USA TODAY March 8, 1990, Thursday, Shades of Sinead; O'Conner bares a tender side in new LP; Out goes the lion, in comes the lamb; Her facts on file Edna Gundersen In The Emperor's New Clothes, Sinead O'Connor sings, ''How could I possibly know what I want when I was only 21?'' She's only 23 now, but the Dublin-born singer/song-writer (her name is pronounced shin-AID) knows what she wants. And what she doesn't want: to be predictable or artistically constrained, or to be a pop idol. The title of her exquisite new album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (Chrysalis), says it all. In stores March 20, it's an intensely personal portrait and a tender sequel to her punkish 1987 debut, The Lion and the Cobra. The latter sold more than 500,000 copies, despite record company predictions that it might clear only 10,000. I Do Not Want is superior artistically (earning 4 1/2 stars in Rolling Stone) and shows equal commercial promise. The first single, Nothing Compares 2 U, is enjoying ample play on radio and MTV. The obscure Prince ballad, originally recorded by the Family, already hit No. 1 in nine countries. Profits and charts are not her measures of greatness. ''I'm not making records to achieve huge sales or huge fame,'' says O'Connor, who begins a U.S. tour May 7. ''I just want to make brilliant records.'' She has made two, and fans are struck by the contrasts. ''Some have asked why have I changed and why has the sound become softer,'' she says. ''Why would I not change? It would seem silly to keep ranting and raving. I don't understand why people do one thing all of their career. You have to move on. There would be no point in me making a record like the last one. I'm a different person now.'' What kind of person? In a white turtleneck and black jeans, O'Connor bounds from the bathroom of her hotel suite, furiously brushing her teeth. Her porcelain skin bears no makeup and her huge, intense gray eyes widen as she describes the hip-hop club she visited the night before. Her head, once shaved bald because she was bored with her looks, now sports a quarter-inch stubble. She will say six times in the next hour, ''I'm just an ordinary person.'' ''Ordinary'' in no way describes her music or her career. In a soaring voice that glides seamlessly from banshee rage to angelic sweetness, she addresses spiritual, romantic and social issues in songs that skip from rock to punk to folk to torch. Music rescued O'Connor from a childhood rocked by her parents' divorce, shoplifting sprees and a stint in reform school. At 14, she wrote her first song, Take My Hand, recorded by Irish folkies In Tua Nua. London's Ensign Records discovered her singing with a Dublin funk band in 1985. ''Things happened very quickly,'' O'Connor says. ''I was offered a record contract before I even knew there was such a thing. I've never been in a position where I had to look for anything. Everything was handed to me on a plate. ''I just wasn't thinking about getting my foot in the door,'' she says. ''I'm still not.'' Early recording sessions for The Lion were complicated by her pregnancy and an incompatible producer. She took over production and the album was a critical hit. Sales skyrocketed after her riveting performance of Mandinka (with Public Enemy's logo painted on her shaved scalp) at the 1989 Grammys. ''It was fun. It was the first experience I had on the glitzy end. That's not real life. It's movie life. It's a laugh if it happens now and then, but I couldn't live my life like that.'' In addition to her own albums, O'Connor contributed Someday My Prince Will Come to Hal Wilner's acclaimed Disney tribute album, Stay Awake. A devotee of hip-hop and reggae, she released a duet version of the Cobra track (I Want Your) Hands on Me with rapper M.C. Lyte. She collaborated with U2 guitarist the Edge on an Irish movie soundtrack. She has contributed music to four other films, including Married to the Mob and Britain's made-for-TV Hush-a-Bye Baby, in which she makes her acting debut. As a child, she aspired to be an actress or ballet dancer. ''I wanted to do something melodramatic,'' she says. ''I loved acting, but I couldn't do it in school, because I speak really quietly and I couldn't bellow out the words. I was self-conscious and embarrassed. Ballet was all discipline, so singing won out. There's more freedom.'' The bewilderment and fury that marked the first album have all but evaporated. Last year, she married drummer John Reynolds, the father of her 2 1/2-year-old son, Jake. She's a homebody. ''I'm really lazy. I watch the telly. I go shopping. I do the washing. I get tired. I don't stay out late, and I don't drink very much.'' On the new album, themes of spiritual awakening and self-discovery are cleanly summed up in a line, a mantra almost, from Feel So Different: ''All I'd need was inside me.'' The album opens with the Serenity Prayer (''Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change ... .''), taught to her in childhood by her mother. ''A lot of very dramatic changes have taken place in my life,'' O'Connor says. ''I've had to make a lot of big decisions when I wasn't too sure of what I was doing. And (the prayer) seemed the most appropriate way of asking for assistance. I only recently discovered there was no reason for me to worry, that everything was fine. I got to know myself a bit better.'' O'Connor attributes this new-found tranquility to spiritual study and ''the fact that I've had time to take stock of myself.'' To shield her privacy, her soul-baring lyrics are ''not the full truth,'' she says. ''I never do it in a way that's purely direct. You can't tell exactly what I'm talking about.'' She swore off producers after encountering one who hoped to shape her into a modern-day Grace Slick. ''I would never consider working with a producer,'' she says. ''The times it's been suggested to me, my blood has just boiled. I would never suggest that anyone hand over artistic control. The second you hand it over to a producer, it's gone. It's not your own. ''Anybody can produce a record. You just have to know what you want. I think producers are awfully overrated and overpaid. I'm repelled by (British production team) Stock/Aitken/Waterman and all those stupid girls that are merely products of someone else, singing all these words that aren't their own. I hate things like Milli Vanilli.'' Though she's uneasy writing about social issues, O'Connor tackled racism in Black Boys on Mopeds, based on the real case of a London youth who, wrongly suspected of stealing, was chased by police until he crashed his moped and died. ''The police denied they were there,'' says O'Connor, who was outraged. ''Nothing was done about it.'' Can such tragedy be redeemed in a song? ''Music is the most powerful medium at the moment. But people should never write songs they don't feel genuinely strongly about. An awful lot of people are spouting for the sake of spouting and that unfortunately detracts from those who are saying it because they mean it.'' Her facts on file - Home: Raised in Dublin, lives in London. - Family: Husband John Reynolds (her drummer) and their 2 1/2-year-old son, Jake. - Childhood ambitions: Singing, acting, ballet dancing. - First composition: At 14, wrote Take My Hand, later recorded by Ireland's In Tua Nua. - New album: I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. Produced, wrote nine songs, sings and plays guitar, keyboards, percussion. - Previous recordings: Debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, 1987. The song Someday My Prince Will Come on Stay Awake, Hal Wilner's Disney tribute LP. Duet single with rapper M.C. Lyte, (I Want Your) Hands on Me. Contributions to five movie soundtracks, including the hit Married to the Mob.