'Glorious' Sinead doesn't mind if mumsy's the word
Some want her to forever be the doe-eyed shaven beauty of worldwide hit 'Nothing Compares 2 U.'
But singer Sinead O'Connor has laughed off critics more concerned with how she looked than how she sounded at a series of comeback shows in Manchester last weekend.
"I don't get paid to look good. I get paid to write songs and sing them. No one has ever disputed that in those departments I'm utterly glorious," a defiant Sinead told me this week.
This is true: music reviewers in the UK lavished praise on her English dates, which one journo described as being "utterly compelling."
He said Sinead still had the "power to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck."
But the tabloids and celebrity gossip website TMZ were less kind, focussing instead on her "mumsy" look.
Now 44, and not 23, the age she was in the video of her transatlantic Prince hit, Sinead told me she also had no problem with being described as 'mumsy'.
"I love when I'm called mumsy. As I am in my 'mumsy' department. I've already gone forth and multiplied four times. So I don't need to be beautiful. Hence one can see how cool it is to be called 'mumsy.'
"It's the nicest thing any one could say. Apart from 'Bob Dylan wants you to be his harmonica,'" she joked.
And no one goes on about how Bob's appearance has changed over the years.
More encouraging for Sinead will be another writer in Manchester who said that the tracks she performed from her forthcoming album Home, "shone brighter than much of her back catalogue."
High praise indeed now that she is eight albums and 25 years into her recording career.
"They didn't have to, but I would like to give newspapers respect for noting the quality of my work. While being unmannerly about my appearance, they acknowledged my musical fantastic-ness," she said.
Don't miss Sinead at the Electric Picnic in Stradbally on September 2/3/4.
Her highly recommended ninth album, Home, is due out the same month.
Originally published in
