The Lion & The Cobra
The Hot Press Newsdesk, 19 Dec 2009
Sinead O’Connor had been a notable presence on the Dublin scene, but few could have expected the young Ensign signing to produce such an ambitious, turbulent and mercurial debut album. O’Connor swapped masks and clothes with impunity: now a punk harpy, now a folk keener, now a neo-classical chanteuse. But that astonishing voice was the through-line. O’Connor could play the missing link between the natural mystics (she was Van’s orphan on ‘Just Like You Said It Would Be’) and the post-punks (‘Mandinka’, with its dirty Marco Pirroni riff). And with ‘I Want Your Hands On Me’ she was arguably the first Irish artist to explicitly express kinship with hip-hop. But the showstopper was a furious, recriminatory ‘Troy’ with its Yeats’ steals, flaming strings and gooseflesh vocal. Hell had no fury like a woman shorn.
No 18 in 2009, as voted for by over 200 Irish musicians. Down from No 11 in 2004.
The Hot Press Newsdesk
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Sinead O'Connor will be a surprise guest at Marlay Park, on August 25th.
2012-08-11 - News
The singer spoke exclusively to Hot Press...
2012-07-30 - News
Singer has reversed her decision to retire...
2012-05-11 - News
Sinead O'Connor has moved to set the record straight in relation to her split with manager Fachtna O Ceallaigh, who she says was her manager "until two weeks ago."
2012-05-07 - News
The singer also appears to have announced her retirement from music.
2012-04-23 - News
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2012-04-11 - News
With the unpleasant tabloid scrutiny she’s been under recently, it’s easy to forget that Sinéad O’Connor is one of Ireland’s most powerful creative musical forces. Her soon-to-be-released new album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You?), already has critics purring with delight. When Sinéad travelled to the City of Angels to perform at a pre-Golden Globe event, Olaf Tyaransen went with her to report on the latest chapter in her remarkable life.
2012-02-08 - Interview
Headed up by Sinead O'Connor, 75 newly covered Dylan songs salute Amnesty.
2012-02-01 - News
In an evening of delicious treats, it is especially lovely to be introduced to Roisin, Sinéad’s beautiful daughter, who sings angelic backing vocals.
2012-01-16 - REVIEW
Controversial singer meets controversial writer - explosive results guaranteed...
2012-01-03 - News
The statement is carried on her website. Here it is in full.
2011-12-27 - News
A newly married Sinead O'Connor celebrates in style on the Olympia stage.
2011-12-21 - REVIEW
The newlywed has inked a new record deal....
2011-12-12 - News
She announced this morning that the big day is tomorrow.
2011-12-07 - News
With a date at the Olympia Theatre looming in December, and a much anticipated album on the way in the new year, these are crucial times for Sinéad O’Connor. In a remarkable interview, she also discusses her search for a man, the lovers she has known, sex, sex – and more sex. Plus: Ireland of the squinting windows and the Catholic Church...
2011-12-05 - Interview
Eleanor McEvoy and Gavin Friday get the thumbs up in the new issue of Hot Press.
2011-12-01 - News
It'll be a full band performance in the Olympia on December 18.
2011-10-25 - News
The follow-up to Theology will surface next year.
2011-07-04 - News
Sinead O’Connor has called on the Pope to stand down, and the Irish Government to expel the Papal Nuncio.
2009-12-08 - News
Mary J. Blige and Santigold are also supporting the project.
2009-11-11 - News
Jack L and Mary Coughlan are also appearing in Vince Power's supper club.
2009-02-11 - News
Sinéad O’Connor fans will want to invest in Theology: Live At The Sugar Club, a limited-edition deluxe CD/DVD, which is available exclusively from sineadoconnor.com.
2008-10-31 - News
Sinead O’Connor has collaborated with former Hot Press scribe John Waters on a charity song that will be released in March.
2008-02-15 - News
Having had a whale of a time readying it for the Meteors, Sinéad O’Connor and Republic Of Loose have decided to release their cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘We People Who Are Darker Than Blue’.
2008-02-06 - News
Sinead’s voice and the band, honed from months on the road, are at the absolute peak of their powers. Lots of fans I spoke to afterwards felt they’d never heard her sound better.
2007-11-30 - REVIEW
Sinéad O’Connor was back in the American media spotlight last week when she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
2007-10-11 - News
The optimistic title of this track almost sets itself up for failure, but in this case ‘Something Beautiful’ is a fitting tribute. This is vintage Sinéad, her distinctive voice still soaring although it sounds more world-weary than before. ‘Something Beautiful’ has a sacred air and the lyrics are laced with religious imagery (befitting of an album named Theology) but it is not so overtly religious that it suffocates the magic.
2007-08-08 - REVIEW
Sinéad O’Connor drums up trade for her Theology album with a November 18 soiree at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.
2007-07-06 - News
Shane MacGowan interviews Sinead O’Connor for hotpress, with Olaf Tyaransen acting as referee. On the day, Victoria Clark also sat in. What followed turned into a wide-ranging and often hilarious exchange of almost Beckettian dimensions.
2007-06-28 - Interview
With Theology, Sinéad re-invigorates the ancient genre of the hymn in her own inimitable way, and brings it back to a contemporary public.
2007-06-21 - REVIEW
Sinead O'Connor is to play a special concert in Limerick
2007-05-23 - News
Sinéad O’Connor's voice is still capable of enchanting you with its fragility and blowing you away with its power, but maybe we all expected that, because at first it’s the bravely mixed set-list that grabs your attention.
2007-05-21 - REVIEW
From her forthcoming Theology album, this version of the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber classic from the Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera almost seems tailor-made for the controversial chanteuse. Originally sung in the musical/movie by Mary Magdalene (expressing her confused feelings for Jesus just before the crucifixion) it was seen as blasphemous in some quarters in its day and even now the lyrics would raise an eyebrow or two. Of course Sinéad sings it beautifully with no little passion while stylistically and sonically it’s the nearest thing she’s done to ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ in ages and could well prove a winner.
2007-05-15 - REVIEW
Sinéad O'Connor's already gained one celeb fan of her new cover single - legendary composer Tim Rice.
2007-04-26 - News
Sinead O'Connor has announced the tracklisting and release date of her new album Theology.
2007-04-02 - News
Sinead O'Connor makes her return to the live foray in style - she's set to headline a day of the Heineken Green Energy Festival.
2007-03-21 - News
Sinead O’Connor will be releasing two newly recorded songs as a special audio Christmas card on December 15.
2006-12-07 - News
The prospect of an intimate evening with Sinead O’Connor, at which she would unveil songs from her new album, was an intrigung one.
2006-11-09 - REVIEW
After her critically acclaimed reggae album Throw Down Your Arms, the first lady of Irish music is back with a collaboration and her own newie.
2006-08-17 - News
Sinead O'Connor isn't exactly one to take things lying down, and some US websites are about to find this out for themselves. In an exclusive chat with Hot Press she puts the story straight and talks about her next album. Only here folks!
2006-05-26 - News
The acts for this year's festival plan to attract audiences from all over Ireland.
2006-03-28 - News
Having covered two of his songs on her Throw Down Your Arms album, Sinéad O’Connor duets with Lee “Scratch” Perry on the American version of his Panic In Babylon set.
2006-02-16 - News
Who’d have bet money on Sinéad O’Connor making such an acclaimed return to music with any album, let alone one made up of old reggae tunes? Still, that’s about the size of it and Untold Stories is one of that particular record’s stand out moments and ironically one of its least dub influenced. Instead, O’Connor focuses on the folk element of Jamaican music to stirring effect and ends up sounding more resonant than we might have reasonably expected. Mighty stuff.
2006-01-25 - REVIEW
Tonight, from Bob Marley’s ‘War’ to Burning Spear’s ‘Jah Nuh Dead’, Sinéad O’Connor and her sidekicks deliver in spades. On a musical level, the reggae-fuelled set is funky, moving and, above all, inspiring.
2005-11-22 - REVIEW
Always a spiritual performer, in her new role as preacher of all things Rasta, Sinéad seems to the manor born. The lesson here is that less is more.
2005-11-18 - REVIEW
Sinéad O’Connor is among the guests on Friday October 21 as Later With Jools Holland returns to BBC 2 for what is remarkably its 26th series.
2005-10-12 - News
With characteristic unpredictability, Sinéad has re-emerged after a period in retirement with a Rasta album, in which she covers a collection of her own personal reggae classics.
2005-09-30 - REVIEW
Proffering a delicious taste of her forthcoming album, Throw Down Your Arms, due for release this autumn, Sinead O’Connor thrilled punters at the Prime Minister’s 2005 Independence Gala in Jamaica with her impassioned version of Bob Marley’s ‘War’, accompanied on drum and bass by famous riddim twins, Sly and Robbie.
2005-08-26 - REVIEW
As predicted in the last issue of Hotpress, Sinéad O’Connor is touring in support of her new reggae covers album, Throw Down Your Arms.
2005-08-17 - News
Sinéad O’Connor has confirmed details of her eagerly awaited reggae covers album, Throw Down Your Arms.
2005-08-10 - News
Sinéad O’Connor has confirmed details of her eagerly awaited reggae covers album, Throw Down Your Arms.
2005-08-04 - News
Bob Geldof says: “Yes”
2005-06-30 - News
Curator Patti Smith has invited a host of top artists to this year's Meltdown festival
2005-04-29 - News
Having recently announced her return to music, Sinead O'Connor will be performing at the New York awards ceremony next week
2005-04-19 - News
Sinead O'Connor has announced details of a new collection of collaborative work
2005-03-30 - News
Jim Fitzpatrick's nude painting of Sinead O'Connor has sold at auction for €15,000
2005-02-23 - News
It's almost two years since Sinead O'Connor announced her retirement from music. However, it was always on the cards that she would find her voice again. The good news is that she has. She explains all in an exclusive interview with Niall Stokes...
2005-02-10 - News
"Sinéad was pretty relaxed. She didn’t tap into the ‘making a record for the label’ thing. She made music for her own reasons, which were deeper than that. That’s why the songs ring so true..."
2004-11-18 - Interview
Sick of being the "the whipping post of Ireland's media", Sinead O'Connor has expressed her own sentiments in a recent newspaper advertisement
2004-09-28 - News
A worthy buy, indeed, if only for the odd-ball reggae version on the B side.
2003-11-05 - REVIEW
You've bought her new album, now you can purchase the new DVD - The Value Of Ignorance/The Year Of The Horse is now available in stores
2003-10-21 - News
This is a fitting memorial to Sinéad’s relentless struggle to transcend the mundane, the vacuous and the predictable. As a farewell album it’ll do fine until the next one.
2003-10-06 - REVIEW
The High Priestess of Irish music announces details of a double CD and DVD release prior to her retirement from the music industry
2003-07-16 - News
More on why Sinead O'Connor's quitting the music biz, plus her guest appearance with Damien Dempsey
2003-05-16 - News
Other Voices: Songs From A Room director Philip King reacts to news of Sinead O'Connor's retirement from public life - and praises "one of the world's very best singers"
2003-04-25 - News
In one of the most dramatic developments in Irish music in decades, Sinead O'Connor has said that she will retire from the music business in three months time
2003-04-24 - News
Sinead O'Connor and Damien Dempsey re-live the fairytale on Irish all-star Christmas album It's All Bells
2002-11-27 - News
Get set for a v. special V Graham Norton tonight - featuring no less than Sinead O'Connor
2002-10-30 - News
Following the runaway success of her nationwide tour, Sinead O'Connor announces a Point Theatre date in January
2002-10-25 - News
The most important female Irish artist of the last decade-and-a-half shuffles self-consciously onto the stage to a truly warm Mayo welcome. She looks healthy, rested and fighting fit.
2002-10-24 - REVIEW
Sean-Nós Nua, we are told, is the album that she has wanted to make for years
2002-10-10 - REVIEW
The making of Sean Nos Nua has been captured on film by Bringing It All Back Home Director, Philip King.
2002-10-08 - News
Details released about Sinead O'Connor's upcoming Donal Lunny-produced trad album, Sean-nos Nua
2002-08-21 - News
One of Ireland's most revered singers looks back at a turbulent decade during which she was never far from the headlines [pic Myles Claffey]
2002-06-26 - Interview
STEVE FARGNOLI, the artist manager who numbered SINÉAD O'CONNOR among his clients, lost his battle with cancer earlier this month. STEPHEN ROBINSON reports
2001-09-27 - News
Sinéad O’Connor has recorded four tracks with Massive Attack
2001-09-13 - News
It s been four years since the last Siniad O Connor album. By any standards, even for a major artist, that s a long time, inevitably heightening speculation about where Siniad s muse was likely to take her.
2000-06-08 - REVIEW
Sinead O’Connor: “You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart” (Island)
1994-02-09 - REVIEW
Sinéad O'Connor's records don't necessarily reveal themselves speedily. I know that, on the first hearing, 'The Lion and the Cobra' seemed to me an ill-fitting match of various discordant styles. I didn't really crack it 'till its sixth time round my turntable.
1990-03-25 - REVIEW
At the tender age of seventeen, Dubliner Sinéad O'Connor packed up Ton Ton Macoute, packed her bags and headed for London. Two years on she's had a few close shaves, recorded with the Edge and is on the verge of seriously launching her career with an album in January. Interview: Molly McAnailly Burke.
1986-11-20 - Interview
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