“Nothing Compares” And A Culture That Cancelled Sinead O’Connor
The new documentary “Nothing Compares” opens up with Sinead O’Connor being both cheered and booed at Bob Dylan’s 30th-anniversary concert. Looking back on her rise and fall from pop stardom, it’s hard not to see that as a metaphor for her life and career — an icon enraptured in both adoration and ire.
Directed by Kathryn Ferguson, the documentary follows O’Connor’s journey from Ireland to international pop stardom. Her first music memories were her father singing “Scarlet Ribbons,” her brother bringing home a Bob Dylan album, and her mother’s music collection. But her love for music was connected to deep pain as well. O’Connor says her mother was “physically, verbally, psychologically, spiritually, emotionally” abusive. In the documentary, she recalled when her mother made her live outside in the garden for weeks.
“The reason I got into music was therapy,” she said in the film. “That’s why it was such a shock to me to become a popstar, because that’s not what I wanted. I just wanted to scream.”
After singing in a local band called “In Tua Nua,” O’Connor later moved to London and put an ad in a local magazine to find a band to join. She joined Ton Ton Macoute, and her powerful voice gained her attention from record labels. Eventually she would release her first album “The Lion and the…
