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Sinéad O'Connor Biography
When she first came to prominence as a teenager, the world had never seen or heard anything like quite like Sinead O'Connor. In the midst so many big-haired, pop ingénues that made their name in the 1980s she stood out: a shaven headed waif with bambi eyes, bovver boots and a soaring, acrobatic voice. Her daringly eclectic debut album, The Lion And The Cobra (1987) blended influences from hip hop, punk and traditional Irish music and won her widespread critical acclaim and an international following.
It should have been the most joyous small-town-girl-makes-good success story. Before many of her peers had left school Sinead had gone from busking the streets of Dublin to playing the Grammys – something no Irishwoman had ever done. But, far from home and coping with the recent death of her mother, the young singer balked at the sudden success. For her, music was not a ticket to 'the big time' but a springboard out of small-town boredom, a means of expressing her spirituality and a salve for the mental wounds, which were the legacy of a difficult childhood. When her then-manager, Fachtna O'Ceallaigh, broke the news to her that her second single, "Mandinka," has debuted inside the English top twenty the singer broke into tears. She knew the game was up. Music would henceforth be business.
And by January 1990 business had begun to boom like never before. Sinead's cover of Prince's cast off tale of love lost was released and shot straight to number one in every country with a chart. The stark, iconoclastic video for "Nothing Compares 2 U" featured nothing more complicated than a continuous close-up of Sinead's face, one moment twisted in anger the next, famously, crying a solitary tear. It became one of the most celebrated music videos of all time and won Sinead and director John Maybury a slew of awards. The groundbreaking album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (1990) featured songs so intensely personal that the record company had initially hesitated to release it. It went on to become one of the most successful records of the decade and influenced a whole generation of artists.
But the mantle of fame continued to sit uneasily on Sinead's slender shoulders. She found the spotlight of public attention oppressive and feared that the continual pressure to tour and promote herself as a commodity would stymie her creative progress. And, so with, as Buju Banton had it, "no regard for who she may tickle" Sinead set about sabotaging her success. Her third album Am I Not Your Girl? (1992), was a deliberate commercial sidestep and in the sleeve notes the singer hinted that her music would soon have a more overtly spiritual feel.
On October 3, 1992 Sinead appeared on Saturday Night Live with a Rastafarian prayer cloth wrapped around the microphone and sang an impassioned acapella version of "War" by Bob Marley, in which she altered the lyrics to make reference to child abuse. After crying "fight the real enemy," she then tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II. This controversial gesture was her protest against the Catholic patriarchy's contribution to the oppressive culture of silence that in turn lead to the child abuse scandals which were to rock America and her native Ireland. Predictably, this principled stand caused her to be pilloried in the press, but Sinead had taken a giant leap towards achieving her aim. She had publicly abdicated her status as mainstream pop star and allied herself with a more spiritual musical tradition.
That tradition was Rastafarian culture and roots music, which Sinead had fallen in love with during her first three years in London. Having experienced the worst effects of Catholic repression in her home country, Sinead wanted to "rescue God from religion" in her own life. Rastafarianism, with its emphasis on the struggle for self esteem and its teaching that God is a living presence on earth, appealed strongly to her as an Irish Catholic female survivor of child abuse. The educational prayerfulness, the controlled anger and the funky bombast of much Jamaican music were something Sinead was already striving for in her own work. Roots music (as distinct from the more commercial reggae which came out of Jamaica in the 1970s and '80s) was deeply religious but with without the po-faced saccharine overtones of many contemporary hymns.
And so, over the next decade Sinead would begin to weave roots influences into her work. Like the great Caribbean singers she would thenceforth sing in her own accent and dialect and incorporate more explicit spiritual overtones into her lyrics. Her next album, Universal Mother (1994) featured "Fire on Babylon," a song that, like the Saturday Night Live version of "War," had as its themes child abuse and the Rastafarian version of an earthly hell. In her live shows during the mid '90s, Sinead began to sing a gorgeously pared down version of Marley's "Redemption Song" and together with Bomb the Base and Benjamin Zephaniah wrote and recorded "Empire," a track heavily influenced by the Studio One greats of the 1960s, which would feature on her Greatest Hits album, So Far, The Best of Sinead O'Connor (1997).
On her next full studio album, Faith and Courage (2000), Sinead married the slack reggae beat, which now characterized much of her production, to prayerful self-penned songs and one Christian hymn, "Kyrie Eleison." Due to family commitments Sinead did not tour in support of this record but appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. This was also the last the last time that she has performed live in America.
By the time Faith and Courage was released Sinead had moved back to her native Ireland where huge changes were taking place. Rocked by child abuse scandals, the Catholic churches numbers were dwindling and there had been a huge influx of African refugees into the country. Many criticized what they saw as economic immigrants, but Sinead saw these new arrivals as an answer to the spiritual vacuum left by the Church's receding influence. On her next record, Sean Nos Nua (2002), she symbolized this converging of the old and new Irelands by taking traditional Gaelic songs and updating them with reggae dubs. She toured in support of this record in 2002/2003, playing to sold-out venues all over Ireland, Britain and continental Europe. Last year Sinead released She Who Dwells in the Secret Place Of The Most High Shall Abide Under The Shadow Of The Almighty (2004), an album of unreleased tracks and collaborations before stepping even further back from mainstream music by declaring she would from only record spiritual records.
Now in 2005, thirteen years after she stepped back from the brink of superstardom, Sinead has finally made the record towards which she has been building her whole career. In April of this year, she traveled alone to Kingston, Jamaica to record her brand new record, Throw Down Your Arms, at the world famous Tuff Gong and Anchor Studios. It's a collection of roots songs, which have inspired Sinead in her life and work for the past fifteen years. The legendary reggae rhythm section of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare produced the album, and many of the musicians who played on the original record were enlisted to give added authenticity to the sound.
Sinead is already writing her own collection of spiritual songs to be entitled Theology, for release some time in 2007. In the meantime she will put out Throw Down Your Arms this October on her own label, That's why there's Chocolate and Vanilla (a favorite expression of her deceased manager Steve Fargnoli). As she pulls together the threads from over a decade of work, Sinead will this autumn, for the first time in eight years, tour in North America. "The shows are the whole point," she told me. "I can't wait to be onstage with Sly and Robbie. I want to pass on the teachings of the Rastafarai movement, sing the songs and have fun. It will be better than mass."
Some albums, as Van Morrison once said, demand to be made. Throw Down Your Arms is the record that Sinead has been building towards for fifteen years, and perhaps the finest work of career. It is the human voice used as an instrument of spiritual healing. Irish philosopher Mark Patrick Hederman wrote: "Singing is a way of proclaiming a better world, a refusal to give in to the grimness of the past." It is Sinead's hope that people find comfort and inspiration in these songs, as she does, and that, in making this record, she has gone some small way toward rescuing God from religion.
It should have been the most joyous small-town-girl-makes-good success story. Before many of her peers had left school Sinead had gone from busking the streets of Dublin to playing the Grammys – something no Irishwoman had ever done. But, far from home and coping with the recent death of her mother, the young singer balked at the sudden success. For her, music was not a ticket to 'the big time' but a springboard out of small-town boredom, a means of expressing her spirituality and a salve for the mental wounds, which were the legacy of a difficult childhood. When her then-manager, Fachtna O'Ceallaigh, broke the news to her that her second single, "Mandinka," has debuted inside the English top twenty the singer broke into tears. She knew the game was up. Music would henceforth be business.
And by January 1990 business had begun to boom like never before. Sinead's cover of Prince's cast off tale of love lost was released and shot straight to number one in every country with a chart. The stark, iconoclastic video for "Nothing Compares 2 U" featured nothing more complicated than a continuous close-up of Sinead's face, one moment twisted in anger the next, famously, crying a solitary tear. It became one of the most celebrated music videos of all time and won Sinead and director John Maybury a slew of awards. The groundbreaking album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (1990) featured songs so intensely personal that the record company had initially hesitated to release it. It went on to become one of the most successful records of the decade and influenced a whole generation of artists.
But the mantle of fame continued to sit uneasily on Sinead's slender shoulders. She found the spotlight of public attention oppressive and feared that the continual pressure to tour and promote herself as a commodity would stymie her creative progress. And, so with, as Buju Banton had it, "no regard for who she may tickle" Sinead set about sabotaging her success. Her third album Am I Not Your Girl? (1992), was a deliberate commercial sidestep and in the sleeve notes the singer hinted that her music would soon have a more overtly spiritual feel.
On October 3, 1992 Sinead appeared on Saturday Night Live with a Rastafarian prayer cloth wrapped around the microphone and sang an impassioned acapella version of "War" by Bob Marley, in which she altered the lyrics to make reference to child abuse. After crying "fight the real enemy," she then tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II. This controversial gesture was her protest against the Catholic patriarchy's contribution to the oppressive culture of silence that in turn lead to the child abuse scandals which were to rock America and her native Ireland. Predictably, this principled stand caused her to be pilloried in the press, but Sinead had taken a giant leap towards achieving her aim. She had publicly abdicated her status as mainstream pop star and allied herself with a more spiritual musical tradition.
That tradition was Rastafarian culture and roots music, which Sinead had fallen in love with during her first three years in London. Having experienced the worst effects of Catholic repression in her home country, Sinead wanted to "rescue God from religion" in her own life. Rastafarianism, with its emphasis on the struggle for self esteem and its teaching that God is a living presence on earth, appealed strongly to her as an Irish Catholic female survivor of child abuse. The educational prayerfulness, the controlled anger and the funky bombast of much Jamaican music were something Sinead was already striving for in her own work. Roots music (as distinct from the more commercial reggae which came out of Jamaica in the 1970s and '80s) was deeply religious but with without the po-faced saccharine overtones of many contemporary hymns.
And so, over the next decade Sinead would begin to weave roots influences into her work. Like the great Caribbean singers she would thenceforth sing in her own accent and dialect and incorporate more explicit spiritual overtones into her lyrics. Her next album, Universal Mother (1994) featured "Fire on Babylon," a song that, like the Saturday Night Live version of "War," had as its themes child abuse and the Rastafarian version of an earthly hell. In her live shows during the mid '90s, Sinead began to sing a gorgeously pared down version of Marley's "Redemption Song" and together with Bomb the Base and Benjamin Zephaniah wrote and recorded "Empire," a track heavily influenced by the Studio One greats of the 1960s, which would feature on her Greatest Hits album, So Far, The Best of Sinead O'Connor (1997).
On her next full studio album, Faith and Courage (2000), Sinead married the slack reggae beat, which now characterized much of her production, to prayerful self-penned songs and one Christian hymn, "Kyrie Eleison." Due to family commitments Sinead did not tour in support of this record but appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. This was also the last the last time that she has performed live in America.
By the time Faith and Courage was released Sinead had moved back to her native Ireland where huge changes were taking place. Rocked by child abuse scandals, the Catholic churches numbers were dwindling and there had been a huge influx of African refugees into the country. Many criticized what they saw as economic immigrants, but Sinead saw these new arrivals as an answer to the spiritual vacuum left by the Church's receding influence. On her next record, Sean Nos Nua (2002), she symbolized this converging of the old and new Irelands by taking traditional Gaelic songs and updating them with reggae dubs. She toured in support of this record in 2002/2003, playing to sold-out venues all over Ireland, Britain and continental Europe. Last year Sinead released She Who Dwells in the Secret Place Of The Most High Shall Abide Under The Shadow Of The Almighty (2004), an album of unreleased tracks and collaborations before stepping even further back from mainstream music by declaring she would from only record spiritual records.
Now in 2005, thirteen years after she stepped back from the brink of superstardom, Sinead has finally made the record towards which she has been building her whole career. In April of this year, she traveled alone to Kingston, Jamaica to record her brand new record, Throw Down Your Arms, at the world famous Tuff Gong and Anchor Studios. It's a collection of roots songs, which have inspired Sinead in her life and work for the past fifteen years. The legendary reggae rhythm section of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare produced the album, and many of the musicians who played on the original record were enlisted to give added authenticity to the sound.
Sinead is already writing her own collection of spiritual songs to be entitled Theology, for release some time in 2007. In the meantime she will put out Throw Down Your Arms this October on her own label, That's why there's Chocolate and Vanilla (a favorite expression of her deceased manager Steve Fargnoli). As she pulls together the threads from over a decade of work, Sinead will this autumn, for the first time in eight years, tour in North America. "The shows are the whole point," she told me. "I can't wait to be onstage with Sly and Robbie. I want to pass on the teachings of the Rastafarai movement, sing the songs and have fun. It will be better than mass."
Some albums, as Van Morrison once said, demand to be made. Throw Down Your Arms is the record that Sinead has been building towards for fifteen years, and perhaps the finest work of career. It is the human voice used as an instrument of spiritual healing. Irish philosopher Mark Patrick Hederman wrote: "Singing is a way of proclaiming a better world, a refusal to give in to the grimness of the past." It is Sinead's hope that people find comfort and inspiration in these songs, as she does, and that, in making this record, she has gone some small way toward rescuing God from religion.
Sinéad O'Connor All Music Guide Biography
Sinéad O'Connor ranked among the most distinctive and controversial pop music stars of the 1990s, the first and in many ways the most influential of the numerous female performers whose music dominated airwaves throughout the decade. Brash and outspoken -- her shaven head, angry visage, and shapeless wardrobe a direct challenge to the 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 which 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 of the film The 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."
However, 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 which 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.
Now 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 followed 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 and Vanilla. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
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 of the film The 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."
However, 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 which 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.
Now 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 followed 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 and Vanilla. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
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