Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad O'Connor (who went by Shuhada' Sadaqat in her private life) was an Irish singer-songwriter who rose to fame in the late 80s with her album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”.

O'Connor was discovered in 1985 when Nigel Grainge of Ensign Records saw her band Ton Ton Macoute perform. Although he was not fond of the band’s music, he was impressed by O'Connor’s ‘amazing voice’. Grainge had O'Connor record four songs with Karl Wallinger (World Party) and signed her to his label. O'Connor’s first single was the song “Heroine” which she co-wrote with U2’s guitarist The Edge for the film Captive.

Her debut album The Lion and the Cobra was a sensation when it was released in 1987, reaching gold record status and earning a Best Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy nomination. The album’s lead single “Troy” charted in The Netherlands and Belgium, and “Mandinka”, released in late 1987, cracked the top 20 in the UK and top 30 in three other European countries, helping her album chart well in Europe. Spin Magazine described the album as a “remarkable, still-spine-tingling first record”.

In 1990, the lead single from her sophomore album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, a cover of the Prince-penned song “Nothing Compares 2 U” (originally performed by The Family), became an international smash hit, topping the charts in eleven countries including the UK and the US, propelling O'Connor into worldwide stardom. Its second single “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was a top 30 hit in several European countries, but only a modest one in the US.

Almost immediately, controversy brewed around O'Connor. A canceled Saturday Night Live performance was followed by ripping a photo of the Pope in half on the show two years later. She refused to allow the American National Anthem be sung before one of her concerts, leading to a local FM station banning her music and a senator calling for the boycotting of her shows. She refused to attend the 1990 Grammys despite receiving four nominations. And she claimed a meeting with Prince included a threat that he was going to beat her, which he denied.

Her subsequent releases through the 90’s found moderate success overseas, and though album sales in the US were marginal, she had no further hits there. After 2000’s Faith And Courage, O'Connor’s success worldwide diminished, with her songs only charting modestly in Ireland.

In addition to a fading career, a suicide attempt in 1999, three short-lived marriages between 2001-2012, and losing custody of her son left her in a deteriorated mental state that culminated in a 12-minute profanity-laced video on her Facebook page in 2017 where she talks about wanting to kill herself. A month later she appeared on a talk show stating, “I’m very excited to be getting some proper help”. However, in 2018 she changed her name from Sinéad O'Connor to Magda Davitt, then to Shuhada Sadaqat, converted to Islam and tweeted:

What I’m about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting … If its ‘Crazy’ to care. Then by all means, spank my ass and call me Fruity loops.

In 2019, O'Connor released a demo of new song “Milestones” and a new upcoming LP No Mud No Lotus (also the title of a 2014 book by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh) was scheduled for release later in the year, but a cover of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson’s “Trouble Of The World”, a song in support of the Black Lives Matter cause, appeared in 2020 instead. In June 2021, she announced her retirement from music and added to her claims of abuse by Prince back in the 1990s in her memoir Rememberings.

O'Connor passed away in July of 2023. It is unknown if her final album No Veteran Dies Alone will be released posthumously.