Sinéad O'Connor Has Passed Away

[Hobo]

This is sad. She had years of mental health problems and lost her son a few years ago too. 56 is too young and she was so talented.

 

[Hobo]

Here she is performing Nothing Compares 2 U on Irish television in 2019.

[TheGrandAvatar]

So sad. Know she had her struggles with mental health over the last few years. A great singer and often enjoyed her music and voice. 

[Benjamin]

I love Nothing Compares 2 U, and I genuinely think she had the best version. 

[GhostMachine]

Can't watch it because we dropped cable and don't get Starz (though we could through Prime, if we realy wanted to. We get Showtime through Paramount +), but I heard she did the theme for the latest season of Outlander. For those unaware, the Outlander theme is just The Skye Boat Song with a woman singing it (did a male-female duet one season, I believe), so "Lad|" is changed to "Lass" in the lyrics. And they do a new version each season.

Skye Boat Song is a great song, but surprisingly I don't like Rod Stewart's version at all. I really like Rod Stewart.

Did I hear correctly that she converted to Islam several years ago? 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by GhostMachine

[arwrestling]

 

Props to THR for posting this with the image she currently identified with, much respect for acknowledging her converting to Islam and adopted modesty.

Her voice defined the 90s in many ways, truly iconic. Her activism on THAT night on SNL ended up being proven correctly a decade later and she never got the due apology she deserved or credit for exposing it. 

Rest in Power legend.

Edited July 27, 2023 by arwrestling

[gunnar hendershow]

She never got the apology she deserved from everyone.

[GhostMachine]

I watched that episode of SNL when it originally aired, and wasn't it Madonna who later tore up a picture of her after performing?

[The Kraig]

I feel like her earthly struggle is over. She reminds me of several of my exes, in many good ways and bad. I hope she is at peace. I'll always respect her for standing up for what she believed in.

[Hobo]

7 hours ago, GhostMachine said:

Did I hear correctly that she converted to Islam several years ago?

She had and changed her name to Shuhada Sadaqat while keeping Sinéad O'Connor. You can see in recent photos and the video above she often wore a hijab or other head and body coverings which i do not know the exact name for.

 

I sat at home yesterday watching literally 90% of my social media turn into a Sinéad O'Connor memorial. The Presidents website crashed because too many people were trying to read his tribute to her.

Her death as moved a lot of people here. Even me who wouldnt have been a huge fan. Then came stories, pictures, videos.

The obvious being the SNL clip, followed by the Bob Dylan tribute show. Its worth remembering in doing that she was drawing attention to child abuse in the Catholic church before anyone else.  Other images that came up again and again are detailed below which include her protesting for abortion rights in Ireland and at an anti racism demonstration.

 I have never  listened to her albums. She was someone you couldnt really escape though. There are duets she did with Willie Nelson and Shane McGowan that I quite like. The only other solo song of hers I have good knowledge of (outside the obvious) is her cover of John Grants Queen of Denmark

 

[Skummy]

9 hours ago, Benjamin said:

I love Nothing Compares 2 U, and I genuinely think she had the best version. 

Prince agreed with you.

 

This is heartbreaking. She didn't mean as much to me as to some of my Irish friends, to whom she was far more ubiquitous in pop culture and so on, but she was incredible. I didn't listen to her as much as I perhaps should, as I adore so many of her individual songs yet rarely put on an album - Jackie is as haunting and beautiful as any song she ever recorded, and has something she really shared with Shane MacGowan (whose song "Haunted" with her is a favourite of mine), in their ability to write a song that sounded like it had been around for hundreds of years already, without feeling like a folksy pastiche. That she could do that on her first album, alongside a song as good and as different as Mandinka, and continue to improve and diversify beyond that is amazing.

The media establishment should be spending this time reckoning with how they treated her, and how they treat women in general, but they won't. The Guardian obituary refers to her having a reputation as pop music's "crazy lady in the attic", or words to that effect. Everything she got called crazy for doing was just standing up for herself, for what she believed in, and what mattered - all of the things @Hobo mentioned - or her daring to operate outside the narrow confines of what a female singer was "supposed" to behave like. Pop culture history is full of women who either stood up for themselves or were victims of abuse and a cruel and vindictive media, yet were treated as villains or punchlines for it - if it's not Sinead, it's Yoko Ono, it's Britney Spears, it's Amy Winehouse, it's Amanda Bynes, and beyond pop culture it's Monica Lewinsky.

Sinead, like many before her, will be held up as a trailblazer, pioneer and cautionary tale now that she's gone, while those doing the lionising ignoring the role they had in marginalising her and victimising her for decades before. Glen Hansard said it well in a Tweet, that "Ireland prefers its heroes on the wall", because they're "too afraid to deal with them in the room". It's much easier to stake a claim to someone's meaning and legacy when they're not around any more to make that difficult for you by getting in the way with their pesky opinions and agency.

[Hobo]

2 hours ago, Skummy said:

 Glen Hansard said it well in a Tweet, that "Ireland prefers its heroes on the wall", because they're "too afraid to deal with them in the room".

Absolutely. Notably we have a statue of James Joyce and named a bridge after Samuel Beckett. 

I also love Haunted. I was thinking this morning how the line "you've got a way of talking" is so funny  when sung by Sinéad O'Connor to Shane McGowan of all people.

The Irish state failed Sinéad O'Connor in many ways. Most recently in regards to her son Shane. Members of the current government have and will make utterances about her most of them will be people, to paraphrase a tweet, were people she would have called a cunt to their face if she'd had a chance.

Apparently she donated her make up to charty for trans youth in 2021. Earlier this year she won an award at a ceremony in Dublin and dedicated it to all refugees in Ireland. That was one of her final public appearances.

 

[Adam]

This news has made me really sad. I won't pretend I was a Sinead O'Connor megafan or anything, but she was always around when I was a child. My mum certainly listened to her a lot, and as I grew up and learned more about what Sinead had done in her life and how she had advocated for those without a voice, I gained a lot of respect for her.

I relate to her mental health struggles in many ways. She overcame an awful lot in her life and I'm sad that it has ended, far too soon. She had a true sincerity to herself and bravely lived her life how she wanted to. She also had an incredible voice. The world is worse off without her in it.

[METALMAN]

To my knowledge I’ve only ever heard one of her songs. I’m sure you can guess which one. I never thought too much of it and probably wouldn’t think of it all if it weren’t for the fact that I listen to Prince a lot so his (yes, inferior) version pops up from time to time.

Despite that, I had a much greater awareness of her as a person and the positions she took. Some i sympathised with, some I didn’t, but they were usually very brave. 

I can understand that comparisons of Sinead O’Connor are being made to the likes of Billie Holiday and Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse but I feel they are a bit distinct. For those three it was more down to private lifestyle and substance issues, they didn’t really go out seeking confrontation. Sinead O’Connor absolutely did. For the record I fully endorse the decisions to ban the US national anthem from a concert and rip up a picture of the Pope on TV. These are good things to do and I think it is a shame that there isn’t really anyone in pop music these days that is willing to take brave and principled positions like that. But you would have to be very naive not to expect that to bring down a certain amount of vilification upon you. If you challenge the status quo, the status quo is going to hit back. Not that that excuses the treatment she received on the back of these, but I don’t think the story is totally analogous to that classic trope of the fallen idol or whatever you want to call it, because Sinead O’Connor fought back.

[GhostMachine]

One of the radio stations here did a "Stong women" themed show for around 4 hours one day a few months ago, and played Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston. Now, they very well could have, because I did not listen to the full show, but I didn't hear any Sinead. And I'd consider her stronger than them, considering what she's gone through.

Edited July 29, 2023 by GhostMachine

[Your Mom]

24 minutes ago, GhostMachine said:

One of the radio stations here did a "Stong women" themed show for around 4 hours one day a few months ago, and played Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston. I do not consider anyone who died from alcohol poisoning or drug use "strong", but get why they were played. Now, they very well could have, because I did not listen to the full show, but I didn't hear any Sinead.

I'm going to take the high road here and not give into the flaming that we have rules against and as a mod I should try and be a good example for everyone but you should know that if I wasn't you would be seeing a side of me that people here very rarely see

[GhostMachine]

18 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

I'm going to take the high road here and not give into the flaming that we have rules against and as a mod I should try and be a good example for everyone but you should know that if I wasn't you would be seeing a side of me that people here very rarely see

You're right. I wasn't thinking. 

[Your Mom]

1 hour ago, GhostMachine said:

You're right. I wasn't thinking. 

Still aren't from the looks of it

[METALMAN]

I’m not going to take a position on who or who isn’t strong here because I don’t really consider strength to be a virtue.

But a radio station doing a focus on “strong wonen” or “strong” anything is really weird when you think about it and I think it says a lot of our modern cult of hyper self-individualism and self-help. Where external social and economics factors aren’t relevant and your ability to succeed or overcome adversity is based on how “strong” you are. 

As noted influencer and content creator Jesus Christ once posted, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. I don’t follow him on any socials and I wouldn’t say I’m part of his fandom but I’ll take that over post-modernist narcissism any day.

(not least because good music is so often about showing a more vulnerable side of urself and giving the listener something to identify with. “You think that I’m strong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong” - R. Williams, 1999”.)