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Sinead O’Connor, who died recently at 56, had a complicated relationship to the spotlight, and to stardom. She revealed her most vulnerable self over and again, and was often chastised for it, but her direct expression of her personal truth also became one of her signature artistic achievements.
But O’Connor was a signature musician, too — her first two albums were intimate, vividly intense and full of nimble and variegated singing. And she was an inventive covers artist too, often dismantling other performers’s songs until she’d unearthed their emotional core.
On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about O’Connor’s unlikely pop fame, the musical corners she naturally gravitated toward, the ways in which her personal convictions intersected with her art, and the paths she followed once leaving the spotlight behind.
Guests:
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Alfred Soto, who writes about music for Pitchfork, Billboard and others
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Amanda Hess, a New York Times critic at large
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