Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Sinead O'Connor
Listen to Sinead O'Connor:
Over time, music video proved itself to be much more limiting than was originally hoped. We had great expectations of video in the early 80's. It was supposed to be a brave new frontier, but it strangled more than it salvaged. The problem was that, left to our own imaginations, a song doesn't usually have a visual accompaniment, but an emotional one. What’s more, a video becomes dated after only a few viewings. Whether it is due to a lack of artistic vision or perhaps a thoroughly shortened attention span on the part of the audience, once we grasp the director’s intention, the video is on its way to obsolescence. Consider, for instance, that there are rarely more than a few feature-length movies that the average person can bear to watch more than two or three times. Music video is just as likely to wear out its welcome, but it is also susceptible to becoming dated and then forgotten. Music, on the other hand, can withstand years of exposure (granted, with an occasional period of rest). The inherent problem is fairly obvious - film doesn't expand our interpretations of a song, it only limits us by presenting one specific series of images over and over. Even worse, music video ties us down to the role of a passive observer. Before MTV, music was something that could accompany an active lifestyle. One of rock and roll's vital forces since its inception was its mobility. In the video age, however, contemporary music was dropped into the lap of the modern day couch potato. Lying back on our couches in our stocking feet with channel selectors pressed into our palms, music video became as stimulating (and as much of an expendable commodity) as a bag of potato chips, and just as likely to grow old and soggy.
The videos with the longest shelf lives are usually the ones that don't interfere with our own imaginations. On "Nothing Compares 2 U", the video remains focused on a close-up of Sinead O'Connor. There is no secondary story line, no surrealist imagery and no staged performance shots - just the steady image of O'Connor's singing head. She mouths the emotionally wrenching content of Prince's song until a lone tear appears on her cheek. It still holds us back, because it forces us to accept the song as being representative of O’Connor’s emotions rather than our own, but otherwise it is unobtrusive and effective.
Lyrically, "Nothing Compares 2 U" is unusual for Prince, which might be the reason that he gave it away. It just isn't like him to write a song from the perspective of a spurned lover, or even to express regret. Coming from O'Connor, though, the song is imbued with enough elements from her Irish heritage and personal pathos to make it vividly intense. Few musical styles are more emotionally direct than traditional Irish folk music, and few artists are capable of relaying a broad array of emotions without sounding overly dramatic or pretentious. O'Connor moves from a soothing whisper to a hair-raising howl in an instant, and she does it without any of the forced melodrama or arty pretensions of other singer/actresses, such as Kate Bush (whom I otherwise happen to think is a wonderful artist). O’Connor gets away with it because it's easy to assume that she isn't showboating at all, but exorcising her own private demons by letting her entire palette of emotions escape unchecked. She is a banshee angel.
If you can stand Sinead's unfocused rantings (I'm referring to her personality here, not her music), you’ll eventually pick up on the strong will and intelligent desire for truthfulness that informs her music, neither of which are normally considered to be commercial qualities. Her singing style is so personal that it can be simultaneously off-putting and disarming. It is hard to imagine just what about O'Connor's personal tales of pain and anger captured the imaginations of so many people, and rarely does such a singular vision of personal trauma reach such phenomenal heights. But both the album (I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got) and the single (“Nothing Compares 2 U”) rose to #1 in America.
Whether O’Connor is a victim of her own honesty or just has an irrepressible urge to speak out of turn is uncertain, but her brash and tough-minded comments have gotten her into an awful lot of trouble with the press. In the early part of her career, she made some disparaging and pointed barbs about U2's (particularly Bono's) sincerity, and her image as a controversial hothead was set. Pro-IRA musings did little to endear her to the English press or to the anti-violence movement either. She later made vague references to sexual advances that supposedly occurred during a meeting with Prince, which only left most people wondering which of these two was less grounded in reality. She even incurred the public wrath of Frank Sinatra by refusing to acknowledge the American flag during the National Anthem.
All of this paled, though, in comparison to her Saturday Night Live appearance, in which she tore up a photograph of the Pope on national television. She attempted to explain her motives, stating that it was a symbolic protest against the Roman Catholic church, which in her opinion cast Irish women into a role of servitude. Of course, she is entitled to her views, but choosing an American TV show to perform such a blunt stunt struck me as deliberately provocative and manipulative. The following morning, she found herself on the cover of practically every newspaper, most of which referred to her as a despicable heathen ingrate.
Not long afterward, she attended a tribute to Bob Dylan at New York's Madison Square Garden. Dozens of famous faces were there, for the exclusive purpose of performing their interpretations of Dylan’s songs. I was among the audience, and from my perspective, it seemed fairly obvious that O'Connor had come fully prepared to make the most of her recent notoriety. When her turn came, most of the audience was polite enough to applaud gently, if not vigorously. She came to the front of the stage looking nervous and vulnerable, but the vast majority of the crowd seemed willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and waited patiently for her to start. Instead, she stood there until the silence became pointedly uncomfortable. Predictably enough, what began as sporadic outbursts of disapproval slowly built into a crescendo of booing. What struck me (again) as a manipulative piece of performance art had reached its climax. At that exact moment, she launched into an acappella rendering of "War", Bob Marley's musical adaptation of Rasta figurehead Haile Selassie's words, then promptly ran from the stage. It was the only non-Dylan composition that was performed all evening. My initial reaction was to laugh aloud at her bravado and wonder if the audience realized that they had played right into her hands. As inappropriate and out of context as it was, O'Connor once again managed to be both provocative and disarming. In light of her harsh anti-Catholic stance, could it be only a coincidence that she chose to recite words that are an integral part of Rastafarian faith? After all, Rastafarian doctrine is notoriously anti-Catholic and views the Pope as a virtual archenemy.
Deliberate or not, O'Connor had done it again. She became fed up with the press, and the press (along with everybody who reads it) became fed up with her. By unspoken mutual agreement, she withdrew from the limelight. Keeping a low profile, she now saves her beautiful and expressive voice for sporadic recordings and performances while doing her best to keep controversy and personal exposure out of her work. Without a doubt, Sinead O'Connor has paid the price of her outspokenness.
 
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