181–190 of 308 posts
Saw her live in NYC back in 2005 when she was doing roots reggae. Sly & Robbie was the rhythm section, with Burning Spear on vocals and percussion. Maybe Mikey Chung on guitar? I was totally surprised at the combination — this Crazy Baldhead amongst Dreads — but one of the best live shows I've been to. Surrounded by reggae icons, she was a boss on that stage. Big up Sinéad! An incredible musician.
She was right also when criticized the pope for not doing enough about the abuses of minors in the catholic church (except basically hiding the abusers).
My choice would be Jump in the River, Fire on Babylon, or the fantastic duet Haunted.
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Nothing Compares 2 U reliably induces frisson/goosebumps in me. Rare that a cover can match a Prince original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Compares_2_U
Chris Cornell's cover is way up there too.
I always had immense respect for her decision to shave her head when told by music execs to "sex it up." She was gorgeous but she was a singer. She wanted to be hired for her singing. Being a pretty young woman shouldn't be such a ridiculous hardship. And I kind of wonder how much that radicalized her and how that factors into her conversion to Islam.
Wow, I always liked Sinead and her music but didn't realize that was the reason for her haircut. Big up to her.
She was largely portrayed as a vapid attention-seeker and it was as if the head-shaving was just like... one of her "wild and crazy" acts.
Now, this was the mid-80s. Media was so much more centralized. I was a kid, and all you really had was the news bites that were served to you.
Theoretically some enterprising kid/person could have really researched her, but out of the zillions of things I could have been doing at the time I wasn't aware of any reason to think more deeply about her.
As an adult I did so and man, that was a strong woman. The "You're Wrong About" episode about her is a wonderful place to start.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/14wx8cu/1992...
> She refused the playing of US national anthem before her concerts, drawing further public scorn. Was this a thing?! A good episode of "You're Wrong About..." covers the controversy of her: https://open.spotify.com/episode/265qKOV5C7XBqlyXMjp7VF https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/sin%C3%A9ad-oconnor-wi...
I used to refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance in high school and get threatened with being beat up, I guess it was a thing at the time.
Her performance on SNL was a sign-act (prophetic gesture) in the purest sense of the word.
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I used to refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance in high school and get threatened with being beat up, I guess it was a thing at the time.
The second Iraq war started when I was in junior high, that’s when I stopped standing for the pledge and kept it through high school. There was a big discussion about whether students could be reprimanded, but ultimately I think it was decided that refusal was a form of free speech. I was proud of that, and so were my parents.
There was a Jehovah's Witness in our school. And of course he would not participate, leading some of the other kids to want to beat him up. They only gave up after they were threatened by the school and told by their parents that they have to respect other views. That was long ago, when the US valued civility. These days the parents would probably tell their kids to beat him up. The parents might even show them some moves.