The Guardian (London)
September 16, 1994

CD OF THE WEEK: SINEAD O'CONNOR;
Sinead O'Connor Universal Mother (Ensign CHEN34)


    IT'S often difficult to listen to Sinead because of the emotional turmoil
she unloads on to every song. The physical abuse she claims she endured from her
mother has left her endlessly seeking a vent for her anger.

    Her fourth album comes with instructions about how to "best appreciate" it
(with headphones, and all in one sitting). It quickly reveals itself as a kind
of therapy session, with O'Connor the free -associating patient and the listener
the analyst.

    The first track, Fire On Babylon, seems to be an attack on her mother ("She
took my father from my life/Took my sister and brothers"). She's charged up,
gesticulating over an overwrought guitar backdrop. Delicately plinking piano
signals a mood change that spans the next three songs. John I Love You and My
Darling Child are paeans to her ex-husband and son. The latter is a tranquil,
violin-brushed lullaby containing some of O'Connor's most noisome lyrics: "Me
love me boy/ Me love me babby/ My pride and joy/ Me little puppy". The little
puppy himself turns up singing the next song, Am I A Human?, which, claims his
mother, he wrote and "produced". Yuk.

    From here on, the music mostly devolves into understated, piano-led pieces
like a cover of Nirvana's All Apologies, and All Babies, which is Sinead at her
most Irish. In This Heart, performed a cappella with a male singer, could be a
Gaelic folk song. Most surprising, musically, is Famine, a rap(!) about the 1847
potato crisis.

    Everything returns to the theme of motherhood. On the most moving, Tiny
Grief Song, O'Connor's composure wobbles as she reflects on her ambivalence
about her mother's death. Universal Mother ends serenely enough, with the gently
danceable Thank You For Hearing Me, but, having unburdened herself, Sinead now
seems even more vulnerable. Whether it cures or kills her, this album is a
personal watershed. --- CS