Dear Sinead: Long time, no talk! Howaya, girl? We haven't heard from you since "Throw Down Your Arms" two years ago, and who can forget that? I was one of those people who rolled his eyes when the news broke that you were recording a roots reggae album.
It was a laughable concept, a pale Dublin lass like you pairing with the dark riddims of legendary Jamaican producers Sly and Robbie. Little did I know that those supple bass lines and lazy island beats, paired with that Celtic lioness voodoo you do so well, would create a classic disc that I'd run back into a burning building to save.
Now you're back with "Theology," a double disc of sparse spiritual ditties that drops in record stores this week. The concept of writing a collection of hymns for a contemporary audience has its share of promise.
Nonetheless, I would have loved to have been selling antacids at the door of your record company when you dropped the Theology concept on them. The suits in the boardroom would have stared blankly at the speakers, eyes and mouths wide open, failing to make eye contact with you around the table as the slow jam psalms slithered through their grey matter. The things you see when you don't have a camera!
Can you blame them? Nothing's easy when it comes to you, is it?
Don't get me wrong. I'm coming to from a deeply devoted fan's perspective here. I dig how you throw these wacky whims onto your fan base, like you're daring us to keep up with you or something.
You're not afraid of daring us to like you each time you open your mouth, and you have to admire that in an artist. I must admit that it's been fun over the years to see you tear through different styles like a glassy eyed teenage girl with daddy's credit card for the weekend.
But now you've gone and done it by making a spiritual album. With "Theology," you've guaranteed that only five people will buy this disc, with four of them likely having the O'Connor surname. No one is going to drop a dime on a spiritual album from a luna-chick bald Irish rebel who rips up papal pictures on national television. I mean, come on.
But hey, you went to all this trouble to make the damn thing anyway, so let's roll up our sleeves and see what we've got under the hood, shall we? There are 11 songs on each CD that makes up "Theology," with "The Dublin Sessions" disc an acoustic read of the same songs on the more electric "London Sessions" disc.
Nice touch! Few voices illicit goose bumps quite like yours, and a sparse acoustic arrangement on these tracks bring out the potent emotive gifts within your incomparable throat.
If only there were songs on "Theology" that matched that incredible voice! Let's accentuate the positive first.
When I first heard the acoustic soul of "If You Had a Vineyard" on your myspace page, I lost my breath. I actually might have cried. I can't remember.
"What more could I have done in it that I did not do in it/why when I ask her for sweetness it brings only bitterness/for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel/and the men of Judah/his pleasant plant/but he looks for justice but beholds oppression/and he hopes for equality but he hears a cry."
It's so good in that globally conscious kind of way that you would expect Bob Marley to be making this song if he were alive today. Clearly, you learned a thing or two about roots singing and writing from your trip to Jamaica, as you have written a classic here.
The same goes for "33," which is another amazing tune. I love the sultry island rhythm that runs through it.
"Sing to Jah with your guitar," you exclaim on the track, and to paraphrase a line from your biggest hit, "nothing compares to U" when you are doing that. The acoustic version is no less powerful, which is the mark of a great song.
That's where the problem lies. There's a built-in litmus test that you created by adding an acoustic disc, whether you knew it or not.
The song structures are weak on "Theology," and those tuneless transgressions are really called out with nowhere to hide in an acoustic arrangement like the ones on "The Dublin Sessions." Having three or four good songs out of 11, and then to duplicate them in an acoustic setting, would give you a batting average in line with the inhabitants of the Yankees dugout at the moment.
The Curtis Mayfield track "We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue" was an interesting choice, displaying your affinity for black music yet again. You are about as colored as a loaf of Wonder Bread with the crusts peeled off, but hey, you pull it off. Fair play to yeh.
What were you thinking when you covered Andrew Lloyd Weber's "I Don't Know How to Love Him?" Could there be a worse song in the songbook of life than that?
You sound like you're shivering on the track, as if that composing troll was holding a knife to your throat in the studio. You would have rocked the balcony with a cover of "Evita." Why not do that one? Could you imagine the music video for that?
You were on the right track with this idea, however misguided that song choice was. You really tore up those reggae covers on your last CD and I love the trad tunes you interpreted on Sean Nos Nua a few years ago, so perhaps it's time to do another Prince song or two if you have any hope to be taken seriously by the fickle record buying public? It definitely did the trick in 1990, when "Nothing Compares 2U" ruled the charts.
I'm sure you've noticed that female singers have gotten a tad sassier since then, with their midriffs showing and their "U and UR Hand" lyrics leaving little to the imagination. I know you'll have to swallow your pride before you record another Prince tune after he reportedly slapped you around for cursing too much in your interviews while promoting his song.
Bygones, bygones! Neither one of you have been that high on the charts since, so let's focus on the synergies here! If you do go purple, pick a racy track like "Erotic City" or "Sugar Walls."
Speaking of a career comeback, you've still got many of the ingredients to make a pop star in this age of tabloid journalism feeding frenzies.
Gifted but deeply troubled reputation? Check. An ability to get on Conan's couch with the blink of your doe eyes? Check. A baby with an estranged daddy in tow? Check. Check. Check.
I'm not saying you need to change or anything. You're loose off the chain, your doghouse is a dot in the rearview mirror behind you, and you wouldn't have it any other way. Neither would I. That's a great characteristic of a great artist, and you have it in spades.
The press release that came with my copy of Theology says you've made this disc to be something peaceful and beautiful, and it is on many levels. This CD might come in handy on a lazy Sunday morning to assuage the guilt for missing Mass, but for your next trick, promise us we'll see you bring back that demented, anguished howl of "Mandinka."
It's what made most of us board your crazy train in the first place, and I think we could all use a reminder of why we fell in love with you. Do we have a deal? Toodles!
Mike