It’s hard not to hear “Nothing Compares 2 U” — the unparalleled breakup ballad that turned Sinéad O’Connor’s tears into a chart-topping triumph — in an even more heartbreaking way today.
Indeed — after the Irish icon’s shocking passing on Wednesday at just 56 — nothing can take away these blues right now.
But while all those flowers planted in the backyard may have died, “Nothing Compares 2 U” signaled the bloom of a new era in rock after it went to No. 1 in the spring of 1990.
Following the ’80s domination of pop superstars including Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston and Prince — who wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U” for the Family, his side project that originally released the song in 1985 — rising alt-rock star O’Connor represented a game change when her definitive version dropped in the first days of January 1990.
After becoming a darling of the MTV “120 Minutes” crowd with her 1987 debut “The Lion and the Cobra,” O’Connor traded the more rocking, dance-driven attack of “Mandinka” and “I Want Your (Hands on Me)” for something totally different and surprising: an emotionally bare ballad, dripping in strings and sorrow, that revealed a striking vulnerability.
No doubt — it cut even closer to the bone than her shaved head.
And then there was that iconic video with O’Connor in crushing close-up, shedding that single tear. Back when videos really mattered, it won the ultimate Moonman, Video of the Year, at the 1990 MTV VMAs.
Although the controversial O’Connor would find more success with her Grammy-winning second album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” — “The Emperor’s New Clothes” went No. 1 on the alternative charts — she apparently didn’t want it.
In fact, she made her feelings about her newfound fame perfectly clear when she released “Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home,” a Loretta Lynn cover, as the first single from 1992’s “Am I Not Your Girl?”
But while O’Connor would never again approach the ’90s chart heights of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” she had already left her mark on the decade by ushering in a new wave of female rockers.
From Hole’s Courtney Love and Garbage’s Shirley Manson to Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple and Cranberries lead singer Dolores O’Riordan — O’Connor’s fellow Irishwoman, who also died prematurely in 2018 at age 46 — they all owe a debt to O’Connor.
And in so completely transforming a Prince song into her own — possibly rivaled only by Chaka Khan’s hip-hop makeover of “I Feel for You,” first released by the Purple One in 1979 — she accomplished the impossible.
In fact, it seemed strange when Madonna sang “Nothing Compares 2 U” in tribute to Prince after his April 2016 passing at that year’s Billboard Music Awards.
This was no longer Prince’s song — it belonged, forever and always, to Sinéad.