The Washington Post
September 21, 1994, Wednesday, Final Edition

Sincerely, Sinead O'Connor

Mike Joyce

   Making "Universal Mother" doubtless proved cathartic for singer Sinead
O'Connor. Enjoying it as a listener, on the other hand, is likely to prove
problematic.

   Better known for making headlines than hits, O'Connor hasn't had it easy of
late: a failed suicide attempt, an aborted retirement, getting booed off the
Madison Square Garden stage at Bob Dylan's 30th recording anniversary bash for
having shredded the pope's photograph on "Saturday Night Live"; and, yes,
receiving that notorious reprimand from Frank Sinatra for not giving due respect
to the national anthem. Even the Chairman of the Board deemed her boorish.

   Still, O'Connor is not about to change her ways. As its title suggests, "
Universal Mother" (Chrysalis) is driven by big issues and provocative notions --
along with a voice both hauntingly beautiful and fervently impassioned. The
album opens with an excerpt of a speech by Germaine Greer, offering advice on
how to undermine the patriarchy's "spiral of power." O'Connor then raises her
striking, tremulous voice and begins to explore themes that continue to torture
her soul: the child abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother ("Fire on
Babylon"), the scourge of British imperialism ("Famine"), her relationship with
the press ("Red Football"), even the debt she owes for always unburdening
herself in public ("Thank You for Hearing Me").

   Most of the songs are orchestrated with an airy, hymnlike grace, well suited
to O'Connor's often confessional tone and intimate balladry. The one glaring
exception is "Famine," a broadside aimed at the British that is propelled by a
hip-hop beat and punctuated by the chorus from "Eleanor Rigby." While the novel
arrangement can't compensate for O'Connor's inadequacies as a rapper, what's
really wrong with "Famine" is the way she undermines the point she's trying to
make about British tyranny in her native Ireland with such broad and ineffectual
strokes.

   "Look at all our young people on drugs/ Look at all our old people in pubs,"
she implores, as if the causes of their behavior were irrefutable. "We've even
made killers of ourselves/ The most childlike, trusting people in the universe."
Case closed.

   And though she calls for healing and understanding, there are times when
O'Connor can't help but view herself in the same light as she views Ireland: as
a victim, blameless and bloodied. On "Red Football," which deals with her public
persona, she rails at the media: "I'm not no red football to be kicked around
the garden/ No,no,/ I'm a red Christmas tree ball/ And I'm fragile/ I'm not no
animal/ though I am to you." No mention, of course, that O'Connor has been known
to play the game as well.

   Her pain, politics and humanity are better expressed when the mood is more
subdued and her passion more focused. Covering Kurt Cobain's "All Apologies,"
she taps quietly and almost hopelessly into the despair that consumes her, only
to conclude, "I wish I was like you/ Easily amused." On "John I Love You" and
"My Darling Child" she sings of her family with great warmth and tenderness, and
later brings a heartbreaking poignancy to "Scorn Not His Simplicity" and "A
Perfect Indian." All of this makes "Universal Mother" an exasperatingly uneven
recording, an album marked by simple beauty, unquestionable sincerity and
frequently simplistic views.