Sinéad O’Connor will be remembered for her ethereal ballads, rebellious anthems

• Published date: 29 July 2023
• Author: Harrison Smith
• Publication title: Weekend Argus

Her family announced the death in a statement on Wednesday. Additional details were not immediately available

Declaring that she was “proud to be a troublemaker”, O’Connor made music that channelled and reflected her tumultuous personal life, with lyrics about sexism, religion, child abuse, famine and police brutality set against reggae beats, traditional Irish melodies and throbbing pop hooks.

Beaten by her mother as a girl, she was later diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. She acknowledged having suicidal thoughts in recent years.

When her teenage son, Shane, died by suicide in January last year, she threatened to take her life and was hospitalised. Earlier this month, O’Connor tweeted that Shane “was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul”, adding that she was “lost… without him”.

O’Connor, who began using the name Shuhada Sadaqat off-stage after converting to Islam in 2018, saw herself as a punk musician and was credited with influencing singers as varied as Liz Phair, Courtney Love, Alanis Morissette and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.

“I’m just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then,” she wrote in a 2021 memoir, Rememberings. As she told it, she was dismayed and not delighted when her 1990 single Nothing Compares 2 U turned her into a global sensation. Originally written by Prince for one of his side projects, The Family, the ballad topped the Billboard pop chart for four weeks. The music video showed her in haunting close-up, turning her pale face and shaven head into one of the decade’s defining pop culture images.

O’Connor’s distinctive, close-cropped look dates back to the release of her debut album, The Lion and the Cobra (1987).

She later explained that her record label, Chrysalis, requested that she act more “girly” before the album’s release, prompting her to cut off her hair. “Hair’s a fashion statement,” she said, “and I don’t want to make one.”

But she seemed to have no qualms about making a political statement. For a performance at the Grammy Awards in 1989, she had Public Enemy’s target logo painted on her head, in solidarity with the hip-hop group and other black acts that the Recording Academy tended to ignore.

“I have refused to take part… I don’t know no shame, I feel no pain,” she sang, performing her single Mandinka. The performance fuelled album sales for The Lion and the Cobra – a million in the US alone, an impressive number for a previously...