Caroline Sullivan
CD OFTHEWEEK
‘Strong, independent, pagan woman” – that is how Sin,ad O’Connor describes herself on Daddy, I’m Fine, one of the most inspirational lyrics she has written for her first album in six years, Faith and Courage (Atlantic). And we can rightfully celebrate the return of the independent, exasperating, unique Ms O’Connor.
Faith and Courage lives up to its title. No confession is too unsparing (“I know that I have done many things to give you reason not to listen to me,” she admits in The Lamb’s Book of Life, on her desire to preach the gospel), and she’s a whisker away from psychobabble on The Healing Room. But it’s laced with clarity and the need to make her own way in life, as No Man’s Woman attests.
The spiritual streak is tempered by commercial nous, though, in her choice of producers. Dave Stewart, Wyclef Jean, Brian Eno and Adrian Sherwood do their things (pop, funktasia, ambient, reggae) with varying results. Stewart’s fortysomething sleekness gets the best performance out of her on Till I Whisper U Something, which comes closest to the anthemic quality she has sought since Nothing Compares 2U topped the charts 10 years ago.