Irish singer Sinead O'Connor sings at a concert in aid of the Chernobyl Children's Project in The Tivoli Theatre March 6, 2003 in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Getty Images) 
Few artists have straddled the boundaries between acclaim, controversy and public affection as effectively as Sinéad O’Connor who died on 26 July 2023 at the age of 56.
Her status as a household name belied a comparatively brief commercial peak in the early 1990s, thanks to her mesmerising interpretation of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U. But she was never in any danger of being relegated to being a one-hit wonder.
O’Connor’s life and career were characterised by irregularity and a sense of being at odds with her surroundings. Her childhood was fraught. After her parents separated when she was young, O’Connor lived mostly with her mother, who she claimed was abusive, and involved her in shoplifting and fraudulent charity collecting. Truancy and crime led to a spell in the Catholic church-run Grianán Training Centre, a harsh rehabilitation centre associated with the infamous Magdalene Laundries. Although traumatic, the centre provided her with an entry into music when a teacher asked her to sing at a wedding, which led to encounters with musicians who encouraged her to write lyrics and pursue the guitar.
Adversity infused her music with a punk spirit, an oppositional attitude that was writ large throughout the rest of her career. By the time her mother died in a car crash when O’Connor was 18 years old, the singer was well on her way. She had dropped out of school and formed a band called Ton Ton Macoute – with typically spiky attitude – a name derived from a mythical Haitian bogeyman, and also the dictator Papa Doc Duvalier’s feared secret police.
A distinctive template as a singer-songwriter
Having captured the attention of former U2 label boss Fachtna O'Ceallaigh, and collaborated with The Edge on a song for the film Captive, her solo career began in grand style with The Lion and the Cobra in 1987. A gold record in the UK, US, Canada and the Netherlands – featuring the Top 40 single
it marked out her image and distinctive voice, clear and pure, but never demure.
Her trademark cropped hair and forthright bearing set her apart from prevailing female singer-songwriters. Shunning both overtly sexualised imagery and quirky hippie-chick vibes, O’Connor’s aesthetic was blunt and raw, although the clarity of her voice gave it commercial traction.
This reached a pinnacle on her next album, 1990’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got – a multi-platinum worldwide number one that featured her best-known recording, Nothing Compares 2 U which she made completely her own. Propelled by a stark video in unflinching close-up, tears running down her face, it made her an international star. But O’Connor’s predilection for musical exploration, political confrontation and emotional honesty meant that her mainstream career quickly self-combusted.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-1735311.jpg "Irish singer Sinead O'Connor sings in concert January 18, 2003 at The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Getty Images)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-148977101.jpg "Singer Sinead O'Connor performs at \"Here But I'm Gone: A 70th Birthday Tribute to Curtis Mayfield\" concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center on July 20, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-139635062.jpg "Musician Sinead O'Connor performs at the Highline Ballroom on February 23, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-130665707.jpg "Singer Sinead O'Connor performs at The 2011 amfAR Inspiration Gala Los Angeles held at the Chateau Marmont on October 27, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for amfAR)")
Despite the success of her early recordings she took a counter-intuitive turn on her next album, 1992’s Am I Not Your Girl?, which featured lush versions of jazz standards. While her voice was more than up to the task of interpreting the classics she had grown up with, the departure from her previous work saw a critical and commercial step down from the trailblazing success of her previous album. More significantly, she used her promotional activity in America to showcase her status as a protest singer rather than a pop star.
Given the centrality of her personal, and musical, voice to her career, it’s perhaps apt that two of her most notable live performances are both a cappella, and confrontational. An