“Take me to church, I’ve done so many
bad things it hurts,” sings Sinéad O’Connor on the first single from her most recent album I’m Not Bossy I’m The Boss. As
well you have m’lady, I thought, recalling how, in 1990, I had commissioned a
biography of Sinéad from an Irish author who told me that after it was
published he was accosted in a Dublin bar by the lady herself, evidently
displeased at something he had written. A year or two later I called the author
to suggest he update the book but he declined. At first I thought this was
because he might be concerned about further attacks but no, it turned out that
in the meantime the hatchet had been buried but the terms of their now friendly
relationship evidently included a clause forbidding further work on the
biography.
Sinéad
O’Conner has, in the vernacular of the constabulary, been a person of interest
for me ever since I first heard (and saw the video for) her breath-taking reading
of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares To You’ and I don’t suppose I’m alone in this. Early
in her career I went to see her at the Royal Albert Hall and was mesmerised by
this waiflike creature, especially when she produced a beat-box and danced a
jig to one of her songs, arms straight down her sides, high stepping Irish
style. Her first two albums, The Lion And
The Cobra and I Do Not Want What I
Haven’t Got, have been favourites of mine for years, and I’ve tried to keep
up with her music while her antics have made headlines, not always for the right
reasons.
On
this new album her voice has mellowed, perhaps a natural result of growing
older, perhaps because she has been advised that to reach a wider audience she
needs to adopt a more radio-friendly style. This move contrasts sharply with
the cover on which she is photographed wearing a dominatrix-style black latex
dress and a raven-haired wig that makes her look a bit like Jessie J. Nowadays
to see her with longish hair is as provocative as when she first appeared,
shaven-headed, on the cover of The Lion
And The Cobra.
The
other contrast on I’m Not Bossy I’m The
Boss is between the lyrics and the music. While Sinéad sings, as ever, of
deep-rooted passions, resentment and desperation, too many of the tracks feature
arrangements that are at best easy-on-the-ear and at worst featureless. Many
songs, most notably ‘Dense Water Deeper Down’ and ‘Kisses Like Mine’, which
follow back to back, sound like Mirage-era
Fleetwood Mac (Lindsay Buckingham branch), which if you’re a Mac fan is no bad thing but I don’t expect that
from Sinéad. Double-tracking her scorching voice so that it sits in a kind of
velvety cushion is fine for some, but to me Sinéad’s lyrics call for a more
strident tone or the menacing, angry distance she conjured up for songs like ‘Black Boys On Mopeds’
and ‘The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance’. I liked the catchy opening number ‘How
About Me’, and preferred the more understated songs like ‘Harbour’, the
vulnerable emotion of ‘The Vishnu Room’ and the closer ‘Streetcars’ to the AOR-ish
production that frames most of the songs here. The single ‘Take Me To Church’ is
also memorable, rocking up a storm, especially on the chorus, albeit again a
bit like the big Mac.
If
you prefer your Sinéad with a touch of melodic sugar to sweeten the lyrical
pill then I’m Not Bossy I’m The Boss is
for you – but I could do with a bit less honey and more Tabasco.
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