SINEAD O’CONNOR
Theology
Koch
· Religious zealots can make pop records too.
When trying to make a comeback as a musician, it’s not ideal to be remembered primarily for ripping up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, and having the only hit of your career be a cover of a Prince song. It’s also not great to have the announcement of your new record’s release date be met with a whole bunch of "she’s still making records?" But this is exactly where Sinead O’Connor exists – much more famous than she probably deserves to be, but nobody seems to care about her music.
And yet, there is this expansive new double album, Theology. Two collections of basically the same songs, one set recorded acoustically and the other with pop arrangements.
What is immediately clear is that O’Connor is as uncompromising as ever. Most of these songs are surprisingly lovely and her voice is as powerful as ever, but there is something so uninviting about her music – it’s almost like the recording of these songs was some kind of religious act of repentance rather than artistic expression. The only time she seems truly happy is when she’s singing about God on "The Glory of Jah" – "Truly there is no one beside you/ you made all of creation with wisdom."
Still, it’s surprisingly hard to get all the way through Theology without getting caught up in its beauty, even if just briefly.
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