‘Nothing Compares’ Makes A Convincing Case For The Late Sinead O’Connor’s Canonization

EDITOR’S NOTE: This essay was originally published in October of 2022, upon the streaming release of Nothing Compares on Showtime. We are republishing it today to honor the memory and legacy of Sinead O’Connor, who died today at the far too young age of the 56.

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According to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, an “iconoclast” is one who (1) “attacks settled beliefs or institutions” and (2) “destroys religious images or opposes their veneration.” It’s derived from the Greek word eikonoklastēs, which translates to “image destroyer.” Few artists have embodied the word so totally as Irish singer and songwriter, Sinead O’Connor. Her shaved head and butch fashion sense redefined ideas of female beauty, her music decried institutional injustices, and amongst other headline generating incidents, she quite literally destroyed religious images, famously ripping up a photograph of the Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live to protest the child sex abuse scandals of the Catholic Church. 

The new Showtime documentary Nothing Compares was directed by award-winning Belfast-born filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson and makes a compelling case for O’Connor’s canonization as one of the most important female artists of our time. Relying primarily on archival footage and voiceover interviews, it concentrates on her actions over her music and examines the toll they took on her career. Mocked and vilified in her day, she was ahead of the curve on social issues and helped lay the groundwork for today’s artists, female or otherwise, for whom artistic autonomy and responsibility are a given.

For O’Connor, music was a form of therapy. “I just wanted to scream,” she tells us. Nothing Compares doesn’t get lost in the weeds of every personal detail, but following her parents divorce she suffered physical and mental abuse at the hands of her mother. Even now, she calls her mother, who died in 1985, “a beast,” but also lays blame at the feet of the Catholic Church in Ireland, which she prosaically refers to as, “the coals of my abuse.”

Following its hard-fought independence from Great Britain, the Catholic Church exerted a powerful influence in the Republic of Ireland. Its conservative attitudes towards women and their reproductive rights were increasingly out of step with a rapidly modernizing world. At the age of 15, O’Connor spent 18 months at one of Ireland’s infamous church-run Magdalene Laundries, where so-called “fallen women,” including unwed mothers or rebellious teens, were held at work-houses against their will. The last closed in 1996, according to The Irish Times.

After taking her first musical steps in Dublin, O’Connor relocated to London, where she was exposed to Rastafarianism and the LGBTQ community, both of which helped widen her political worldview. While working on her first album she shaved her head and got pregnant, much to her record label and management’s consternation. O’Connor explains that having already fled a patriarchal society, she wasn’t about to let men dictate the terms of her appearance, her lifestyle or her music. 

O’Connor’s debut was a hit in the UK and modestly successful in the States. Its follow up, 1990’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, made her an international superstar thanks to the Prince-penned single “Nothing Compares 2 U” and its iconic music video. While we learn at the film’s conclusion that Prince’s estate denied its use in the film, it’s not missed. It should  be noted, O’Connor has written the majority of material on her ten albums. 

As O’Connor’s profile grew, so did the public’s scrutiny of her. 1992’s Saturday Night Live incident wasn’t the first time she made a political statement for all to see, but it would forever change the trajectory of her career. While she was roasted by the media, and mocked by her fellow entertainers (really Madonna?), history would prove her anger was justified. Keep in mind, this was before the widespread sexual abuses of Catholic priests and the church’s attempts to cover them up were common knowledge. 

The backlash against O’Connor reached a fever pitch two weeks later at a Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden. Staring down an arena full of angry boomers, nearly drowned out by their boos, the slight 26-year-old delivers a hellraising rendition of Bob Marley’s “War,” the same number she sang on SNL. The footage is absolutely riveting, with O’Connor seeming more like a modern-day Joan of Arc than the sanctimonious brat she was painted as at the time. 

O’Connor says she remembers little about the next ten years. Besides the fallout from her SNL appearance, she was still processing her past-abuse. Though subsequent albums did well enough, she was never able to repeat her sophomore success but has no regrets. Seeing herself as part of a long-line of rabble-rousing Irish artists, she is an equal-opportunity agitator, whether decrying American racism, British imperialism or Irish sexism. 

By avoiding the sensationalistic details of Sinead O’Connor’s tumultuous personal life or surveying the entirety of her career, Nothing Compares successfully brings her long term influence into greater focus. The film ends with a montage, suggesting her legacy can be found in the 2018 repeal of Ireland’s abortion ban, Russian feminist punks Pussy Riot, and non-binary gun-control activist X González. As O’Connor says, “They tried to bury me. They didn’t realize I was a seed.”

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.