Sinéad O'Connor album delayed until 2012

There’s disappointment for Sinéad O’Connor fans with the release of her new album, Home, being put back until early in the new year.

“Lots of you will be disappointed, frustrated, maybe some even angry, confused, wondering what the f- is up, that’s exactly what Sinéad feels also,” her manager Fachtna O Ceallaigh says in an official communiqué. “She, along with all of you, was looking forward to getting out there in the autumn to play the new material live with a brand new band. However, aspirations are one thing, reality another. There are many companies, large and small, who are very excited by the material they’ve heard from Home and there have been a number of proposals from those who would like to be partners in the release/distribution process.

"Comments have ranged from, ‘This is her comeback record’ to, ‘wow, these songs blow me away!' and, ‘Now we're talking, this is Sinéad as I’ve always loved to hear her'. There have truly been no negatives.
 However, I want to make sure that the partners we chose are as close to being the correct ones as we can get. And that takes time; for instance, one company was highly enthusiastic and ready to release in early September. We were engaging in detailed discussions about what would happen in individual territories – all very positive – and then, when I started to negotiate the finer, important details, the company decided to withdraw.”

While O Ceallaigh takes care of business, Sinéad has been out playing shows in Bulgaria, Russia and the UK with The Guardian giving her Manchester Festival Pavilion gig a resounding ‘thumbs up’.

“The classic ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ sounds like she’s singing it for the first time, not the 400th,” the paper notes. “Motherhood and treatment for bipolar disorder hasn't dulled her intensity, but she's having fun, whether joking about her succession of boyfriends and husbands, or revealing that her youngest has nicknamed her ‘the pot-bellied pig’.”

New songs given an outing included ‘Reason With Me’ and ‘VIP’. Talking as we were a moment ago about ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, it and Sínead got a shout-out on Sunday night when Prince appeared at Vince Power’s Hop Farm festival in Kent.

Launching into a rocked up version of ‘Nothing Compares…’, His Royal Purpleness said: “I didn’t write that song, that’s Sinéad O’Connor’s. I bought me a house with that song!”

Prince – who plays Malahide Castle on July 30 – treated the 30,000-strong crowd to a three-hour set that included such classics as ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, ‘1999’, ‘Little Red Corvette’, ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Kiss’, ‘U Got The Look’ and, well, all the good stuff!