Published on Sep 14, 2005
Sinead O’Connor is one of rock’s most essential female singers.
Though this fact may not be as widely acknowledged in today’s
times, O’Connor stunned the rock music scene way back in 1987 with
her smashing debut The Lion and the Cobra, and she was the sexiest
rocker to come out of the British Isles ever. The no-nonsense
aggression — emanating with full-blown passion — of her rasping
yet beautiful voice made her a phenomenon in rock. To top it off,
she was bold, beautiful, and bald: O’Connor had made history in
female rock.
After her 1990 super-hit
I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, O’Connor’s popularity
waned as fast as it had risen due to her indulgence in other
things, which affected her music, and it has continued that way
ever since. The result is that she has been under a shadow of
obscurity and has not been getting the kind of recognition she
deserves.
Though O’Connor’s own music works might have deteriorated over
the years, she has been featuring in compositions of other
musicians, to the result that she has enough numbers to release an
album of her work with these musicians called, appropriately,
Collaborations.
Collaborations is a long-time-coming masterpiece from
O’Connor. It is an album of big and small names — almost all
British — and is loaded with musicians as talented and as eclectic
as O’Connor herself.
The stars of the record include Massive Attack, The The, Peter
Gabriel, Moby, U2, and The Edge (there is a separate duet with U2’s
guitar player alone). The lesser known artists/bands, mainly Jah
Wobble’s Invaders, Conjure One, Aslan, and Damien Dempsey have the
best possible platform of introducing themselves to the people who
are not aware of them: O’Connor doing their numbers, bringing out
the best in them as well as in her.
Collaborations is not only great for the number of bands/artists
featured in it (17 songs), but also for the variety of music styles
explored. The record is distinctly ethnic in nature. The styles
vary between Indian-club (Asian Dub Foundation), reggae (Bomb The
Bass), Celtic (Afro Celt Sound System), world fusion (Ghostland and
Peter Gabriel), Christian rock (Aslan) and Irish folk (Damien
Dempsey). It is almost impossible to pick out the best
collaboration from the record, since there are way too many of
them, and all of which are so different from each other. However,
each one of them represents O’Connor as a talented singer, who is
ready to take up any creative challenge with full fervor.
Collaborations is a clear example of how O’ Connor has
always been a favorite among other musicians as a singer to work
with; the songs span from 1987 (“Heroine” with The Edge) to 2003
(“Special Cases” with Massive Attack). O’Connor has been secretly
making memorable appearances on other musicians’ works all this
time while her own laid in doldrums. She has had so many
appearances that this album doesn’t have enough space for her other
collaborations; for instance, with the band James (songs from the
LP
Millionaires) and with the trio of Bono, Gavin Friday, and
Maurice Seezer (“You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart” from the
soundtrack to
In The Name Of the Father).
The past decade gave birth to two of the most outstanding
singers in rock ever: Jeff Buckley and Sinead O’Connor. Both the
stars were eclipsed very early on in their careers, never to shine
again at all. One died. The other had been a living dead, only
until now; and the rebirth is as bright as ever.