Singer: She’s a fighter – Sinead O’Connor turns 55

Sinead O’Connor is a contentious personality. Turning her back on Christianity, she converted to Islam. Again and again she wanted people to talk about the really big problems in the world and provoked with symbolic acts. Today the Irish singer turns 55.

Heavy childhood used as inspiration

Sinead O’Connor, the third of five children born in Dublin, experienced a childhood with many blows of fate, abuse and abysses of his own. The singer, who had to fight her way through life in her earlier years, processed a lot in her music, which is still loved by millions of people today. She is open about depression and talked about the pressures that make life difficult for her. She addressed major political and social problems.

The breakthrough with “Nothing Compares 2 You”

The Irish woman’s second album was her breakthrough. In 1990 she published “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”. The album shot to the top of the charts. The song “Nothing Compares 2 You” – the cover version of a Prince song – became a worldwide hit. In addition to her voice, which fills the song with a wave of emotions and power, the music video for the song is the decisive accompaniment. The intimacy of this song is accompanied by O’Connor’s appearance in the 1990s. Her close-cropped head emphasized her facial features many times over. The camera captured her face perfectly, conveying every fiber of the feeling to the outside.

Torn the image of the Pope

The successful singer managed to get attention with her extroverted style. To draw attention to child abuse cases in the Catholic Church, she sang the song “War” by Bob Marley on the show “Saturday Night Live” in 1992. During this performance, she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II. The media coverage was gigantic, but this action meant her first career break.

Full of inspiration

Sinead O’Connor was often reduced to her psychological problems, in many phases interest in her person waned and individual stations were only mentioned as a side note in the media. But the mother of four has always continued her education, studied singing and piano, later theology and practiced different lifestyles.

By 2014 she released ten studio albums. After only mediocre successes in the meantime, she managed to stay at the top of the Irish charts for 21 weeks in 2014 with “I’m Bossy, I’m the Boss”. In order to finally free herself from her parents’ house, she changed her name to Magda Davitt in 2017. In 2018 it was announced that she had converted to Islam and that her name had once again changed to Shuhada. She also performed in traditional Muslim clothing and was able to inspire her fans. In June 2021 she published her memoir with “Rememberings”.