SINEAD O'CONNOR LESSONS OF LOVE TEMPER IRISH POP ICONOCLAST'S RAGE BY KIM HUGHES NEW YORK CITY -- Sinéad O'Connor is losing her mind. Trapped in a dim midtown studio on a magnificent August afternoon and pining for a cigarette, she's being subjected to that most dreaded of artist-journalist rituals -- the satellite link-up. Sitting awkwardly on a drum riser facing a camera mounted parallel with her massive blue eyes, O'Connor fields questions from disembodied voices beamed in from local TV stations across America. A dozen-odd reporters are allotted 10 minutes each to gather soundbites from the mercurial Irish singer for that evening's broadcast. Preferably, they'd like something juicy but concise. Though probably just a $5 cab ride away from O'Connor's West 42nd location, chatty but faceless Ms. NYC Reporter makes a quickie introduction and gets right down to business. She wants to know about O'Connor's newly sprouted hair. Next is Mr. Chicago, who weighs in with a thoughtful comment about O'Connor's latest disc, the plaintive, hushed and stalwartly hopeful Gospel Oak EP. Any good will fostered by this exchange is dashed by Ms. Boston, who really really wants to know about O'Connor's hair. Does Sinéad have any special connection with Boston audiences? And, um, does she have any regrets about that pope picture-ripping stuff? In the short breaks between these dehumanizing sessions -- which she handles with poise despite her rep as a highly combustible bullshit detector -- O'Connor confers with the control room and stares grimly into the middle distance. If she does have one regret it's probably that she reneged on an earlier moratorium on press interviews imposed at a time when there didn't seem to be enough newsprint to chronicle all of her opinions. Later, calmed by an unhurried smoke and a handful of plump strawberries, a rejuvenated O'Connor settles in for an exclusive one-on-one. Bright, soft-spoken and unflinching in the face of pointed questions, O'Connor knows there's work to be done if Gospel Oak, her current tour -- at Massey Hall Monday (September 1) -- and her commercial viability are to stand a chance. Press torture Nearly 31, with two small children at home and no hit in sight, O'Connor, for the first time ever, actually needs the ink. "I'm not doing so much press that it's torture," she says. "But I want people to hear my records. If you're selling something, you've got to advertise. "It is difficult," she allows. "But once I've done this round of work, next time this will be the past, whereas the last time the focus was controversy in inverted commas, so, you know.... I guess there's a certain amount of cleaning up to be done." It wasn't always this way. A decade ago, O'Connor was white hot. Her stunning 1987 debut, The Lion And The Cobra, coupled with its equally brilliant follow-up, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, placed her at the apex of international celebrity, disturbing lyrical subject matter notwithstanding. Barely in her 20s, writing and producing her own material and thrilling the world with her adroit voice, O'Connor seemed to have it all. Remarkable songs like the hypnotic, quasi-traditional I Am Stretched On Your Grave -- delivered solo in concert and topped with a jig -- revealed such vulnerability that listeners were defenceless against its passion. Her histrionic rant against a philandering lover in the song Troy rallied the broken-hearted. Meanwhile, her recording of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U -- with its stark, all-eyes-on-Sinéad video -- made her very, very rich. Maybe that's why reactions to O'Connor were so extreme when she began lashing out -- randomly and ferociously -- against a jumble of real-life targets like the Catholic church, the press, the music industry, her family, her country, Andrew Dice Clay, Irish abortion laws and, ultimately, herself. Three contentious events marked the beginning of the end of America's love affair with O'Connor, and today in Manhattan it's evident that if she wants to reclaim lost ground and have "a nice, comfortable career" and "just make a living, basically," she must address her unhinged past. "A lot of people say to me, 'How can all of that have been worth the consequences?' But what I say is, 'How can anybody but me know what the consequences were, and therefore whether or not it was worth it?' It's not for anyone else to say. I achieved what I wanted to achieve spiritually, and that's what's important to me." It sure didn't look like O'Connor was achieving inner peace when she refused to allow The Star Spangled Banner to be played at a New Jersey concert in 1990, prompting threats from Frank Sinatra -- or more memorably, actor Phil Hartman as Sinatra to Jan Hooks' Sinéad -- to kick her ass. Cast members of Saturday Night Live came by their impressions honestly, for it was on that show in October 92 that O'Connor shot to notoriety far beyond the boundaries of pop music by ripping up a picture of the pope and inviting viewers to "Fight the real enemy." Outraged New Yorkers responded by staging O'Connor record-smashings. Weeks later, at a Bob Dylan tribute gig at Madison Square Garden, O'Connor was savagely booed. "I don't think my actions were as disturbing or that I upset as many people as some newspapers would like you to think," she says. "They neglected that at the Bob Dylan show, half the people were cheering. But there you go. As for sales, they had already dropped off naturally. So it didn't actually affect my career in that way." Still, a breakdown came the following year, as did an overdose, apparently triggered by Peter Gabriel's rejection of her advances. At least that's how she described it to England's Q magazine in a rambling interview in 94. And there was the requisite spell in rehab. Suddenly, the girl genius was a pariah, her great talent muddled in a series of miscalculations. Cookie-cutter rock Impatience with her erratic behaviour and her refusal to shut up and play the cookie-cutter rock star may have been tempered with sympathy for O'Connor's obvious distress and harrowing revelations of a childhood steeped in physical and mental abuse. But without spellbinding music to back it all up, the rewards for fans were few. Neither 92's all-covers disc, Am I Not Your Girl? -- complete with bizarre anti-church soliloquy -- nor 94's Universal Mother could touch the first two records artistically. Though she says her personal life has improved dramatically since then, thanks largely to therapy, career-wise she just has not managed to get back up on the horse. The folksy, traditional and highly personal Gospel Oak may or may not change that, although certainly a provocative video for the song This Is To Mother You -- which finds O'Connor and Kris Kristofferson making out heavily in bed -- already has tongues wagging. "Just friends" is the official line. O'Connor insists the new record "is about love," and the closest it comes to politics is a dedication to the people of Northern Ireland, Israel and Rwanda. She denies that it's an olive branch extended to disenfranchised fans hungry for more music and less social editorializing. "I wrote if for myself, as encouragement. So no, it wasn't an olive branch. But I deserve to work as much as anybody. "When you're in your 20s, you're angry. You wouldn't be normal if you weren't. I don't think I deserve to have my past held against me. But I'm not ashamed of it. In fact, I'm proud of those things I did. And if that means some people won't play my records, that's fine with me. I don't want a career so badly that I'm going to lick butt. "I also think my vulnerability reminds some people of their own. That's what can be disturbing in the music. Obviously, people are afraid to be vulnerable. But that's what music is for. "And yeah, I have found peace," she continues. "I've always had religion and it didn't give me peace. I think religion and therapy are pretty much the same thing in many ways, but they should go hand-in-hand. I had prayer before therapy, and now I have both. That's what does it." NOW JANUARY 17-23, 1997