Collaborations

Sinead O'Connor | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 21, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B0007WQE6A
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,844 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Special Cases (Radio Edit)

2. 1000 Mirrors (Album Version)

3. Empire

4. Guide Me God (Single Edit)

5. Visions Of You

6. Release (Album Edit)

7. Wake Up And Make Love To Me

8. Kingdom Of Rain (Album Version)

9. I'm Not Your Baby

10. Tears From The Moon

11. Blood Of Eden (Radio Edit)

12. Harbour

13. Up In Arms

14. It's All Good

15. Heroine

16. Monkey In Winter

17. All Kinds Of Everything

Editorial Reviews

Import only collection of collaborations that Irish vocalist Sinead O'Connor has been involved with over the years. An outstanding lineup makes this release an essential purchase for an incredibly broad range of contemporary music buyers, The appeal of huge names such as U2, Massive Attack, Colorfield/Terry Hall and Moby is tempered by an eminently cohesive and listenable collection of music. Standout tracks include Massive Attack's 'Special Cases', Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart's 'Visions of You', The The's 'Kingdom of Rain' and Peter Gabriel's 'Blood of Eden'. EMI.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maybe her best CD, June 24, 2005

By 

o dubhthaigh (north rustico, pei, canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Collaborations (Audio CD)

Pity she stopped singing professionally, because as this disc so clearly demonstrates, O'Connor is one of the most powerful voices in music. This is a collection of appearances she made on other CDs and while they tend to be largely techno or world-dub with very heavy bass, once O'Connor rises up out of the mix, the songs themselves take on an incredible viatlity that is compelling, dramatic, essential. These are great tunes, whether Sinead is working out with Asian Dub Foundation, Afro-Celts, U2, Edge, Aslan. Some of the songs you'd be familiar with. I was less aware of most of the material on this disc. Along with I DO NOT WANT, I think this is her best CD.
Equally impressive is that her command of the material doesn't overwhelm it. Sinead knew what the song needed to get the heart pumping and the soul soaring and she hits it each time out. The Peter Gabriel selection was perhaps her most infamous, pressaging as it did her meltdown, but set in the contexts of these other songs, you see what an incredible contribution she made to Gabriel.
I hope she reconsiders her career, as there were just so many great things about it. Not easy though. It was not lost on me that O'Connor's new disc should arrive just after the Legacy Edition of Janis Joplin's PEARL. Not since Janis has there been a singer of such command as O'Connor, not withstanding Lennox, Hynde, laing or Emmylou. Maybe you get too close to the edge. In which case if Sinead has stuff in the vaults, that would be enough. For now, this is an incredible coda to an incendiary signer's career.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yep, she can still do the trick..., July 3, 2005

By 

Takis Tz. (InYourHead) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collaborations (Audio CD)

After a few definitely forgettable albums, Sinead O'Connor shows she can still pull it off. Even if it isn't her own material here, as she colloborates with some of the most relevant current new artists.

The winning element in this album isn't just the excellent choice of songs or even the intriguiing combos she forms with the other artists, but, as ever, her charismatic voice in re-interpreting these songs.

The highlights are many, but i was surprised to finally see one of the most underrated songs ever finally covered: that of Ian Dury's "Wake up and make love with me". It's easily one of the show-stealers on the whole album.

But elsewhere too it's mostly high quality stuff. "Special cases" with Massive Attack is an eerie and bombastic opener that kinda sets the tone. Interestingly the stronger songs are somehow packed in in the first half of the album, without this meaning that the latter lags far behind.

Other standouts include that with Jah Wobble ("Visions of you"), "Empire" with Asian Dub Foundation and "Guide me God" with Ghostland, and even the U2 colloboration actually hits the target rather unexpectedly.

It would be great if she could return with a strong album of her own creations but noone should complain with this here. It's packed with great tracks and it puts her among some seriously creative minds where her talent seems to come alive again.
Musically this is absolutely gripping stuff, and the misses are actually sparse if any at all.

Those that claim "Collaborations" might be O'Connor's best album yet, have a strong point and even stronger evidence backing them up in this album. In her recent albums the songwritting has been suffering and it's been left up to the vocals to carry the albums through. Predictably it wasnt enough.

Hopefully we wont have to wait years before she releases something relevant again.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection, June 21, 2005

By 

Brandon J. Smith (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Collaborations (Audio CD)

The great thing about Sinead O'Connor is that you really can't believe a word she says. No one loves to speak her mind and contradict herself more than O'Connor. So when she announced her retirement a couple years ago, I was bummed not because I thought for a second she'd be gone forever, but because I wasn't sure how long this particular whim of hers would last. Luckily, it hasn't been a long wait. Earlier this year, she started performing again, and now she's setting the stage for her comeback with this release of her stray tracks (of which the liner notes indicate will very likely be the first of a few releases over time).

As with She Who Dwells, this is a long (17 songs) collection, though not exhaustive. This is not claiming to be a "best of" cd, merely a collection of collaborations that work well to demonstrate O'Connor's work with others over time.

Her voice is uniformly terrific. The songs work well together, despite the huge variety of personnel represented. It sounds as fresh today as a whole as each song (some I'd encountered before, some I hadn't) did when they first came out.

The bottom line is: Sinead O'Connor fans will love this cd. Compilations and collections can often be hit or miss, even with the best of artists, but, as with She Who Dwells, Collaborations does exactly what it sets out to do.

(footnote: This is an excellent candidate for a 4 1/2 star rating, were it available on this site.)