Sex and the Single Sinéad

December 12, 2011 12:45 PM

"So I admire those artists that are actually spiritually concerned. And have the balls to be concerned about that, and not concerned with fuckin’ George Bush’s dick. It’s very hard to sing when you’ve got someone’s dick in your mouth.” She shoots a mischievous grin before adding, 'I’ve tried.'" Sinéad O’Connor on the pope, her music, dating, buying condoms, and everything in between.
posted by the young rope-rider (28 comments total)

She's so awesome. And she gave props to Gavin Friday!
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:17 PM on December 12, 2011

Comes off a like an aging artist struggling for relevance... which i guess she is. Will still keep an ear out for the new album though.
posted by modernnomad at 1:19 PM on December 12, 2011

Comes off a like an aging artist struggling for relevance... which i guess she is.

I don't know, she was like a decade ahead of her time when she was calling out the Catholic Church for covering up child abuse. It's not like she's become less relevant, it's like the rest of the world has finally caught up with her.
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:25 PM on December 12, 2011 [26 favorites]

Creepy interviewer is creepy.
posted by Tapioca at 1:33 PM on December 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm (sadly) blown away by frank and honest discussion of a 45-year-old woman's sex life.

And this?:

...But when you’re a girl you’re brought up with all this stupid fuckin’ marriage business. Some man’s gonna come and make everything grand and it’s gorgeous.

Oh god yes.
posted by giraffe at 1:40 PM on December 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Didn't she JUST get married, like in the last week? I guess the 'difficult brown' is off the table for strangers now.
posted by davelog at 1:48 PM on December 12, 2011

George Bush. Yup, that was the problem with her music.
posted by lstanley at 1:50 PM on December 12, 2011

In case anyone else was wondering: Squinting Windows
posted by exogenous at 2:14 PM on December 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sinéad released some amazing music in the last decade. She basically ruined her commercial career with the SNL incident (and a couple of lousy 90's albums), but the quality of her releases in the last ten years have been excellent.

A few samples from the 2000's...

"What Your Soul Sings" obligatory collaboration with Massive Attack

Her cover of "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" (blows me away every time)

Her cover of the traditional "O Filii Et Filiae"

Another traditional tune, "Her Mantle So Green"

I can't find the album version (the Dublin session of this is particularly lovely, here is a good live version of her cover of the traditional "Rivers of Babylon"

And an original tune "Out of the Depths"

Now, I can't find a whole lot to recommend from her 90's releases (she seemed to lose the thread a bit there), but all three of her albums since 2002 are well worth a listen - 2002's Sean-Nós Nua, 2003's She Who Dwells... (The full title is considerably longer), and 2007's Theology.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:17 PM on December 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Didn't she JUST get married, like in the last week?

Yes, she did. Pictures of the happy couple on her blog (scroll down to the 7.12.11 wedding entry).
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:27 PM on December 12, 2011

Tapioca: “Creepy interviewer is creepy.”

Hrm. Well, I haven't read it yet, but her blog (linked by MonkeyToes) mentions that it's her "favourite interview" and that the author has been tapped to write her "official biography."
posted by koeselitz at 2:31 PM on December 12, 2011

If Sinead O'Conner asks you where and when you want to spank her, you pull open your Google calendar.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 2:48 PM on December 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hell, I'd clear my Google Calendar.

I don't have stubble though :(
posted by the young rope-rider at 2:52 PM on December 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hate to be "that guy," but is there a single-page version?
posted by asnider at 2:54 PM on December 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I looked for a while and didn't find one, sorry. That doesn't mean there isn't one out there.
posted by the young rope-rider at 2:56 PM on December 12, 2011

The more I've read about her over the last few months, the more I think that she is funny. And principled. And cool. Sinead O'Connor rocks hard.
posted by Hartham's Hugging Robots at 3:03 PM on December 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

She's great. This writer...not so much.
posted by malocchio at 3:04 PM on December 12, 2011

I love Sinead O'Connor's first album to bits but honestly, I've been kind of iffy on her last few albums. I missed She Who Dwells but Sean-Nos Nua, while a great idea, really had nothing I hadn't heard a lot of before and honestly wasn't as well-done as a lot of other music I'd heard in that vein (updated traditional Irish). Theology was heavily reggae-influenced and just wasn't my cuppa. Even so, I know I'll buy the new album the minute it comes out, especially now that I've heard she's covering John Grant's song Queen of Denmark. She's one of the people who pretty much always gets another chance from me.
posted by immlass at 3:07 PM on December 12, 2011

Listened to L&C and I do not want at work today...Sinead has always been one of my favorites. I liked the frankness of this interview.
posted by schyler523 at 3:48 PM on December 12, 2011

Sinead has done some very good work, and seems like a decent person. At the same time, she has always seemed kind of lost and vaguely unstable, which results in both bizarre behavior and the occasional frank/truthy utterance that is mercifully free of social convention.

I could have done without the paen to the sexiness of yams, or the supposed receptiveness to a spanking by creepy interview guy, but you can't win 'em all.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 3:58 PM on December 12, 2011

Comes off a like an aging artist struggling for relevance... which i guess she is.

Without the aging artists who write, perform, and produce literally all of their music behind the scenes, almost none of today's young artists would be relevant. It was true of George Martin and the Beatles and it is true of whoever you may think is a young, relevant genius today.
posted by The World Famous at 4:19 PM on December 12, 2011

She doesn't seem at all like she's struggling for relevance. To me, she comes across as a woman and an artist who no longer gives a fuck about relevance.

And no love for 2000's Faith and Courage?
posted by Mavri at 4:25 PM on December 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Mavri: "She doesn't seem at all like she's struggling for relevance. To me, she comes across as a woman and an artist who no longer gives a fuck about relevance. "

I'm in agreement there—she seems pretty damn pure Art to me, looks like she's facing into the wind as she always has. I know little about her but what little I know is all pretty damn good, she's got talent of course but she's also got courage, and in a big way. And based upon what I just read in that interview, and on her blog, she's living well, living large, having a great life, the good and the bad of it. Cool artist.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:43 PM on December 12, 2011

Ah, Faith and Courage! "Daddy I'm Fine" is one of my favorite songs ever. Such an interesting sound and lyrics about feeling confident, happy, and sexual in a whole-person way, not a sexual object way. Love it, love her.
posted by the young rope-rider at 7:57 PM on December 12, 2011

Joey Michaels: Sinéad released some amazing music in the last decade. She basically ruined her commercial career with the SNL incident (and a couple of lousy 90's albums), but the quality of her releases in the last ten years have been excellent.
[...]
Now, I can't find a whole lot to recommend from her 90's releases (she seemed to lose the thread a bit there), but all three of her albums since 2002 are well worth a listen - 2002's Sean-Nós Nua, 2003's She Who Dwells... (The full title is considerably longer), and 2007's Theology

Wow, I had the opposite approach; I loved and still do love her early stuff. There are times I put on "Lion and the Cobra" and instantly feel like I'm 19 and my whole life is ahead of me. Right up through "Faith and Courage" which was awesome, I loved her stuff (and apparently everyone else hated 'Am I Not Your Girl' but I thought it was fantastic too). But the last fewe I didn't listen to more than once, and the Reggae b.s. of Theology was atrociously bad and I deleted it from iTunes so the CD is sitting in my attic in storage. After that, I stopped paying attention to Sinead's music.


Then again, I had the same thing with Tori Amos, who I feel lost her lucid musicality when she seemed to get over produced studio quasi-rock/techno on quite a run of albums. The last one I got was Abnormally Attracted to Sin, which was to me like most of her 2000's output quite forgettable. Then again, she's playing in Seattle in two days, so maybe I'll treat myself to the concert, and see if I can rekindle my youthful energy.
posted by hincandenza at 8:28 PM on December 12, 2011

Some man’s gonna come and make everything grand and it’s gorgeous.

Look at a dating site, at the women in her age group - that is still how just about all of them think. It would be immensely refreshing to have one of them say "I would like to try singing with a dick in my mouth".
posted by DreamerFi at 11:59 PM on December 12, 2011

Olaf Tyaransen (the journalist) will be writing her biography, I think.

Sinead sang with Gavin Friday, whom she praises in this interview, at the Olympia in Dublin on November 29th. She brought three of her kids to rehearsals, the two youngest clutching her legs while she belted out her banshee wail over Gav's "A Song That Hurts".

Photographic evidence: bald is beautiful.

Two tracks from her upcoming album are available on her Soundcloud account.
posted by prolific at 3:01 AM on December 13, 2011

Still a nutjob. Relevant.
posted by falameufilho at 9:23 AM on December 27, 2011