Sinead O'Connor RIP

Sinead once said that ripping up the photo of the pope on SNL didn't destroy her career, it allowed her to recover her career and be the confrontational artist she always had been and always wanted to be.  The SNL appearance destroyed the career of the music execs who were banking on another five million copies sold for her next album. She had a long, successful career and never conformed to popular demand.  Her career trajectory will never be repeated.

I admittedly lost track of her musical output around 1995, her interests and mine were completely divergent in the mid-nineties.  When you'd read something about her it would usually be clickbait-style reporting on her personal hardships.  That's just how it was post-1993, once the money (according to the music establishment) was no longer in selling millions of records, it shifted to incessant negativity and phony narratives, crazy Sinead is opening her mouth and saying controversial things again so let's listen and laugh.  It was sad at the time and it's simply inexcusable now.  She was complex, she was always searching, she stood for something, and if she wasn't always perfectly eloquent about it then what does it matter.   Look at the tributes pouring in from musicians across several decades and wildly distinct genres.  I had forgotten how many guest appearances she did on other people's records and various compilations.  The wide spectrum of people who worked with her knew how special she was.  

I have written about "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" before, as time passes I think it become an increasingly indispensable classic.  The politics may have changes but the sentiments haven't.  It's still baffling to recall that millions of people paid money to listen to "Three Babies", "Black Boys on Mopeds", and "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance".