Why Sinéad O'Connor matters

Journalist McCabe debuts with a revealing reappraisal of singer Sinéad O'Connor. Born in 1966 in Glenageary, Ireland, O'Connor endured a traumatic childhood filled with physical and verbal abuse at her mother's hands, fueling her take-no-prisoners approach to music--"She didn't just want to sing," McCabe writes. "She needed to scream"--and determination to champion progressive causes. After the release of her breakout 1987 debut album The Lion and the Cobra, O'Connor harnessed her platform to denounce racism and support Black artists--for example, publicly criticizing MTV for refusing to air rap videos due to verbal "obscenity," which she viewed as "racism disguised as censorship." In 1992, she appeared as a musical guest on SNL and tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II to deliver a message about child abuse in the Catholic church--a "scandal" that attracted widespread vitriol, McCabe notes, even though O'Connor was "sound the alarm about something was actually happening and, in fact, evil." McCabe skillfully renders the artist's rise and ahead-of-her-time activism against the sociopolitical landscape of the 1980s and '90s, persuasively rescuing O'Connor's reputation from a mainstream media narrative that "all too often dismissed as a slow-motion train wreck." Fans will be riveted. (May)

Music and culture writer McCabe defends the controversial career and lifelong activism of Irish singer/songwriter Sinéad O'Connor in this very personal and thought-provoking account of the media's role in her stratospheric rise and ultimate implosion. McCabe's own story parallels O'Connor's--she too suffered childhood abuse and struggled with her sexual identity. She turned to music as therapy and eventually discovered the prolific catalog of O'Connor through Fiona Apple's hero-worshipping video. McCabe marvels at O'Connor's ability to take control of her career by creating her own image and rebelling against the sex-symbol ideal that others wanted from her. Her brilliance and downfall were both a result of her desire to be an activist artist when her actions and views were considered taboo and shocking at the time. The author argues that O'Connor was fundamentally correct about everything, from the Catholic Church's role in covering up child abuse to the music industry's blatant racism and misogyny. VERDICT A touching tribute. O'Connor has been the subject of recent and numerous articles, a documentary, and books (including her own), but McCabe's take is unique in its critical analysis of the media and its attempts to silence and cancel O'Connor.--Lisa Henry