Sinead O'Connor: C/D?

SINEAD O'CONNOR AND NEGATIVLAND: A U2 STORY
Back in the early 90s the story of the lawsuit against Negativland over our U2 EP, and the issues that lawsuit raised, only grew into a big and impactful news story when it broke nationally in the Washington Post and internationally in the London Times and Irish Times (and that's what led to it eventually becoming a big enough pain in the ass for the band U2, their manager, and record label, for them to actually start responding to us).

But to get that kind of coverage in those pre-internet days, how in heck could we ever manage to get the word out to mainstream media in the hope that they'd write about what was happening to us? Well, we'd need to have a really great mainstream media mailing list - the names and addresses of actual writers who might write about it so we could sent them our press releases. Being as underground as we were, a list like that was definitely something that Negativland did not have.

Enter Sinead O'Connor. Sometime in late 1991 we got a phone call (how did she get our number? We forgot to ask!) from Sinead O'Connor's assistant who told us that Sinead was following our saga, was appalled at what was happening to us, and wanted to help. Would we like a copy of her press list for the entire planet Earth? Hell, yes we would!! With all we had learned from our HELTER STUPID saga, we knew that a list like that was the missing piece to further our fight for the right to make art out of other people's intellectual property. Sinead's press list was sent to us and boy did we use it.
Of course this all came to mind for obvious and very sad reasons. Thank you, Sinead! Wherever you are now, if you are anywhere at all, we are grateful for your help and hope you are doing okay...

The obit I slapped together.

That was very moving, Alfred.

Yes--don't know if I commented at the time, but I loved your obit too, Alfred.

Re: the Best Sinead Covers post you followed the obit up with, the Cover Me blog posted a similar round-up that mentions a few you don't, including an ABBA cover I had no idea existed until now: https://www.covermesongs.com/2023/07/in-memoriam-sinead-oconnor.html

This is a nice little chat about music she had with the BBC in 2012.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b01kv7c7

Here's a clip that hasn't made the rounds much: Sinead singing a couple of songs at a local Bowie tribute a month after he died. She seems pretty happy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzhiwB1uC08

today i just wanted to say that "the emperor's new clothes" is the greatest song of all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVV5FRER2lI

i wish stephan jenkins had not forgotten almost every lyric of the song (a song where every! lyric! is perfect!!!!) before performing it but that still made me happy this morning

Singing backup on one of Dusty Springfield's last TV performances:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htKms09CVJw

oh wow

today i just wanted to say that "the emperor's new clothes" is the greatest song of all time

― ivy., Tuesday, August 1, 2023

otm

still can't really bear to think about this

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?

― Best regards, HM Revenue & Customs (Matt #2), Monday, June 7, 2021 3:47 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

NME was just as mean to her IIRC, there was so one particularly vile aside that was so appallingly hateful and unnecessary it made me mad for years thinking about it. O'Connor wasn't even the focus of the piece which was just some dumb filler article but this attack on her was just thrown in as a "hilarious" aside. Can't even remember what it was about now, the pointless mean-spiritedness of it just got to me.

I do however remember the writer responsible, Johnny "Cigarettes" Sharp. I sincerely hope he lies awake at night cringing at some of things he wrote when he was younger, it would only be fair.

The only weekly UK music paper that got behind The Lion And The Cobra was Record Mirror, who very much championed her. I remember this quite clearly, and having just checked the end-of-year albums lists for 1987, the album was indeed only listed by Record Mirror, and ignored by NM£/MM/Sounds.

That’s … wow.

A similar cold-shoulder happened when Kate Bush first emerged, and I think it had a lot to do with the perceived stylistic uncoolness of both artists, when set against what was considered as "relevant" at the time. Both initially drew on influences that were way outside of the prevailing rockcrit canon.

I was a bit of a NME fanboy and didn’t really click with Sinead until I Do Not Want, but even at the time it was clear that the debut was an important record. She really was a lightning rod for the misogyny that industry types thought they had managed to conceal.

Listening to Jackie off her debut for the first time this week. Wouldn't be surprised if Brett Anderson had been a fan at the time, faint hints of Daddy's Speeding in there.

ooh! Good catch.

This is decent piece from SR in an '88 MM

http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2023/07/rip-sinead-oconnor-that-voice-paragon.html

Two tributes I saw over the weekend that I really liked--

Walter Chaw: https://decider.com/2023/07/28/sinead-o-connor-butcher-boy🕸/

(our own) glenn mcdonald: https://furia.com/newparticles/current.html🕸

While collecting peat in the bog one day, Francie is visited by a holy vision of the Virgin Mary — of course, Jordan cast Sinéad O’Connor to play the role. “Hello, Francie. How are things? Worried, Francie? What were you worried about?” Her tone is so kind and countenance so gentle it’s possible to forget for a moment what she represents as the single most visible and uncompromising critic of the Catholic Church in the world playing one of its most profound objects of worship.

Reunited on the outside with his friend, Joe (Alan Boyle), Francie hallucinates an atomic attack, in the aftermath of which he sees the burnt corpses of the town as blackened pigs and the Virgin Mary in a destroyed television set, cooing an Irish song (“Beautiful Bonduran by the silvery sea/your golden strand charms so grand”) from the wreckage of the world. When he talks with her again, now as a grown man doing his best to act the right way after a lifetime of persecution and injury, failed psychiatric treatments and occasional forced institutionalizations, she says “the world goes one way, we go another, do you get my meaning?” I’m not sure Francie does get her meaning. But I do.

And sorry if that song has been posted previously, there’s been a lot of posts

V good read:

https://zacharylipez.ghost.io/never-get-old/

My favorite moment in The Butcher Boy is when Virgin Mary Sinead says, "Fer fuck's sake, Frankie!"

Dave Stewart posted what looks like live footage of Sinead singing the vocal track for “Jealous” (one of my favorites):

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvLUDdQNKHD/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

y’all, Alfred is on this week’s NYT popcast pod.

just starting it now :)

Oh! Didn't know it went live!

i started listening earlier this morning & said HOORAY out loud when they intro’d him

Excellent work Alfred!

Here's the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/arts/music/popcast-sinead-oconnor.html

So sad to hear about Sinead O' Connor; thee definition of fearless. I once got punched by someone when DJ'ing in the early 90s after going from some mad UK hardcore track into her version of "I am Stretched on your Grave" (so much for PLUR!). Will try that again this weekend!

— Optimo (Espacio) (@JDTwitch) July 26, 2023

Alfred, your crushing this ep of NYT Popcast!

*you're

I think I made too many obvious points but thank you! I appreciate it.

Great conversation. Really enjoyed the discussion on cover versions and Sinead’s approach to them. I lost the thread fairly early in her career, so the points made here, and on today’s pod, are making me eager to dig back into her catalog

I think I made too many obvious points but thank you! I appreciate it.

One can never be too obvious for New York Times readers/podcast listeners.

lol

Great episode, superb guest. Gave Sinead the historical weight she so deserves.

Thank you!

and good morning!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNAqVfCvr-I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hj4370BMCE

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvMQ0hqtz6D/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

(Sinead doing "Princess of the Posse" with Latifah on her talk show#

Love that so much because it's 100% being done because Sinead loves that song, it's not like that is a song most people even remember

I finally got a chance to listen to the podcast. Alfred, you were brilliant. The host was pretty insufferable.

thanks, jimbeaux :)

Is there a link to the podcast that doesn't require me to login/create an account?

Try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRz2XiwgHoo

Listened this morning: really good stuff, Alfred!

enjoyed listening alfred! especially nice that you helped steer the convo past the usual pope/nothing compares stuff, the b52s cover was a really great surprise

A very touching poem from her brother that was read at the funeral yesterday.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/08/09/blackbird-in-dun-laoghaire-a-poem-by-joseph-oconnor/

The London Inner South Coroner's Court has issued a statement that says O'Connor died from natural causes. The court added that they have now ceased their involvement in O'Connor's death.