I had one of those six degrees of separation connections to Sinead O’Connor. My friend and ace Irish singer-songwriter Damien Dempsey is managed, produced and drummed for by John Reynolds who was at one time married to Sinead. That’s not even six degrees, it’s two, right ?

Not only was Sinead a singer of great beauty, power and skill, alongside being a great songwriter she was the kind of righteous, committed, fierce Woman this world of ours needs many, many more of. I’m always in awe of her appearance at the Bob Dylan Tribute Concert shortly after she had torn up a picture of the Pope on US TV. The audience was boo-ing her continuously, she stood strong for a full 2 minutes and stared them down. Kris Kristofferson walked out, put his arm around her and whispered “Don’t let the bastards get you down”, still she stood and stared down a braying mob. Her band tried to start playing and she stopped them…twice. Suddenly she launched into an unaccompanied recitation of the lyrics from Bob Marley’s “War” (based on the speech by Emperor Haile Selassie to the United Nations in 1963) spitting the words at the audience who were quieted by the force of her alone “Until the philosophy which holds one race, Superior and another inferior, Is finally, And permanently, Discredited, And abandoned, Everywhere is war, Me say war”. 

This, her second album,  is full of great great songs, particularly "The Emperor's New Clothes", "I Am Stretched On Your Grave", "The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance" and of course her incredible reading of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”. I was doing a DJ gig outside at a local pub the weekend after she tragically passed away and, not expecting any reaction, I played this as my last record of the night, more for me than anything. Almost the entire pub emptied out into the garden and sang along, it was a beautiful thing. 

The world needs more Sinead O’Connor’s and if there is peace to be found after this life, I hope she has found whatever it is that she needed. I try not to link to the most obvious track from an album in these posts, but…

Nothing Compares 2 U - https://youtu.be/0-EF60neguk?si=sKUyB0UXqG4w30hW

War - https://youtu.be/y4fVxcT00Sc?si=m_XZZLwaxU6Z5sRW

Laura Nyro was a singer and songwriter from New York. The 5th Dimension had hits with her songs (“Stoned Soul Picnic”) as did Blood Sweat & Tears (“And When I Die”) and Barbra Streisand (“Stoney End”). Ironically Nyro’s best selling single was a cover of Goffin and King’s “Up On The Roof”. Much of the appreciation for her has come posthumously as she succumbed to cancer is 1997.

Hers was a name I’d heard but I knew absolutely nothing about her until one of my regular customers, Nigel, asked me one day if I’d heard her song “Eli’s Comin’”. I had to admit I hadn’t. Nigel offered that as a soul fan I should have a listen. So I did, the first 40 seconds didn’t exactly endear me to it being in the main the dreaded vocal gymnastics (why sing one note when 27 will do !) but then in it bangs and suddenly we have soulful dancefloor shaker which I’ve played out when DJ’ing often and very often to a reaction of “WHAT IS THAT !”. There was actually a copy of this album in the shop at the time I first heard “Eli’s Comin’” and, as a quick search revealed, 7” copies change hands for 4 figures that album now lives at home with me.

The rest of the album is all written by Nyro. It features possibly her best known song, “Stoned Soul Picnic”, (a US #3 hit for the 5th Dimension as I mentioned earlier). It’s an album that has a lot of elements of soul about it but it’s not Soul music. There’s parallels with Joni Mitchell, I’m guessing Tori Amos is perhaps a big fan and I can’t help thinking of Steely Dan when listening to this. I don’t mean this as a criticism but this is grown up music, this ain’t something you’re going nuts over when you’re 14, I needed to be older before I even got close to understanding music like this. There’s soul and blues and jazz in here, crazy tempo changes and a lot of vocal gymnastics but I find it strangely attractive. 

Eli’s Comin’ - https://youtu.be/SaFD-s66VG8?si=kKAz3QsIy1rC2mSd

The follow up to “Savage…” and it was very much the lovely red vinyl Indie store exclusive that convinced me to buy it. It’s not a bad record, there are good songs in here, my only quibble would be that it really is part 2 of its predecessor, you could put almost any of these songs on “Savage…”, and vice versa, and they wouldn’t be too out of place

Again it’s a concept album with the premise being the Earth has had enough of humanity (some days I know how it feels). Numan explained “Essentially, it [Earth] considers humankind to be a virus attacking the planet. Climate change is the undeniable sign of the Earth saying enough is enough, and finally doing what it needs to do to get rid of us, and explaining why it feels it has to do it “…cheery huh ? The original idea came from a poem written by his daughter Echo and two more of his daughters, Raven and Persia, sing backing vocals on the album.

The song titles start to tell the story “Betrayed”, “I Am Screaming”, “Is This World Not Enough”, “And It Breaks Me Again”. Thematically it’s a direct follow on from “Savage…” whose post apocalyptic setting is now causing the planet to bite back. If you play the two records back to back, which I often do in the shop, they are two halves of the same idea. But here on “Intruder” those big “Savage…” metal guitars are buried much further back in the mix (even though both records were mixed by the same people) which gives the overall sound less punch to my ears. I’m not saying this is a bad record, I really do like it, but I think the difference might be that this one just doesn’t have the quality of songs that “Savage…” has. 

If you have any knowledge of Gary Numan over the years then you know what you’re getting here. Yes the influence of Berlin era Bowie, and John Foxx’s Ultravox! hangs heavy over what he does but it’s not done in a plagiaristic way, Gary knows where he’s coming from and he’s doing alright at it thank you. If you like it, you like it, if not there’ll always be something else along reet soon.

And It Breaks Me Again - https://youtu.be/Gd7dsGwkUzU?si=TBz7pKjWHVwWMNgf