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    Sinead O’Connor’s Life in Pictures

    With her short hair and wide eyes, the Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, who has died at the age of 56, cast a powerful silhouette onstage during her music career. The height of her power came in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including a divisive 1992 appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in which she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.O’Connor told Rolling Stone in 1991 that her record company, Ensign, wanted her to wear high-heel boots and tight jeans and grow her hair out. “I decided that they were so pathetic,” she said, “that I shaved my head.”O’Connor at the Olympic Ballroom in Dublin in 1988.Independent News and Media/Getty ImagesO’Connor performing at the Rock Torhout festival in Belgium in 1990.Paul Bergen/Redferns, via Getty ImagesO’Connor ripping up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992.NBCO’Connor at the MTV Video Music Awards in Universal City, Calif., in 1993.Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection, via Getty ImagesO’Connor with Peter Gabriel at a fund-raising concert in the Netherlands in 1991.Michel Linssen/Redferns, via Getty ImagesO’Connor in Lourdes, France, in 1999.Michael Crabtree/PA Images, via Getty ImagesO’Connor at a protest in Dublin in 1989.Independent News and Media/Getty ImagesO’Connor holding her daughter, Roisin, in Dublin in 2000.ReutersO’Connor on Gay Byrne’s final episode of “The Late Late Show” in 1999.David Conachy/Independent News and Media, via Getty ImagesO’Connor and Courtney Love at the Old Vic theater in London in 2005.Dave Benett/Getty ImagesO’Connor in Bray, Ireland, in 2012.David Corio for The New York TimesO’Connor at Lincoln Center in New York in 2013.Ruby Washington/The New York TimesO’Connor at her home in Wicklow, Ireland, in 2021.Ellius Grace for The New York Times More

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    The Bald Power of Sinead O’Connor

    The Irish singer’s shaved head was as much a part of her identity and allure as her sound.It was the bald head that became the avatar of a million dreamy rebellions; the shaved pate that bridged the gap between the angry and the sublime. It is almost impossible to think about Sinead O’Connor, the Irish singer whose death was reported on July 26, or her work, without thinking about her hair. Or lack of it.Without thinking about the striking curve of her shorn skull on the cover of her 1987 debut album, “The Lion and the Cobra,” her face below caught mid-scream; the nakedness it seemed to convey in the 1990 video of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” as her blue eyes brimmed with tears; the purity of the line on the cover of her 2021 memoir, “Rememberings.” Which contains an entire chapter entitled “Shaving My Head.”It was effectively her signature — in a 2014 story in Billboard Ms. O’Connor, 56 when she died, identified herself as “the bald woman from Ireland” — along with her Dr. Martens and torn jeans, and it followed her throughout her life, just as much as her ripping up the photo of the Pope on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992 did. Even in the few periods when she grew her hair back, she was often referred to as the “formerly bald” Sinead O’Connor. And as such, she was an integral part of the renegotiation of old stereotypes of gender, sexuality, rebellion and liberation that is still going on today.“I just don’t feel like me when I have hair,” she told The New York Times in 2021.Now that female baldness has become more common, has become a badge of identity for women such as Ayanna Pressley, the representative from Massachusetts who went public with her alopecia in 2020, and X González, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student (then known as Emma) who became a campaigner for gun control, not to mention the Dora Milaje of “Black Panther,” it can be hard to remember how extraordinary it was when Ms. O’Connor emerged. “Shaving my head to me was never a conscious thing,” Ms. O’Connor told Spin in 1991. “I was never making a statement. I just was bored one day and I wanted to shave my head, and that was literally all there was to it.”Independent News and Media/Getty ImagesBut that seeming repudiation of her own porcelain beauty in the wake of a spate of teen pop queens, at a time when armoring yourself in a helmet of big hair was a big thing and shaving your head was still largely seen as a punishment, was as much of a statement of singularity as her sound. Perhaps, it was also the first sign of the controversial politics to come, including refusing to play the national anthem before her concerts and stenciling the logo of Public Enemy into the side of her head at the 1989 Grammys when the show’s organizers declined to televise the first-ever award for Best Rap Performance.She offered various explanations of the choice. All the stories come down to the same thing in any case, which was a refusal to cater to traditional definitions of “pretty” as established by the male gaze as long ago as Rapunzel and Lady Godiva.In shearing her head “she was literally shearing away a false narrative,” said Allyson McCabe, the author of “Why Sinead O’Connor Matters.” In 1991 Ms. O’Connor told Spin, “shaving my head to me was never a conscious thing. I was never making a statement. I just was bored one day and I wanted to shave my head, and that was literally all there was to it.” However, she also said, “The women who are admired are the ones that have blond hair and big lips and wear red lipstick and wear short skirts, because that’s an acceptable image of a woman.” And, “Because I have no hair, people think I’m angry.”In a 2017 TV interview she told Dr. Phil that it was because during her abusive childhood her mother had compared her with her sister, who had long red hair, unlike Sinead. “When I had long hair, she would introduce us as her pretty daughter and her ugly daughter,” Ms. O’Connor said in the interview. “And that’s why I cut my hair off. I didn’t want to be pretty.”The cover of Ms. O’Connor’s memoir.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, via Associated PressA still from her music video for “Nothing Compares 2 U.”In the interview she also said, “It’s dangerous to be pretty, too, because I kept getting raped and molested everywhere I went,” and “I did not want to dress like a girl. I did not want to be pretty.”In her memoir, she wrote that she was working on her first album in London, and had been told by a male music executive she should grow her (buzzed but not shorn) hair long and start to dress more like a girl. The next day she went to a barbershop and had it all shaved off.During the period after the “S.N.L.” appearance, when she was rejected by the music industry and revealed she had been diagnosed as bipolar, Ms. O’Connor’s bald head was taken as a sign of instability (just as it was later with Britney Spears). The fact that she continued shaving her skull for the rest of her life suggested it was, rather, a sign of selfhood.The first time she looked in the mirror after that visit to the barbershop, she wrote in the book, “I looked like an alien.” Another way to put it, however, is she looked like the woman she became. And in becoming that woman — in giving herself that permission — she helped extend it to us all. More

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    Sinead O’Connor, Evocative and Outspoken Singer, Is Dead at 56

    She broke out with the single “Nothing Compares 2 U,” then caused an uproar a few years later by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II on “S.N.L.”Sinead O’Connor, the outspoken Irish singer-songwriter known for her powerful, evocative voice, as showcased on her biggest hit, a breathtaking rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and for her political provocations onstage and off, has died. She was 56.Her longtime friend Bob Geldof, the Irish musician and activist, confirmed her death, as did her family in a statement, according to the BBC and the Irish public broadcaster RTE.“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinead,” the statement said. “Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.” No other details were provided.Recognizable by her shaved head and by wide eyes that could appear pained or full of rage, Ms. O’Connor released 10 studio albums, beginning with the alternative hit “The Lion and the Cobra” in 1987. She went on to sell millions of albums worldwide, breaking out with “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” in 1990.That album, featuring “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a No. 1 hit around the world and an MTV staple, won a Grammy Award in 1991 for best alternative music performance — although Ms. O’Connor boycotted the ceremony over what she called the show’s excessive commercialism.Ms. O’Connor rarely shrank from controversy, though it often came with consequences for her career.In 1990, she threatened to cancel a performance in New Jersey if “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played at the concert hall ahead of her appearance, drawing the ire of no less than Frank Sinatra. That same year, she backed out of an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in protest of the misogyny she perceived in the comedy of Andrew Dice Clay, who was scheduled to host.But all of that paled in comparison to the uproar caused when Ms. O’Connor, appearing on “S.N.L.” in 1992 — shortly after the release of her third album, “Am I Not Your Girl?” — ended an a cappella performance of Bob Marley’s “War” by ripping a photo of Pope John Paul II into pieces as a stance against sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. “Fight the real enemy,” she said.That incident immediately made her a target of criticism and scorn, from social conservatives and beyond. Two weeks after her “S.N.L.” appearance, she was loudly booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. (She had planned to perform Mr. Dylan’s “I Believe in You,” but she sang “War” again, rushing off the stage before she had finished.)For a time, the vitriol directed at Ms. O’Connor was so pervasive that it became a kind of pop culture meme in itself. On “S.N.L.” in early 1993, Madonna mocked the controversy by tearing up a picture of Joey Buttafuoco, the Long Island auto mechanic who was a tabloid fixture at the time because of his affair with a 17-year-old girl.Once a rising star, Ms. O’Connor then stumbled. “Am I Not Your Girl?,” an album of jazz and pop standards like “Why Don’t You Do Right?” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” was stalled on the charts at No. 27. Her next album, “Universal Mother” (1994), went no higher than No. 36.Kris Kristofferson spoke to Ms. O’Connor after she was booed off the stage during a concert in tribute to Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden in 1992, shortly after her “Saturday Night Live” appearance.Ron Frehm/Associated PressThe British musician Tim Burgess, of the band Charlatans (known in the United States as the Charlatans UK), wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “Sinead was the true embodiment of a punk spirit. She did not compromise and that made her life more of a struggle.”Ms. O’Connor never had another major hit in the United States after “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” from “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” although for a time she remained a staple on the British charts.But in her 2021 memoir, “Rememberings,” Ms. O’Connor portrayed ripping up the photo of the pope as a righteous act of protest — and therefore a success.“I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career,” she wrote, “and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”She elaborated in an interview with The New York Times that same year, calling the incident an act of defiance against the constraints of pop stardom.“I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” Ms. O’Connor said. “But it was very traumatizing,” she added. “It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.”Sinead Marie Bernadette O’Connor was born in Glenageary, a suburb of Dublin, on Dec. 8, 1966. Her father, John, was an engineer, and her mother, Johanna, was a dressmaker.In interviews, and in her memoir, Ms. O’Connor spoke openly of having a traumatic childhood. She said that her mother physically abused her and that she had been deeply affected by her parents’ separation, which happened when she was 8. In her teens, she was arrested for shoplifting and sent to reform schools.Ms. O’Connor at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in Manhattan in 2013.Ruby Washington/The New York TimesWhen she was 15, Ms. O’Connor sang “Evergreen” — the love theme from “A Star Is Born,” made famous by Barbra Streisand — at a wedding, and was discovered by Paul Byrne, a drummer who had an affiliation with the Irish band U2. She left boarding school at 16 and began her career, supporting herself by waitressing and performing “kiss-o-grams” in a kinky French maid costume.“The Lion and the Cobra” — the title is an allusion to Psalm 91 — marked her as a rising talent with a spiritual heart, an ear for offbeat melody and a fierce and combative style. Her music drew from 1980s-vintage alternative rock, hip-hop and flashes of Celtic folk that came through when her voice raised to high registers.She drew headlines for defending the Irish Republican Army and publicly jeered U2 — whose members had supported her — as “bombastic.” She also said she had rejected attempts by her record company, Ensign, to adopt a more conventional image.The leaders of the label “wanted me to wear high-heel boots and tight jeans and grow my hair,” Ms. O’Connor told Rolling Stone in 1991. “And I decided that they were so pathetic that I shaved my head so there couldn’t be any further discussion.”“Nothing Compares 2 U” — originally released by the Family, a Prince side project, in 1985 — became a phenomenon when Ms. O’Connor released it five years later. The video for the song, trained closely on her emotive face, was hypnotic, and Ms. O’Connor’s voice, as it raised from delicate, breathy notes to powerful cries, stopped listeners in their tracks. Singers like Alanis Morissette cited Ms. O’Connor’s work from this period as a key influence.Ms. O’Connor in 2021, the year she published a memoir, “Rememberings,” in which she spoke openly of a traumatic childhood. Ellius Grace for The New York TimesNot long after “Nothing Compares” became a hit, Ms. O’Connor accused Prince of physically threatening her. She elaborated on the story in her memoir, saying that Prince, at his Hollywood mansion, chastised her for swearing in interviews and suggested a pillow fight, only to hit her with something hard that was in his pillowcase. She escaped on foot in the middle of the night, she said, but Prince chased her around the highway.The effects of childhood trauma, and finding ways to fight and heal, became a central part of her work and her personal philosophy. “The cause of all the world’s problems, as far as I’m concerned, is child abuse,” Ms. O’Connor told Spin magazine in 1991.Her mother, whom Ms. O’Connor described as an alcoholic, died when she was 18. In her memoir, Ms. O’Connor said that on the day her mother died she took a picture of the pope from her mother’s wall; it was that photo that she destroyed on television.On later albums, she made warmly expansive pop-rock (“Faith and Courage,” 2000), played traditional Irish songs (“Sean-Nós Nua,” 2002) and revisited classic reggae songs (“Throw Down Your Arms,” 2005). Her last album was “I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss,” released in 2014.As her music career slowed, Ms. O’Connor, who had been open in the past about her mental health struggles, became an increasingly erratic public figure, often sharing unfiltered opinions and personal details on social media.In 2007, she revealed on Oprah Winfrey’s television show that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that she had tried to kill herself on her 33rd birthday. Her son Shane died by suicide in 2022, at 17.Ms. O’Connor said in 2012 that she had been misdiagnosed and that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a history of child abuse. “Recovery from child abuse is a life’s work,” she told People magazine.Several years ago she converted to Islam and started using the name Shuhada Sadaqat, though she continued to answer to O’Connor as well.Complete information on survivors was not immediately available. Ms. O’Connor had two brothers, Joe and John, and one sister, Eimear, as well as three stepsisters and a stepbrother. She wrote in her memoir that she was married four times and that she had four children: three sons, Jake, Shane and Yeshua, and a daughter, Roisin.In discussing her memoir with The Times in 2021, Ms. O’Connor focused on her decision to tear up the photo of John Paul II as a signal moment in a life of protest and defiance.“The media was making me out to be crazy because I wasn’t acting like a pop star was supposed to act,” she said. “It seems to me that being a pop star is almost like being in a type of prison. You have to be a good girl.”Alex Traub More

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    ‘Nothing Compares’ Review: Sinead O’Connor’s Rise and Fall

    This new documentary shows many faces of Sinead O’Connor and highlights her genuinely incomparable voice.The ascent of singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor’s star was arguably matched by its implosion, which began when, with the longtime abuses of the Catholic Church in Ireland and around the world in mind, she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on “Saturday Night Live,” exclaiming, “Fight the real enemy.”The Irish artist’s sense of rebellion stems from many sources, the first of which is her Irishness. A couple of other factors are the Bobs — Dylan and Marley, both major influences on her thinking and her music. This documentary, directed by Kathryn Ferguson, doesn’t have any contemporary talking-head interviews; instead, it relies on O’Connor’s own speaking voice, both today — it is husky and slightly weary, sounding older than her 55 years — and on archival footage, in which she is quiet, shy, and remarkably tolerant of interviewers harping on her shaved head.The movie chronicles a fraught childhood and a rapid musical development. “How could I possibly know what I want when I was only 21,” she asks in her song “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” After her worldwide breakthrough, she knew she didn’t want the United States national anthem played before her stateside shows, and that she wanted to shed light on sexual abuse in the Catholic church.The reaction to these activist moves was vehement and often incredibly stupid and sexist, as nearly countless short clips of insults delivered by radio callers and celebrities (including Madonna and Joe Pesci) demonstrate. While her stardom was derailed, her music career continued, and the movie ends with a recent performance clip. (She announced this year that she was withdrawing from the music industry, however.)At no point during the movie proper is it mentioned that O’Connor’s biggest hit, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” was composed by Prince, which is peculiar. At the movie’s end, a title card notes that Prince’s estate denied the filmmakers permission to use the song in the movie. This jarring instance of what looks like narrative grudge-holding notwithstanding, “Nothing Compares” is a worthwhile appreciation of the artist.Nothing ComparesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More