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Track Listings
| 1. 4th and Vine |
| 2. Reason With Me |
| 3. Old Lady |
| 4. Take Off Your Shoes |
| 5. Back Where You Belong |
| 6. The Wolf Is Getting Married |
| 7. Queen of Denmark |
| 8. Very Far From Home |
| 9. I Had a Baby. |
| 10. V.I.P. |
Editorial Reviews
There has never been mistaking Sinead O' Connor for anybody else. A voice born to break as many hearts as windows, as tender as it is lethal. The face, simultaneously that of ocean-wide-eyed angel and shaven-headed warrior queen. And the spirit, courageous in its conviction, undaunted by controversy and fortified with endless reserves of resilience. Sinead O' Connor is that rare thing in popular music: a complete one-off. From her first breakthrough hit, 1987's Mandinka , to the multi-platinum international success of 1990's I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got with its unforgettable number one version of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U , from her fearless genre-crossing forays into Irish folk and roots reggae to her collaborations with artists as diverse as Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack and The Chieftans, O Connor has trodden a unique path to become the most iconic Irish female artist of the past 30 years. There is no one like Sinead O Connor. There is only Sinead O Connor.
Lest the world dare forget who Sinead O'Connor is, it s about to be reminded once more. 25 years after her debut, 1987's The Lion And The Cobra, she returns with How About I Be Me (And You Be You), her ninth studio album and as showstopping a performance as her silver jubilee deserves. Produced by long-term collaborator John Reynolds, its ten tracks play like an encyclopaedic definition of O' Connor's oeuvre: songs about love and loss, hope and regret, pain and redemption, anger and justice. 'I kind of realised I've spent a lot of my life as an artist being told what I should be,' says O' Connor of the title. 'Being told you should be this, you should do this, you shouldn t do that. You get to a certain age when you realise no, it's perfectly OK for me to be me, thank you very much, and you to be you. But it s very much an Irish thing. It s really a comment about Ireland and what it's like to be an Irish female artist, and particularly this Irish female artist.'
Lest the world dare forget who Sinead O'Connor is, it s about to be reminded once more. 25 years after her debut, 1987's The Lion And The Cobra, she returns with How About I Be Me (And You Be You), her ninth studio album and as showstopping a performance as her silver jubilee deserves. Produced by long-term collaborator John Reynolds, its ten tracks play like an encyclopaedic definition of O' Connor's oeuvre: songs about love and loss, hope and regret, pain and redemption, anger and justice. 'I kind of realised I've spent a lot of my life as an artist being told what I should be,' says O' Connor of the title. 'Being told you should be this, you should do this, you shouldn t do that. You get to a certain age when you realise no, it's perfectly OK for me to be me, thank you very much, and you to be you. But it s very much an Irish thing. It s really a comment about Ireland and what it's like to be an Irish female artist, and particularly this Irish female artist.'
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 62 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I have remained a Sinead O'Connor fan these decades, though the best of her work in at least the past ten years has been as a guest artist on other projects. Still, I dutifully purchase each new Sinead album and usually find at least a couple tracks to embrace. My expectations are low, and I certainly didn't have high ones for How About I Be Me. Have a look at the cover. In a career of really, really ugly album covers, she easily hits a new low with this one.
No one is more surprised then myself when I report how much I LOVE this album! This is her best since I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, and perhaps her most consistently "good" album ever. Her genre/covers albums have been good for what they are, but never as inspired as her original albums. I always felt Universal Mother a bit of hit-and-miss; Faith And Courage had some strong songs, but even those were buried in horrible pop production and resting among a songbag of clunkers; Theology had some inspired lyrics, and you could feel the passion in the project, but the religious subject matter and hymn-like qualities of most of the songs keep it out of heavy rotation on my headphones. How About I Be Me is simply a very good album - there is not a single song I want to skip, and I honestly can't say that about any one of her previous efforts. This may not be a masterpiece, but it is a classic.
In exchange, I cannot say that there is any one song that strikes exactly the same chord as my favorites from her past - Jerusalem, Fire on Babylon, Troy, Mandinka. Oh, but "Take Off Your Shoes," "I Had a Baby," and "Queen of Denmark" are very VERY close - the last is a cover, and I've never heard a cover that sounded more like it was written by or for the singer. These are classic Sinead songs. Honestly, tears came to my eyes on the first listen. I never expected to hear her voice doing these things again. She uses the power and passion of her voice in a way she hasn't in years. In fact, her voice sounds better than it did on her past two albums - proof that is isn't age but lack of TLC that's been holding it back a bit (I cringe to think of her ganja-smoked croak on Throw Down Your Arms).
The material fits at home with her earlier stuff, but is never imitative. I hate when an artist tries to recapture their glory days by putting out a calculated simulation of their hey-day. These songs are of today. But they are simply as naked and sincere as her early work, which is why they are excellent. Some of them are even quite happy, celebratory, silly. In these songs, the lyrics are frustratingly weak at times, but if you've followed her work as closely as I have, you know Sinead has a penchant for disappointingly simple lyrics when she's happy about something. Still, musically, they are the catchiest songs on the album - "Old Lady," "4th and Vine," and "The Wolf is Getting Married."
That last song I'll single out is "Back Where You Belong," a reworking of a contribution she made to the "Water Horse" soundtrack a couple years ago. While the film version was absolutely beautiful, hushed, and painful, this version is a strident war song, reinvented as an anthem of sorts. I've never heard a song so dramatically reinterpreted yet equally beautiful and effective. It's a high point in her career.
Simply put, this is the album she should have released in the mid-90's. It's a progression, not a rehash, and it's everything a Sinead fan could desire at this stage in her career. These tracks were written between 2007-2009, so I'm just hoping and hoping that she hasn't slowed down in the last three years. Who knows, there may be another great album just waiting to be recorded!
No one is more surprised then myself when I report how much I LOVE this album! This is her best since I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, and perhaps her most consistently "good" album ever. Her genre/covers albums have been good for what they are, but never as inspired as her original albums. I always felt Universal Mother a bit of hit-and-miss; Faith And Courage had some strong songs, but even those were buried in horrible pop production and resting among a songbag of clunkers; Theology had some inspired lyrics, and you could feel the passion in the project, but the religious subject matter and hymn-like qualities of most of the songs keep it out of heavy rotation on my headphones. How About I Be Me is simply a very good album - there is not a single song I want to skip, and I honestly can't say that about any one of her previous efforts. This may not be a masterpiece, but it is a classic.
In exchange, I cannot say that there is any one song that strikes exactly the same chord as my favorites from her past - Jerusalem, Fire on Babylon, Troy, Mandinka. Oh, but "Take Off Your Shoes," "I Had a Baby," and "Queen of Denmark" are very VERY close - the last is a cover, and I've never heard a cover that sounded more like it was written by or for the singer. These are classic Sinead songs. Honestly, tears came to my eyes on the first listen. I never expected to hear her voice doing these things again. She uses the power and passion of her voice in a way she hasn't in years. In fact, her voice sounds better than it did on her past two albums - proof that is isn't age but lack of TLC that's been holding it back a bit (I cringe to think of her ganja-smoked croak on Throw Down Your Arms).
The material fits at home with her earlier stuff, but is never imitative. I hate when an artist tries to recapture their glory days by putting out a calculated simulation of their hey-day. These songs are of today. But they are simply as naked and sincere as her early work, which is why they are excellent. Some of them are even quite happy, celebratory, silly. In these songs, the lyrics are frustratingly weak at times, but if you've followed her work as closely as I have, you know Sinead has a penchant for disappointingly simple lyrics when she's happy about something. Still, musically, they are the catchiest songs on the album - "Old Lady," "4th and Vine," and "The Wolf is Getting Married."
That last song I'll single out is "Back Where You Belong," a reworking of a contribution she made to the "Water Horse" soundtrack a couple years ago. While the film version was absolutely beautiful, hushed, and painful, this version is a strident war song, reinvented as an anthem of sorts. I've never heard a song so dramatically reinterpreted yet equally beautiful and effective. It's a high point in her career.
Simply put, this is the album she should have released in the mid-90's. It's a progression, not a rehash, and it's everything a Sinead fan could desire at this stage in her career. These tracks were written between 2007-2009, so I'm just hoping and hoping that she hasn't slowed down in the last three years. Who knows, there may be another great album just waiting to be recorded!
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
As famous as she's been over the past 25 years for her incredible voice and confessional songwriting, Sinead has also made a name for herself by using the world stage as a therapist's couch. Some folks are content to resolve their dilemmas in private, but Sinead has acted them out all-too publicly. If you didn't know her music, you could easily dismiss Sinead as a publicity-grabbing nut with a big ego. But in point of fact, she's an artist of breathtaking power and originality, as demonstrated by HOW ABOUT I BE ME AND YOU BE YOU. There's too much wisdom, insight and humor in these new songs for me to disparage her character or focus on her extra-musical activities for very long.
HOW ABOUT I BE ME is an astonishing record -- honest, heartbreaking, scathing, hilarious and ultimately deeply compassionate. Its songs explores various facets of sexual and romantic obsession and delusion, drug addiction, hypocrisy and other "lightweight" topics that Sinead is famous for. Sinead has great lyrical command of vernacular, spoken language as well as uncanny psychological insight. The stories she tells throb with irony, profanity and pathos.
Using the first person, Sinead serves up her characters' ambivalent and messy lives for our consideration. They teeter between out-of-control desires, false hope and self-denial on one side, and guilty self-reproach and painful awareness on the other. There's the thoroughly untrustworthy junkie ("Reason with Me"), who admits to stealing your T.V. but then reveals a darker truth: "I don't like no one around me/ `Cause if I loved someone, I might lose someone"; the unwed mother who grapples with shame and guilt while recalling the exciting sexual encounter with the father ("I Had A Baby"), and the pining woman who knows her infatuation with a married man is "uncool" but insists that they'll be together in the future ("Old Lady"). In the smashing opener, "4th & Vine," the narrator is a starry-eyed woman getting dressed for her wedding. Utilizing every cliché in the pop lexicon, plus some lovely unexpected phrases too, she sings "I'm gonna marry my love, and we'll be happy for all time." The irony is implicit, but there's so much optimism in the delivery that it's impossible not to root for her impossible dream.
In a different vein, nobody can rant like Sinead, and on several tracks ("Take Off Your Shoes," "Queen of Denmark" and "V.I.P.") she takes us down her dark road of righteous rage, directed towards herself and others. In her cover of John Grant's "Queen of Denmark" she opens with:
"I wanted to change the world/but I could not even change my underwear
And when the s--t got really really out of hand/I had it all the way up to my hairline"
Sure, it's funny, but there's so much more.
In case you think it's all bleak, take heart. Sinead just got very publicly married, separated and reconciled. I can only hope that it sticks, but even if it doesn't, a few songs here reflect her ongoing faith in love. "The Wolf Is Getting Married" and "Back Where You Belong" probably represent Sinead as she sees herself today: a woman very experienced in the pitfalls of relationships who is prepared, with eyes open, to make a life with a man.
As charged as her lyrics are, what makes this record work for me is the musically diverse crazy quilt of styles she employs throughout. Because of the great production values and variety, HOW ABOUT I BE ME passes my "repeated listenings test" with flying colors. I want to listen to these songs again, and again. Sinead writes a great hook and weaves her conversational lyrics into well-constructed phrases and arrangements. With her producer, John Reynolds, she's come up with a mélange of rock, hip-hop, ska, electronic, and pop elements made cohesive by her wonderful singing. She's lost a little bit of the top of her range -- she tends to switch back and forth between full voice and a whisper as she sings higher -- but she's lost none of the expressive force of her voice overall.
If there's an overarching theme to this album, it's that we are, each of us, a bundle of contradictory impulses vying for dominance in a chaotic landscape of obsessions, desires and higher purpose. She could have titled the album "Angles and Demons," but that would be much too obvious. Instead, she asks: how about I be me, and you be you? Let's put all our crazy on the table without judgment, examine it from all sides until it loses its power to hurt us, and just love each other anyway.
HOW ABOUT I BE ME is an astonishing record -- honest, heartbreaking, scathing, hilarious and ultimately deeply compassionate. Its songs explores various facets of sexual and romantic obsession and delusion, drug addiction, hypocrisy and other "lightweight" topics that Sinead is famous for. Sinead has great lyrical command of vernacular, spoken language as well as uncanny psychological insight. The stories she tells throb with irony, profanity and pathos.
Using the first person, Sinead serves up her characters' ambivalent and messy lives for our consideration. They teeter between out-of-control desires, false hope and self-denial on one side, and guilty self-reproach and painful awareness on the other. There's the thoroughly untrustworthy junkie ("Reason with Me"), who admits to stealing your T.V. but then reveals a darker truth: "I don't like no one around me/ `Cause if I loved someone, I might lose someone"; the unwed mother who grapples with shame and guilt while recalling the exciting sexual encounter with the father ("I Had A Baby"), and the pining woman who knows her infatuation with a married man is "uncool" but insists that they'll be together in the future ("Old Lady"). In the smashing opener, "4th & Vine," the narrator is a starry-eyed woman getting dressed for her wedding. Utilizing every cliché in the pop lexicon, plus some lovely unexpected phrases too, she sings "I'm gonna marry my love, and we'll be happy for all time." The irony is implicit, but there's so much optimism in the delivery that it's impossible not to root for her impossible dream.
In a different vein, nobody can rant like Sinead, and on several tracks ("Take Off Your Shoes," "Queen of Denmark" and "V.I.P.") she takes us down her dark road of righteous rage, directed towards herself and others. In her cover of John Grant's "Queen of Denmark" she opens with:
"I wanted to change the world/but I could not even change my underwear
And when the s--t got really really out of hand/I had it all the way up to my hairline"
Sure, it's funny, but there's so much more.
In case you think it's all bleak, take heart. Sinead just got very publicly married, separated and reconciled. I can only hope that it sticks, but even if it doesn't, a few songs here reflect her ongoing faith in love. "The Wolf Is Getting Married" and "Back Where You Belong" probably represent Sinead as she sees herself today: a woman very experienced in the pitfalls of relationships who is prepared, with eyes open, to make a life with a man.
As charged as her lyrics are, what makes this record work for me is the musically diverse crazy quilt of styles she employs throughout. Because of the great production values and variety, HOW ABOUT I BE ME passes my "repeated listenings test" with flying colors. I want to listen to these songs again, and again. Sinead writes a great hook and weaves her conversational lyrics into well-constructed phrases and arrangements. With her producer, John Reynolds, she's come up with a mélange of rock, hip-hop, ska, electronic, and pop elements made cohesive by her wonderful singing. She's lost a little bit of the top of her range -- she tends to switch back and forth between full voice and a whisper as she sings higher -- but she's lost none of the expressive force of her voice overall.
If there's an overarching theme to this album, it's that we are, each of us, a bundle of contradictory impulses vying for dominance in a chaotic landscape of obsessions, desires and higher purpose. She could have titled the album "Angles and Demons," but that would be much too obvious. Instead, she asks: how about I be me, and you be you? Let's put all our crazy on the table without judgment, examine it from all sides until it loses its power to hurt us, and just love each other anyway.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:MP3 Music
I passed over the NPR First Listen of this album thinking why listen to a crazy person based on press reports. Stupid me. As a regular viewer of Graham Norton, I was "forced" to sit through her singing a song from this album "The Wolf Is Getting Married". I publicly apologize to Sinead for my ignorance. Sinead you are a genius and a true gem on this earth.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
Fiery, funny, and featuring the artist in fine, full voice. Sinead O'Conner has had a career of ups and downs, both personally and professionally. Read more
Published 16 days ago by William Salit
5.0 out of 5 stars
The voice of an angel/banshee.
Brilliant album, love all of it. Had just seen her live and I had to buy this. She has a terrific voice.
Published 19 days ago by ellen morrissey
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sinead
Is a singer of great depth and clarity. She lifts your soul as she sings and takes you on a journey. This is one of her best albums to date !!!!!
Published 21 days ago by Shane Campbell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yes.
Sinead has always been, always is and always will be a great artist.
Kudos to her for her expansive expressiveness.
Kudos to her for her expansive expressiveness.
Published 2 months ago by M.B.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome!
This is the wonderful voice and music i fell in love with 20 years ago, strong, wild, beautiful Sinead :D
Published 3 months ago by Eli
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very great!!!
It's one of her best CD:s.
I love it!!! What a voice and lyrics.
You must buy it.
Is one of the best 2012.
I love it!!! What a voice and lyrics.
You must buy it.
Is one of the best 2012.
Published 4 months ago by Detlef Strauss
5.0 out of 5 stars
As good as ever
I have always liked Ms. O'Connor. Many people never got over her tearing the popes picture up. Get over it. You are missing one of the best voices in a long, long time. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Nick Pusloskie
3.0 out of 5 stars
sinead o
not too great but ok nothing i would recommend or keep. arrival on time good condition. sometimes i love her sometimes i don't
Published 4 months ago by philip h mccarty
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost Perfect
For me, the only problem with this album is that it is a bit short. However, while I don't like every single track, the ones that I do are among some of her best. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Daniel Gamboa
5.0 out of 5 stars
her best in 20 years
No one compares to Sinead O'Connor. That's not to say she's the best singer ever, but it's hard to think of another voice who can convey strong emotion as convincingly or... Read more
Published 5 months ago by J. Davis
