Sinead O'Connor: C/D?

In Bill Flanagan's U2 book he notes how during the recording of "You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart" Sinead would yell harrowing shit into the mike, step away and whisper, do it again, then happily overdub her own harmonies. Bono, Gavin Friday, and Eno were amazed at her vocal control.

ums and fgti i concur: i think she had a terrifically precise ear for (for want of a better way to say it) the delivery -- with superb confidence and exact force -- of microtonal grace notes and ornaments in a manner she p much seems to have herself invented

(by which i mean i can't quickly think of anyone she reminds me of in this)

xpost thanks the knowledge fgti! must have missed your post in the flood yesterday but that's cool like the raised/sharp stuff over certain chords, that's what I was trying to say in a dummy way

May Sinead O’Connor rest in peace. Let me share my moment meeting this Great Women. I performed at the @MTV music awards crying singing band in the USA. When I got backstage, the first person to greet me was her, knowing the weight of the world was on me, fighting this fight for…

— Luther Luke Campbell (@unclelukereal1) July 27, 2023

damn it sucks to get only the opening of these stories bc i quit twixer, fucking elon

Now we need to hear from Billy Idol

...and Steve Lawrence (still alive at 88)!

and Henry Kissinger (still alive at 873!)

Stevie Ray Vaughan is dead, and we can't get Jon Bon Jovi on a helicopter.

This chatter about her vocal control and technique is why I think she was such an incredible performer. She didn't just have technical skill and ability but she knew exactly how to service a song best by using her talent. She could have the most measured, considered performances, hitting every note and flourish with grace and precision, but it never felt studied or forced. Whether it was her own songs or covers - she knew how to draw the full emotional range out with her voice, and made it seem so instinctive and obvious.

I found myself getting really teary today listening to The Emperors New Clothes. It's one of her most straightforward "pop" songs, and yet it's just such a vulnerable, unflinching, honest portrayal of pregnancy - an experience that as a man I will never fully comprehend but she made feel so understandable. I'm sad for the strife she endured in her life and the tragedy of her premature death. But I'm also sad because what she represented - fearlessness, defiance, sincerity and charming vulnerability - they're all personality traits and features I would aspire to, and as both an artist and a public figure she really was a role model for the type of person I wish I could be. I'm sad that her presence isn't in the world to keep making it better, and I'm sad that it took the world so long to realise what a difference someone like her could make.

I never saw the Letterman version of Fire on Babylon, but the Top of the Pops version is pretty amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUdhwJZE7AE

for omar et al

May Sinead O’Connor rest in peace. Let me share my moment meeting this Great Women. I performed at the MTV music awards crying singing band in the USA. When I got backstage, the first person to greet me was her, knowing the weight of the world was on me, fighting this fight for free speech and hip-hop. She hug me we talked. She told me I was fighting a good fight. She knew the industry was not supporting me. She wanted me to know she was. I always love that woman for that. May God bless her soul my condolences go out to her family. 🙏

https://play.acast.com/s/blindboy/sineadoconnor

she talks a bit about her approach vocally in this interview (interview starts around 25 min mark or so, vocal part I forget when), use of bel canto singing style etc

I found myself getting really teary today listening to The Emperors New Clothes. It's one of her most straightforward "pop" songs, and yet it's just such a vulnerable, unflinching, honest portrayal of pregnancy - an experience that as a man I will never fully comprehend but she made feel so understandable. I'm sad for the strife she endured in her life and the tragedy of her premature death. But I'm also sad because what she represented - fearlessness, defiance, sincerity and charming vulnerability - they're all personality traits and features I would aspire to, and as both an artist and a public figure she really was a role model for the type of person I wish I could be. I'm sad that her presence isn't in the world to keep making it better, and I'm sad that it took the world so long to realise what a difference someone like her could make.

― boxedjoy,

Co-sign. And that outro!

I used to try desperately to pause the Emperor’s New Clothes video on the one frame where she smiles just so I could see her smile for more than a fraction of a second. That video is burned into my brain!! Also boxedjoy otm bc like many odd girls my age I longed to be as free as she was.

Her dancing!

Great song. Heard it for the first time tonight.

I called my sister today to talk about various family matters and out of nowhere she said, "I'm really sad about Sinead." "Me too," I said. She talked about how I Do Not Want was her and her college bff's favorite album the year it came out and they played it to death. She put it on yesterday after not hearing it for a while and she said she'd never really absorbed what a great writer she was, the words didn't sink in when she was younger. Anyway, a generational touchstone for a lot of us.

CAN’T BEAR TO BE IN ANOTHER CITY
one where you’re not

Always liked this: Willie Nelson & Sinéad O'Connor, "Don't Give Up"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO6fAJcN89k

heard “daddy i’m fine” just now for the first time in forever and whooosh total time machine

i fucking LOVED this song at the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA2gIyXRXwU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gTppAHVy28

"In This Heart" always makes me cry. Tonight it's wrecking me.

Looking at her discography on Wikipedia, I'm amazed at the number of collaborations and guest spots she did for other musicians. Such a generous soul.

My particular brand of sad is gravitating to the common ground between her and Terry Hall and then with Chris Cornell, who also did a version of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

When Bob Mortimer met Sinead O’Connor. I’m roaring laughing at this story from his autobiography ‘And Away…’ pic.twitter.com/oFfYlnQPdB

— Paul Howard (@AkaPaulHoward) July 1, 2023

Um…

Okay, I guess it was kind of a good and in-character put-down or something.

Think you need to have a good working knowledge of Bob for this to be funny, yes.

not meant as a put down at all I think! but yeah 200% in character as "first thing that would pop into Mortimer's mind when talking to anyone at all".

Pink just paid tribute to Sinead O’Connor and it was so beautiful, it made me cry pic.twitter.com/CXQO1TGBid

— karen (@KarenBoston) July 27, 2023

Here is a defence of that obit in The Guardian by the writer.

She sounds tone deaf.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I interviewed her and reviewed her numerous times. This is the most recent pic.twitter.com/7hcEV8MEIP

— Caroline Sullivan (@TheCSullivan) July 27, 2023

Something quite lovely that I'd never seen before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fE8l25CG2E

That's such a good cover! Perfect.

Apropos of nothing, I am struck by how much this Eno-assisted track from 2000’s Faith and Courage sounds like Sinead’s nod to Judee Sill (a sister spirit for sure):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yuQLPkdRsI

Assuming that previous one is a Go-Betweens cover. Looking forward to clicking later.

Ha sorry. Somebody once referred to “Apology Accepted” as “All Apologies” and since then I have gotten them *Mixed Up*

interesting that her version is so restrained, I kept expecting her to throw in some Cobain growls

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/28/david-holmes-on-producing-sinead-oconnor-final-album

emma's song is secretly everything for me.

I play it for people and they're like "idk" idgi" "it's weird" "it's fine?" ... and I'm like she has always been a priestess in communication with something deep and strange and real and utterly truthful and I am undone

not much of a crier, but jesus, listening to and watching various performances have me weeping this week ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbre5Fs9m8I

I didn’t realize this bootleg existed - 8 CD’s of her non-LP work:

https://www.45worlds.com/cdalbum/cd/nc640109xb

Been reading her lyrics online the past few days and this, this morning, made me laugh:

https://flic.kr/p/2oSj39U

Chrissie Hynde posted a nice tribute on Facebook:

Like everyone else, I’ve read many tributes to Sinéad O’Connor in the last couple days. Personally, I felt sadness for her during her life, but my immediate response upon hearing the news was a kind of relief. Every step of the way for her seemed to be a mixture of joy and torture. A true artist.

I was talking to my mate, the singer Helen Terry, about what a laugh she was at our Linda McCartney tribute, arriving every day to rehearsals to hang out with George Michael, smoke pot and just be in the atmosphere of something going on. Helen reminded me of how she kept throwing her knickers at George. I recall she also liked to hold a microphone to her arse and fart in it, possessed as she was of a schoolboy humour.

On the day of the show I was wearing a pair of gold stiletto heeled shoes and Sinead told me how she’d stolen some similar ones when she was a teenager to wear to a Pretenders show. I immediately took them off, gave them to her, and she wore them the rest of the night. Every time I looked over at her she reminded me of a little kid looking down at her new shoes, moving her feet at different angles to admire them. Then during the concert, she made a funny remark about Neil Finn which made headlines the next day. She didn’t set out to steal the headlines but did because she made everyone laugh.

I was also at the Bob Dylan tribute. I listened to her sing Dylan’s I Believe In You at rehearsals. It was absolutely breathtaking and I couldn’t wait to hear her sing it on the night. But when she heard a few people booing in the audience (many were cheering but I guess she only heard the detractors) she apparently just couldn’t start the song. Booker-T’s hands hovered over the keyboards while everyone waited for her to start singing. Instead she pulled out her in-ear monitors, and went into an unaccompanied version of a Bob Marley song. The next day the headlines were about Sinéad not Dylan. She didn’t intend that, but again, it just seemed to happen wherever she went.

Apart from all her other well documented torments, I think starting out in the business at an early age, getting famous and the notoriety she attracted, must have been hard.

People seem to think that anyone who gets on stage is a natural born show-off but I don’t think that’s the case most of the time. I think It’s more often destiny.

I read she reckoned the price of fame is ‘you pay with your life’.

Now she can sing with the other angels.

XCH

both of her records from the 2010s are super fucking good and i regret not listening to them until now

x-post: feel a bit weird about "the news was a kind of relief" part.

Yeah me too - I don't feel the same way, but I think I understand where she's coming from and why some people have that reaction. (Maybe oversimplifying it, but some people don't want to see someone they hold dearly living in constant turmoil.) I thought the anecdotes were great though.

lol @ farting into the microphone
RIP to a real one <3

also Sinead admiring her new gold stilettos from diff angles - deeeply relatable

i want one million stories about her smoking weed with george michael. my people

dream blunt rotation too