SINEAD O'CONNOR (1966 - 2023)

Sinéad O'Connor, the gifted yet troubled Irish musician, has sadly passed away on July 26th at the age of fifty-six. No details have emerged to date on the cause of death. She was an amazing artist who was a true force of nature with a voice that could go from a soothing, gentle whisper to a raucous roar that could shake you to your core.

Born in Dublin, O'Connor suffered from emotional trauma and physical abuse since she was a child, largely from her mother, who suffered from mental illness, and from church clergy. As a teen, she was heading towards a destructive path with her involved in petty criminal acts and truancy. In an attempt to redirect her, O'Connor was sent to a Magdalene asylum where she developed her writing skills yet also suffered more abuse.

Her life turned more positive when she met musician, Colm Farrelly who formed a band with her called Ton Ton Macoute with O'Connor becoming the lead vocalist. This lead to her attracting the attention of music labels, eventually being signed as a solo performer by Ensign Records. O'Connor had always had a rebellious streak, which had gotten her into trouble in her youth, and when record executives wanted her looking like your standard female pop star with flowing hair and wearing mini-skirts, she pushed back by shaving her head while performing in t-shirts and torn denim.

With the release of her 1987 debut, "The Lion and the Cobra" (which she wrote or co-wrote all songs), it was clear that O'Connor had no interest in being an average pop musician but an independent-minded artist. The album was a collection of angsty songs with themes involving religion, race, sexuality and social oppression. "The Lion and the Cobra" brought O'Connor critical acclaim and an expanding fan following but it would be her 1990 follow-up album, "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" that would turn her into a pop music sensation. Her cover of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U" would become an international smash hit, being named the year's top world single according to Billboard.

O'Connor had difficulty handing this sudden fame, pushing back against the public scrutiny with erratic behavior which included the infamous moment in 1992 while promoting her new album, "Am I Not Your Girl?" on "Saturday Night Live" when after performing a version of Bob Marley's "War", she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest against the Church's silence on the child sexual abuse occurring there. Mocked and severely ridiculed at the time, it would not be until twenty years later before the Church would finally publicly acknowledge what was happening and what O'Connor did would be viewed as a courageous act.

Following this televised incident, O'Connor's career would never fully recover but she continued to make music on her own terms, releasing a total of ten studio albums with her final release, "I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss" in 2014. She was sadly never fully appreciated in her lifetime for her artistry, largely because she refused to play the pop music game. As a survivor of abuse, O'Connor became a vocal activist, demanding that the world pay attention to the suffering of the marginalized, using her voice and music in an attempt to make a positive change.

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

Darren Hayes first began his career as part of the Australian pop duo, Savage Garden with Daniel Jones, who found immediate global success with their self-titled debut album in 1997. "I Want You", "To the Moon and Back", and "Truly Madly Deeply" were hit singles from the record and their follow-up album, "Affirmation" brought them even more popularity with "I Knew I Loved You", a worldwide smash. However by the end of 2001, Savage Garden was no more. Hayes continued his music as a solo artist, releasing his first album, "Spin" in 2002. After his follow-up album, Hayes parted ways his major label, Columbia Records, later forming his own label, Powdered Sugar in 2006.

It was during this period that Hayes began his process of coming out as gay, beginning a relationship with Richard Cullen although he did not reveal any of this publicly at the time. The couple married in 2013 and announced their happy union to the world. With his fifth studio album, boldly titled, "Homosexual", the now fifty year old performer proudly proclaims that he no longer feels any shame for who he is with the goal to reclaim the word from something viewed as negative. This dance-pop album is filled with the type of love songs that Hayes had written since the start of career yet they are told from a point of view involving maturity, honesty and newfound joy. Here are two songs from Hayes' new album and one of my favorites from his time with Savage Garden with the video featuring Kirsten Dunst (!) as Hayes' love interest:

A "new" song from the original line-up of the rock band, Queen has just been released. Originally recorded back in 1988 during the sessions for their final album together, "The Miracle", "Face It Alone" features Freddie Mercury's singularly passionate vocals on this mournful ballad. This song came to be heard only by accident as band members, Brian May and Roger Taylor had found the tape recently but it was in such bad shape that they thought it could not be salvaged. But they did give the track to an engineering team who were miraculously able to piece the song back together. This really is an amazing song (recorded while Mercury had been diagnosed with HIV and in failing health) and it's really great to hear this band together again.



Here is a collection of some new songs I'm loving right now:

In 1990, Sinéad O'Connor, the Irish rocker with the shaved head, was a rising pop star, in part due to her wildly successful cover of Prince's song, "Nothing Compares 2 U" which was enhanced by the music video, played in heavy rotation on MTV, that featured a close-up of the emotive singer shedding actual tears while performing the ballad. But that momentum began to slow down first after she refused to have the American National anthem played before her concerts (enraging Frank Sinatra) before coming to crashing halt after her 1992 television appearance as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live". O'Connor performed an a cappella version of Bob Marley's "War", then tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest his silence on the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. This act outraged many people at the time and even though she would be vindicated for her actions years later after the Church acknowledged the abuse, O'Connor's career, while she continued to make music, would not really recover.

The fascinating documentary, "Nothing Compares" by Kathryn Ferguson explores O'Connor's life before this troublesome incident, allowing for some explanation for behavior many might consider strange and erratic. She grew up in an abusive household as a young girl in Ireland who later suffered extreme trauma while staying at the Magdalene asylum for over a year as a teenager. Music was where O'Connor found solace and after the drummer for the band, In Tua Nua heard her sing, he had her record a song with the group. Although they decided she was too young to join their band, O'Connor was determined to continue on a music career, placing an ad in a rock magazine and meeting musician/producer, Colm Farrelly who would help her form a band and inspire her sound that would lead to her debut album, "The Lion and the Cobra" in 1987. O'Connor did not participate with this film, with Ferguson using off-camera interviews with people who had worked with the singer, previous interviews and plenty of performance footage by O'Connor to help shape the documentary. And you will not hear "Nothing Compares 2 U" in this film, just outtakes from the music video, as the estate of Prince would not allow the song to be used, most likely due to some of the unpleasant comments O'Connor had said about the late singer over the years.