Wonderful words by Balearic Mike.

I’ve been shocked at just how sad Sinéad O’Connor’s passing has made me feel these last few weeks. After watching Kathryn Ferguson’s Sinéad documentary, ‘Nothing Compares’, I`ve pulled a couple of records out…

Sinéad O’Connor – I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got – Ensign 1990

The ubiquity of Sinéad’s version of the Prince-penned Nothing Compares 2 U could easily overshadow everything else about her long and accomplished career. A lot has been written about her cover of this song. Suffice to say that Sinéad makes it her own. Ably assisted by Soul II Soul / Wild Bunch producer Nellee Hooper and Japanese drummer Gota Yashiki, she strips the song back, and gives it a completely new arrangement. Changing the key, and ridding the track of the awful melodrama of the previous Prince / The Family recordings. The fact that at barely 22 years of age Sinéad had the talent and vision to make a record as original, uncompromising, and yet as phenomenally successful as I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, the album that this track is taken from, is totally awe inspiring.

After the sheer ferocity of Sinéad’s stunning debut, The Lion And The Cobra, the follow-up was something of a surprise. While the former saw Sinéad using her unique voice to express raw, untamed anger and aggression, a howl of pain at times, on this record she takes us somewhere completely different. The pain’s still there, of course, but there’s a also a sense of some resolution. In an interview Sinéad did with Sean O’Hagan, for The Face, in February 1990, she presents herself as a person much more at peace with both herself and the world around her. There’s a spirituality and contentment running through the whole LP, and in parts it really does sound like some sort of religious music. 

I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got doesn’t really sound like a pop record. It’s incredibly quiet, and beautiful, and almost ambient in places, often with very minimal musical embellishment. The songs frequently could be heard almost as hymns. Soaring strings do their best to match the beauty of Sinéad’s voice on the opener, Feel So Different, and the achingly gorgeous single, Three Babies. Sandwiched between is the Balearic classic, I Am Stretched On Your Grave. 

The A&R team at Ensign were clever enough to realise the club potential of this track. In the UK, there’d been a big slowing of tempos, inspired in part by the success of Soul II Soul. Released on a rare as Unicorn poo 12” promo, I Am Stretched… slotted straight in. The effect of Sinéad singing this haunting lyric, a 17th-century Irish poem, originally set to music by Philip King, over the classic  James Brown / Clyde Stubblefield Funky Drummer break is simply jaw dropping. The hypnotic fiddle finale is fantastic. It was unusual at the time for a pop artist to venture this far into the dance music arena, but Sinéad had already worked with rapper MC Lyte, and had a genuine appreciation for hip hop and dance music.

The album’s A-side closes with one of only two straight up rock numbers, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and follows that with the acoustic, Black Boys On Mopeds – a protest song – concerned with racist policing and dedicated to the family of Colin Roach – that Dylan would have been proud of. Sinéad always said she wanted to be a protest singer. 

On the flip, we get a trio of incredibly beautiful, and deeply personal songs. The subject of You Cause As Much Sorrow can only be Sinéad’s mother. The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance contains the line “You used to hold my hand when the plane took off”, which always makes me cry. It’s just so lovely. The title track is as close to a prayer as you can possibly get on a pop record.

After this near-perfect artistic statement Sinéad could have done anything she wanted. It sold millions, and garnered critical acclaim. However, she realised that she never really wanted to be a pop star, and so instead pursued a “career” where she worked with a wide range of interesting musicians and made whatever music she fancied. She spoke her mind, and stood up for the things she believed in, all the while dealing with the emotional scars of her childhood.

In my mind, there are similarities between Sinéad, and another sadly departed musical icon, the DJ / producer, Andrew Weatherall. Both could have had very different careers, if they so desired. Sinéad looked primed for pop-star fame and fortune, but after a massively successful, multi-platinum, award winning album, she chose to follow it up with an LP of jazz covers, and then go on her own wayward way. Andrew, one of acid house’s original innovators, could easily have taken the superstar DJ route and started headlining shows in Las Vegas… but he was never going to do that. One of my absolute favourite records features contributions from them both. For his Visions Of You, that other musical maverick, Jah Wobble, employed Sinéad on guest vocals, and Weatherall on remix duties…

Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart – Visions Of You – East West Records 1991

Visions Of You was mailed out at the tail end of 1991, my first year working in Vinyl Exchange. I can’t remember whether I picked up my promo copy in the shop, or if I was sent it by the lovely Jean Branch at East West. I had started to blag my way onto mailing lists, and Jean was someone we all knew from the club scene anyway. I’ve played this record constantly over the 32 years (gulp!) since its release. It’s a beautiful, chugging, dubby, Balearic odyssey, where Sinéad sounds like some heavenly choir, while The Secret Lovechild Of Hank And Johnny Mix is one of my all-time favourite Weatherall remixes, although there are rather a lot of those.**

Towards the end of ’91 LuvDup were on a bit of a roll, following the huge success of their Wednesday night residency at The Venue on Whitworth Street (now flats, by the way). Basking in this new found notoriety, Adrian and Mark had the rather ahead of its time idea to put on a Sunday soiree. Somewhere for people to nurse their sore Saturday heads, or to just keep going. An alternative to Dry Bar or the local pub. They found a venue in Fallowfield, and chose the name ‘Flake Out’, cheekily ripping off the Cadburys Flake logo on the flyers. Adrian made a mixtape of the type of music they were going to play, and this was the opening track. 

Notes

*Nellee and Gota are uncredited on the 12”. Hmmm… It’s also worth mentioning that when I watched the documentary, Nothing Compares, it was only when the end credits stated, ’The Prince Estate denied the use of Sinéad’s recording of “Nothing Compares 2 U” in this film’, that I realised that I hadn’t heard the song once. What an absolutely awful piece of utter shit-housery by The Prince Estate! What the fuck did they think they were achieving by blocking the songs use? It’s evident that Prince and Sinéad didn’t get along, and she’s accused him of some awful behaviour in her memoir, but this just seems petty.

**It still sounds incredible, and I played it on my radio show on Friday (plug!).

For more from Balearic Mike you can find him on both Facebook and Instagram – @balearicmike. 

Mike has a Mixcloud page packed with magnificent, magical, music, and you can catch him live on 1BTN, from 12 noon until 2 (UK time) every 1st and 3rd Friday.

You can also check out the super silk screen prints of “Balearic Wife” over at @jo_lambert_print