably my other two favorites.)

To realize she's ending a major second album with TWO acoustic ballads and an a cappella wonder stroke, my god.

It really shows how incredible her singing and her voice was at that time - it's very tasteful in terms of phrasing, but it never feels too little or restrained because that voice just carries so much in it.

Forgot to mention, if you can, check out her live performances from 1990. I didn't realize how good she was on-stage until I saw a re-run of her first appearance on SNL from September 1990. She doesn't do "Nothing Compares 2 U," she does two other songs from I Do Not Want.... Both are great, especially the second number ("The Last Day of Our Acquaintance") which is a cappella for a large part of it until she hits those chords on her acoustic guitar really hard for the last verse.

Capitol later reissued her first two live videos on a single 95 minute DVD in 2003, newly remastered. The first video (The Value of Ignorance) was from June 3, 1988, and the second (The Year of The Horse) was edited from two shows in late October 1990. If you have a player, it's worth tracking down, but there's both NTSC and PAL versions out there so make sure your player can handle the right one.

You can find VHS rips and probably DVD rips on YouTube if you want to go that route.

I saw her in '90, she was terrific. "Troy" was shattering.

man do I love her guitar on "Jump in the River."

another great interview around the book. I'm deeply disillusioned about Prince's treatment of her. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/29/sinead-oconnor-ill-always-be-a-bit-crazy-but-thats-ok-rememberings

She just announced her retirement from recording & touring: https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9583210/sinead-oconnor-retirement

We are coming up to the 20th anniversary of her first retirement.

🎵 This is the anniversary of my first retirement 🎶

I'm excited to read her autobiography!

me too

another great interview around the book. I'm deeply disillusioned about Prince's treatment of her

Prince's music means the world to me, but the guy could be a complete ass so I wasn't that surprised when I first heard this years ago. I don't think Prince ever responded to it, but I'm guessing he was insanely jealous that she took his song to #1 while his attempt (albeit through the Family) flopped years before when his sales were at their peak.

His ego was ridiculous. After he died, he chewed out someone who was leaving him to work for George Michael. She did it partly because working for him was stressful, but he apparently said, "Who's George Michael? He ain't shit (compared to me)!" And his perfectionism was abusive. One of his horn players in the NPG recalled the pressure he put on him to play a complex solo perfectly, to the point where he would put a prop gun to his head on-stage as intimidation (it didn't sound like it played like a joke, that's for sure). And there are probably countless more stories like that.

After he died, he chewed out someone who was leaving him to work for George Michael.

I guess there is an afterlife.

an ex colleague worked for Prince for a long time ago like.... he was not a nice person

If your life consists of studio time pockmarked with occasional TV binges, softball games, and fucking, how can you be nice, right?

The best story I heard (here?) was Prince tasking his guitar tech to waterproof an amp so that he could play underwater, at the bottom of a pool. The tech was of course doubtful, but spent a ton of time perfecting a rig that would actually work underwater. When he finally got back to Prince, Prince had forgotten all about it. But given it was Prince, I would totally believe he hadn't forgotten about it and was fucking with his tech the whole time. What's always been surprising about the Sinead story is the accusation of physical violence, which as far as I can tell is an outlier in the Prince dossier.

I mean he drove my friend into bankruptcy by not paying him for video production (he did all his video stuff for a while including the video for Seven) and then suing him to bury him in legal fees to avoid paying (after he demanded 24/7/365 servitude for a number of years)

but sure just part of being the great man

I hope that's not what you think I meant!

no sorry! sorry I just get angry remembering the whole thing

A guy with Prince's insane productivity is like a person who goes without sleep: they're not normal. Now add the bowing and scraping of minders and sycophants.

Only a matter of time before someone publishes a major article on Prince's shittiness and the public attitude to the guy shifts in a big way.

Can I just say here that Melody Maker's treatment of Sinead back in the 80s/90s was shameful, exploitative and abusive to quite a large degree.

Can I just say here that Melody Maker's the press' treatment of Sinead back in the 80s/90s was shameful, exploitative and abusive to quite a large degree.

Yeah I'm just remembering MM as that's what I read, dunno if the NME poked "harmless" fun in her direction to the same degree. Did the mainstream press (UK) even acknowledge popular music at that point?

https://princetext.tripod.com/n_1995.html

here's an article about how he would constantly fuck contractors over, my friend is the video production guy who was owed 400k (for the gett off video iirc)

https://princetext.tripod.com/n_1995.html

Did the mainstream press (UK) even acknowledge popular music at that point?

It was the 1980s/90s not the 1880s/90s.

This whole thread and no one has mentioned her glorious take on "She Moved Through The Fair" from the Michael Collins soundtrack. That version gives me goosebumps...

I picked up some of her later albums this weekend at Half Price Books, I don't know much past Am I Not Your Girl? except the various collabs she did with other artists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR9v3jWh-YM

This one is evergreen for me

After he died, he chewed out someone who was leaving him to work for George Michael.

I guess there is an afterlife.

Agh, early morning, pre-coffee slip - I meant after Prince died, it came out that etc etc

lol I know

This whole thread and no one has mentioned her glorious take on "She Moved Through The Fair" from the Michael Collins soundtrack. That version gives me goosebumps...

https://princetext.tripod.com/n_1995.html

here's an article about how he would constantly fuck contractors over, my friend is the video production guy who was owed 400k

fyi:

https://i.imgur.com/aSqAsGM.jpg

We are coming up to the 20th anniversary of her first retirement.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, June 7, 2021 6:14 PM (two days ago)

Unretired:

Good news. Fuck retiring. I retract. Am not retiring. I was temporarily allowing pigs in lipstick to fuck my head up... here's my statement..... in the form of these three photos. It's 'colourful' but that's me : ) #LetOConnorBeOConnor pic.twitter.com/wKoEKFANPk

— Sinead O'Connor (Shuhada Sadaqat) (@MagdaDavitt77) June 7, 2021

God damn <3

Wow.

By the way, non-UK ILXors won't be aware of the, er, interesting family history of Emma Barnett (presenter of Women's Hour) who Sinead singles out for particular opprobrium. Tittle tattle, for sure, but fascinating:

During Barnett's teenage years, her father ran brothels in the Greater Manchester area. The family home had been used for publicity shoots of some of the women and the recording of sex films. Previously convicted of "living off immoral earnings" and handed a suspended sentence,[7] in 2008 Barnett's father was sentenced to imprisonment for keeping brothels and controlling the prostitution of a trafficked woman; her mother received a suspended sentence for money laundering related to income from the brothels.[8][9][10] Barnett attended Manchester High School for Girls, an independent school.

"the dude abides" haha. love her.

hazards of listening to Sinead albums in late pregnancy: came completely unglued listening to “Black Boys on Mopeds,” suddenly sobbing on the drive to work. What a great song.