The Toronto Star
April 3, 1988, Sunday, SUNDAY SECOND EDITION

Singer's music speaks for her Sinead O'Connor may refuse to talk about
her record success, but her music speaks volume sales

By Greg Quill Toronto Star


   Out there somewhere Sinead O'Connor is doing her best to avoid coming to
terms with the business of music.

   The 20-year-old Irish singer's debut album, The Lion And The Cobra, is a hit
by any measure, but O'Connor remains suspicious. She's making things difficult
for her record company by refusing to talk about the whys and wherefores of her
success. It seems she has been too often tagged a protegee, an associate of more
popular stars, like U2's Bono and The Edge, who discovered her through another
Dublin band, In Tua Nua.

   She'd rather let her own music do the talking.

   Gifted songwriter

   Nothing wrong with that, of course, particularly since we won't have to wait
too long. Sinead (pronounced shin-aid, we're told) O'Connor will be at The
Diamond, 412 Sherbourne St., Thursday and Friday for her first two Toronto
shows.

   What's known of O'Connor is that she's an unusually gifted songwriter and
performer, despite the fact that prior to the release of The Lion And The Cobra
in November, she had virtually no experience on stage, except for a single spot
on British TV's Old Grey Whistle Test pop show.

   Her music is unique, a blend of contemporary, synthesized pop and ancient,
eerie Celtic folk, raw on one hand, incredibly sensitive on the other. And her
preoccupations run the gamut from mythology to misogyny. Nothing seems too close
or too distant for her. O'Connor has been compared more than once to Canadian
singer/songwriter Jane Siberry, but that's not exactly fair. In style and
disposition she better resembles another Canadian, Lisa Dalbello.

   Like Dalbello, O'Connor eschews her natural beauty for something more
startling. She says she won't allow her looks to manipulate, or to be
manipulated, and for the cover of The Lion And The Cobra and the current tour,
she shaved her head as a form of protest against the female-as-object mentality
of the music industry.

   Her heroines, incidentally, are Marilyn Monroe and Mary, Queen Of Scots.

   Trouble is, her baldness suggests something else entirely, something more
fierce and anarchistic. The stunning video of her song "Troy" went a long way
towards setting the record straight, but the album, industry insiders say, might
have done better without the graphic punkish overtones.

   Not that O'Connor cares much for commerce. She admits herself that she was
something of a ruffian who "bunked off" from school and ballet lessons whenever
she could. Music seemed to come naturally to her, though she has no awareness of
specific influences.

   Disturbing howl

   It was one of her songs, performed by In Tua Nua, that piqued Bono's
curiosity and her ethereal, often disturbing howl that prompted his
guitarist/partner The Edge to ask her to co-write and sing "Heroine," the single
from his soundtrack to the movie Captive.

   Their help notwithstanding, O'Connor insists she's no one's creation; she
distanced herself - both creatively and physically - from U2 by moving to London
more than a year ago.

   "There," she said recently, "at least I'm accepted as an individual."