Perhaps that’s because, although her catalogue was uneven, filled with pauses – six years separated 1994’s Universal Mother from its follow-up Faith and Courage, while her last studio album was recorded nearly a decade before her death – and unpredictable turns, her music was often of an extraordinarily high quality. The furore permanently derailed her career in the US, where her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, had sold 2m copies and topped the charts. Pesci threatened her with violent retribution on the same show the following week – incredibly, the audience applauded him. Her 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, during which she ripped up a photo of the pope, was described by the New York Daily News as a “holy terror”, and attracted the opprobrium of everyone from Madonna to Joe Pesci. Years later, she described her comments as “bollocks”, but further uproar would surround O’Connor on a regular basis: about her conversion to Islam (she called non-Muslims “disgusting”) about Prince, the author of her biggest hit, 1990’s Nothing Compares 2 U, whom she accused of physical abuse and, most notably, about sexual abuse in the Catholic church, a subject which she took up long before it became a mainstream talking point.
Almost from the moment Sinéad O’Connor appeared in the mass public consciousness, she created controversy: her first release, a song called Heroine co-written with U2’s guitarist the Edge for the soundtrack to a largely forgotten 1986 film called Captive, was swiftly followed by the singer causing a furore by expressing her support for the IRA.
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