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Related: About this forumWhen America Met Sinead O'Connor
February 22, 1989, the 31st annual Grammy Awards. Among the nominees for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female are Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, Melissa Etheridge, Toni Childs, and Sinéad OConnor. OConnor has performed once on Late Night with David Letterman, but she has yet to appear on primetime American television. Tuxedo-clad host Billy Crystal introduces her to the tens of millions watching at home, explaining that OConnor is a 21-year-old singer from Ireland and that with her very first album, The Lion and the Cobra, she has served notice that this is no ordinary talent.
Most people point to OConnors destruction of a photo of Pope John Paul II, during her October 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, as the reason for her exile from the pop world. But it was on this night in Los Angeles, three years prior, that revealed from the outset what the rest of the rest of the world would learn soon enough: her willingness to take a stand made her powerful and threatening.
As the first few notes of OConnors runaway college radio hit Mandinka kick in, the curtain rises on a darkened stage. She steps forward as if entering from a void, her hair shorn nearly to the scalp, her midriff exposed by a black halter top, her baggy, low-slung blue jeans ripped and torn. She touches her face almost like she cant believe shes there. OConnors voice is clear and cutting, alternating between a whisper and a dare. If you look closely you might notice that she is wearing an infants sleepsuit tied behind her waist as she rocks back and forth in her Doc Martens, wailing, I dont know no shame/I feel no pain/I cant see the flame! Even from a distance, you cant miss the massive man in the crosshairs of a gun thats been painted onto the side of her shaved head, an arresting image even if you dont immediately catch the reference.
After she was done, reporters from the L.A. Times described OConnor as looking nervous backstage. Although they commended her performance, and her outfit, they quoted her remarking on what had just transpired, as though she were crashing the party. I thought it was a little odd that they asked me to perform, because of the way I look, she told them, But I find it encouraging that they asked, because its an acknowledgment that they are prepared not to be so safe about the music and push forward with people slightly off the wall.
If only that were true. Mandinka was a fearless battle cry, but it was only her opening act. The onesie OConnor wore was her son Jakes, a middle finger to the executives at her record label who had warned her that motherhood and a career were incompatible. The man in the crosshairs was Public Enemys logo, which Chuck D described as symbolizing the Black man in America. She wore it as a badge of solidarity with the band, and by extension, all rappers who had been erased from the program. For years, the powerful white men who controlled the Recording Academy had dismissed rap as a passing fad or considered it dangerously subversive. Yet by 1989 the genre had become too popular to simply ignore. So they decided to confer the first-ever award for Best Rap Performance, but not to televise it. The trophy went to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince for their G-rated pop crossover single Parents Just Dont Understand, but they werent on hand that night, having led a boycott that also included fellow nominees Salt-N-Pepa and LL Cool J.
https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/sinead-oconnor-nothing-compares-grammys.html
Most people point to OConnors destruction of a photo of Pope John Paul II, during her October 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, as the reason for her exile from the pop world. But it was on this night in Los Angeles, three years prior, that revealed from the outset what the rest of the rest of the world would learn soon enough: her willingness to take a stand made her powerful and threatening.
As the first few notes of OConnors runaway college radio hit Mandinka kick in, the curtain rises on a darkened stage. She steps forward as if entering from a void, her hair shorn nearly to the scalp, her midriff exposed by a black halter top, her baggy, low-slung blue jeans ripped and torn. She touches her face almost like she cant believe shes there. OConnors voice is clear and cutting, alternating between a whisper and a dare. If you look closely you might notice that she is wearing an infants sleepsuit tied behind her waist as she rocks back and forth in her Doc Martens, wailing, I dont know no shame/I feel no pain/I cant see the flame! Even from a distance, you cant miss the massive man in the crosshairs of a gun thats been painted onto the side of her shaved head, an arresting image even if you dont immediately catch the reference.
After she was done, reporters from the L.A. Times described OConnor as looking nervous backstage. Although they commended her performance, and her outfit, they quoted her remarking on what had just transpired, as though she were crashing the party. I thought it was a little odd that they asked me to perform, because of the way I look, she told them, But I find it encouraging that they asked, because its an acknowledgment that they are prepared not to be so safe about the music and push forward with people slightly off the wall.
If only that were true. Mandinka was a fearless battle cry, but it was only her opening act. The onesie OConnor wore was her son Jakes, a middle finger to the executives at her record label who had warned her that motherhood and a career were incompatible. The man in the crosshairs was Public Enemys logo, which Chuck D described as symbolizing the Black man in America. She wore it as a badge of solidarity with the band, and by extension, all rappers who had been erased from the program. For years, the powerful white men who controlled the Recording Academy had dismissed rap as a passing fad or considered it dangerously subversive. Yet by 1989 the genre had become too popular to simply ignore. So they decided to confer the first-ever award for Best Rap Performance, but not to televise it. The trophy went to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince for their G-rated pop crossover single Parents Just Dont Understand, but they werent on hand that night, having led a boycott that also included fellow nominees Salt-N-Pepa and LL Cool J.
https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/sinead-oconnor-nothing-compares-grammys.html
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When America Met Sinead O'Connor (Original Post)
demmiblue
Oct 2022
OP
demmiblue
(36,873 posts)1. Nothing Compares (2022) Official Trailer - Documentary - SHOWTIME
gay texan
(2,464 posts)2. Paul Harvey
Bitched and whined about this every day for two months on his damn radio show