Some Sinead O’Connor Favourites

Well, after yesterday's news, I thought I better share some Sinead music. So many favourites. Here are many, but not all. Add your own below. And there's an infinite YouTube playlist being built....

Well, it was a tough day for so many of us yesterday, with some really harsh news overnight. We lost one of the greatest singers of the 20^th Century. A hero. A kindred soul. And I thank you for the response to the quick tribute that I carved out in a few spare minutes at the start of the day.

As I said in that piece, it was raw – and I was writing quickly to try to capture some of the meaning and emotion of listening to Sinead. What I didn’t do was share any of the music. Well, embedded in the post, near the end, was this playlist that I first shared here last year when writing about her (brilliant) memoir.

I said, as the day went on, that I’d write a bit more and specifically about the music for Friday’s regular “Sounds Good!” Substack newsletter. So there’s that handy playlist of some of my favourites to kick off.

Originally, I had thought to call this something like 10 Songs That You Should Hear Before You Listen to Nothing Compares 2 U, or “Songs That Are Better Than Nothing Compares…” etc.

But why rag on that song. That song is amazing. And Sinead’s version is definitive. As a kid, I loved it. And it helped me in my defence of Prince too. Being a Prince fan at primary school in Hawke’s Bay in the 1980s was weird – apparently. Not normal. And obviously I was “gay”, went the schoolyard taunt. It was the era where you could “get Aids” by listening to “homo” music. Embarrassing. Sad. Pathetic. But, two bits of knowledge that I held onto, even at age eight or nine, really helped me win a few people over. Prince played 27 instruments! (He was a musical genius). And he wrote both Nothing Compares 2 U and The Bangles’ Manic Monday.

In my university years, I’d play in a covers band that attempted Noting Compares 2 U. We might not have done it justice, but we always had people singing along. It was that kind of tune.

Anyway, if you want to play Nothing Compares – or if you were blasting it yesterday – no shame. It’s a towering song. And hers is a perfect rendition. And that video! That was how many of us met Sinead O’Connor.

But…

My god there are some tunes. And not just ones where Sinead’s name was on the spine of the album.

I love those first four albums she released. And some days my favourite – my absolute favourite – is that set of covers Am I Not Your Girl? I’ve written about this a few times, but that was the album that fully convinced me of both her power and range. Of her vulnerability too. Some of those cover versions will make you weep.

But it arrived after two brilliant albums that felt (so) different from anything else I was exposed to in the mid/late 1980s.

And then there was Universal Mother – which I loved very much. And particularly, at the time, for her tender reading of All Apologies, which felt like the perfect tribute to Kurt Cobain; my heart breaking at the time for the loss of him from this world. And how perfectly sincere, empathetic, passionate and wise of O’Connor to know to cover that song – and in such a treatment.

There are gems on the later albums too – and there’s a wide range of singing and musical styles, from reggae to show tunes, via blue-eyed soul and so much to marvel at. Simple pop balladry was never just simple when Sinead was singing. And skeletal folk protest songs gained a whole new power. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I reached immediately for This Is To Mother You because I love the way you could feel held by a Sinead O’Connor song. I reached for Black Boys on Mopeds because to me that’s a devastatingly powerful and beautiful protest song that works now, nearly 40 years on from what it was protesting (of course the song’s sentiment is sadly still relevant even if the political names have changed).

And the live performances stun. I am being honest when I say that many weeks of the year my YouTube account has the version of Bob Marley’s War from the SNL episode where she rips up the picture of the Pope and/or the I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got rendition from MTV Unplugged in its history.

But there were soundtrack contributions (and you lot know how gaga I am for soundtracks!) where Sinead was a cameo voice. There was her duet with Willie Nelson covering the Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush classic, Don’t Give Up. She sat in with Massive Attack to make, I think, the best song from their last decent album. She collaborated with so many people on the side that there was a fairly decent catch-all comp, called Collaborations. But it couldn’t gather up everything.

My favourite album to feature Sinead – that is not an official Sinead O’Connor album is Ghostland. Oh my, this album is a STUNNER. It features two of the most heavenly voices, Sinead duetting with Natacha Atlas. The song Guide Me God is probably best known by Sinead fans, because it’s on that Collaborations compilation, but the other two songs might even be better.

So I’m just going to dump a bunch of my favourite Sinead songs here (and below) to finish. And you can share some of your favourites, or mention some of your favourites in the comments.

[If you’re a YouTube music listener that link above will take you to a playlist packed with videos and live performances, both the big hits and the less obvious. The collaborations and the solo singles, and album cuts. There’s over 100 clips – and I’ll keep adding to it. You can shuffle it, play on repeat, etc.]

No bonus playlist today – though there might be a bonus post for paid subscribers, where I’ll include that. I just feel like today should be all about Sinead.

I also get that for some of you it’ll be too soon to listen to too much from Sinead. That your loss is not ready for the magic to even it out. So you can bookmark this, return to it when you’re ready…

R.I.P.