Sinead O'Connor: How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?/The Cranberries: Roses - Album Reviews

Sinead O'Connor
How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
Rating: Meh

The Cranberries
Roses
Rating: Jeez lady

I'm not really huge on double reviews, unless there is really some good reason for them. In this case, there really isn't any outstanding reason other that both Sinead and The Cranberries are from Ireland, both singers have similar vocal styles, both had their greatest successes within the same time frame (late 80s to early 90s), and both are now returning with new albums. While those connections are not blindingly important, in listening to both records concurrently, I noticed that each had its very noticeable flaws, but for pretty divergent reasons. Which sort of led me to listen to both more closely to see why one approach worked for one, while not working for the other, and vice versa. And why artists continue to mine periods that were their most fruitful and never seem to budge outside of those confines. What purpose does it serve? Certainly there is a slight nostalgia element at play, but is there really a resurgence of early 90's alt-pop that suggests their new albums will have anything valid to say?

Sinead of course is well known for her first two brilliant albums, the shockingly forward mini-masterpiece The Lion and the Cobra, and the more pop leaning I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, with the ubiquitous cover of the Prince track "Nothing Compares to You," whose success apparently tipped Ms. O'Connor over the deep end, causing her to alienate the fans she had gained. Subsequent albums ran the gamut from vanity projects (her collection of covers Am I Not Your Girl?), to overwrought and bloated offerings (Universal Mother and Faith and Courage), up to inscrutable segues into reggae and Irish folk songs. Of course, all of her bizarre behavior, getting married and divorced, becoming an ordained minister, coming out as a temporary lesbian, to getting married again and separating several days later might have added to the effect. With her 9th studio album, the clumsily titled How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, she sort of attempts to brush off the talk of her being crazy, and while she still has the pipes that brought her such great, initial success, and her songwriting still has some meat to it, the musical direction, so breathtaking on The Lion and the Cobra, is limp and placid, and some of her lyrics find her hopelessly dated and out of touch.

There are a handful of tracks on the album that point back to the Sinead of old: razor focused lyrics, subtle sense of humor, pointed political beliefs, with the music to back them up. "Old Lady" takes aim at herself as this serious, dour person, singing that when she's older she'll not be so serious, and "laugh like an idiot." All the while backed up by fuzzy guitars and an upbeat rhythm section.



"The Wolf Is Getting Married," perhaps her best song in years, indicates she's more than self-aware of her rather feral persona, but that she believes everyone has a second chance at redemption.



"I Had A Baby," a love song to her child, worrying it will be judged for her behaviors, is a rousing track full of ringing guitars. And "Back Where You Belong" which shows Sinead has lost none of the force and power of her tremendous vocals.



But these flashes of her former strengths, are all but muddied by the remaining tracks which are short on musical adventurousness, and lyrically lazy. The jaunty reggae of "4th and Vine" is dashed with lazy rhymes like "not that he's no wuss/girls, you know his love is serious." And sings about a buggy ride with absolutely no irony or double entendre. "Take Off Your Shoes" fumbles the best backing track she has had in ages with goofy lyrics referring to, of all things, the Energizer bunny. But worst is the final track "V.I.P.," a well-meaning track that attempts to skewer celebrities that invoke God when accepting awards and accolades, but don't make a stand when children are being raped by priests. The lyrics, instead of being pointed and current, merely sound like a rehash of former tirades from the singer, with outdated references to "MTV" and "bling."

The Cranberries face a different set of issues on their 6th album Roses, their first in over 10 years. I admit I actually love their first album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Can't We?, with its subtle take on Cocteau Twins/Sundays style dream pop, featuring Dolores O'Riordan's beautiful Irish lilt. The songs were your average take on young love and relationships, and succeeded by not being overly ambitious or pretentious. Of course, when success hit them, they suddenly decided they wanted to be U2 and take on the world. While No Need To Argue had several decent tracks, they bit off more than they could chew with tracks like "Zombie." Further releases saw them getting more and more bombastic and self important. Thankfully, Roses is a far subtler album than those last LPs, returning to a more grounded set of lyrics about relationships again, and going for a more sunny, Sundays kind of vibe throughout. Musically, the album is full of sprightly, clean sounding guitars, albeit coming across a little more bland than usual. Producer Stephen Street, who knows how to buff and polish a track to perfection, does them a slight disservice by making things so pristine. A little more rough edges would have added significantly to the album. Unfortunately, O'Riordan's lyrical ability cannot be so spit-shined by Mr. Street, and too often the mind is left reeling by the simplistic rhyme schemes and turgid metaphors.

The band is most successful when they keep things simple. "Fire and Soul" is one of the best tracks they have written. The verses feature a lovely bed of acoustic guitars, light electronic percussion, and piano, O'Riorden's voice a hushed whisper, all coming to life on the gorgeous chorus.



The mourning strings and lonely, reverbed guitars of "Waiting in Walthamstow" perfectly fit the mood of the track. And first single "Tomorrow" has a lovely, brisk Sundays-like beat and jangly guitars; which recalls their first album..



Unfortunately, the rest of Roses is a mixed bag of either intriguing instrumentation marred by simplistic lyrics (seriously, sometimes it seems like O'Riordan can't get out of the A/B/A/B rhyme scheme), or decent lyrics upset by plodding music. "Raining In My Heart" shuffles along practically inert, with couplets like "But it's raining in my heart/ Every time we are apart/ And the sun won't shine today/ So I had to walk away." Seriously?



"Losing My Mind," which musically is a pretty strong track, especially on the chorus, is again marred by teenager diary lyrics such as "Sitting here beside the fire/ The flames they grow just like desire."



And it just gets sillier from there. "Schizophrenic Playboys" I assume is some cautionary tale about women being taken advantage of by men, but when the lyrics don't get any more insightful than "Driving faster now in his car/ Now she knows that she has gone too far/ In the morning she is in his bed/ His bed, his bed, her eyes are red," you end up just shaking your head.



After listening to both How About I Be Me (And You Be You)? and Roses, I was really left with no true feelings whatsoever about either album. In O'Connor's case, the record does not really add to her catalog, but merely shows she is still a capable artist that can still put out strong songs when the mood strikes her. Her voice is in great form, but the flow of the record and presentation is just too muted for it to truly shine. The Cranberries quite frankly suffer from lazy songwriting; O'Riordan's voice is still lovely and gorgeous, and musically they are a competent, if not overly adventurous band. It is just really hard to get around the truly awful lyrics. Neither album will sink them or really burn up the charts, but even more damning, they will likely go by unnoticed.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.