The Jerusalem Post May 4, 1990, Friday SINEAD O'CONNOR HITS A RAW NERVE David Brinn Sinead O'Connor is easily the most striking and original singer/songwriter to emerge in the last few years. Looking like a punkette, circa 1977, and sounding like a nightingale with something to get off her chest, O'Connor opens and probes the human condition until the gap between performance and real life is indistinguishable. On her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, the young Irish singer lets us in with astounding ease and keeps us mesmerized throughout. O'Connor, 22, sings about relationships, both lost and found. But unlike many of her contemporaries she never reduces her lyrics to wallowing self-pity or mushy romanticism. She peels away the flab to expose the raw nerve, whether it's in the album's opener, Feel So Different, or the inspired cover of Prince's Nothing Compares to U. The musically varied album jumps from ethereal string-washed ballads to the Irish-Middle East connection of I Am Stretched on Your Grave to punky rave-ups like The Emperor's New Clothes. On The Last Day of our Acquaintance, both the lyrics and music mesh in a breathtaking manner. When the first melancholy verse ends and O'Connor's lush acoustic guitar kicks in with the help of ricocheting drums, the effect is akin to rushing over a waterfall. Not since the heyday of The Who have acoustic guitars been given such a heavy workout. The album closes with I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, a personal prayer set to music. Sung acapella, the song perfectly captures O'Connor's spiritual essence. It may be outdated to think that rock & roll matters very much. After all, rock has been co-opted for everything from advertising to TV theme shows and it seems like most artists' main priority is to find the most profitable corporate tour sponsor. But if you take Sinead O'Connor to heart, she just may convince you that the magic that the Lovin' Spoonful so naively sang about 25 years ago still does exist for those of us who look for it.