Sinead O'Connor's
recently mellowed music could sway you--or rather,
deceive you.The singer's post-millennial work, flickering
with Irish standards and easygoing reggae, performs
the dubious task of coercing listeners to forget she
was the most provocative one (Billboard) hit wonder
of all time. That's a shame.
Granted,
O'Connor's newfound temperance may very well be a miracle in
light of some well-publicized, drastic lifestyle shifts in
the past few years. (She was "retired," "a lesbian,"
and an independent Catholic priest, and then none
of those.) However, in finding stability, O'Connor
forfeited much of her poetic bluntness and brass. The
woman who once intertwined a James Brown drumbeat, Celtic
melodies, and macabre death-ballad lyrics in "I Am Stretched
on Your Grave" from her killer album I Do Not Want
What I Haven't Got now opts for the simplicity of
compartmentalized genres. Her new work,
Theology, released June 26, finds a new
niche--the hymnal--and stays there for the bulk
of its 90 minutes.
Theology is a work by an artist who's so over
mainstream acceptance that she indulges a single creative
impulse for almost an entire double-album without
flinching. Audiences that considered the pop pain of
"Nothing Compares 2 U" O'Connor's peak will have no
patience with Theology.
Both discs
contain mostly the same song titles, but the first disc
features the acoustic, quieter Dublin Sessions, while the
second disc adds instrumentation and some much-needed
momentum with its London sessions. This means there
are two chances to hear "Something Beautiful," a
pretty tune treated as a fragile ode on disc one and a
swelling triumph on disc two, and "Rivers of Babylon," a
gentle epic that chirps in its first incarnation and
proclaims in its second.
Most other dual
versions, like the rambling "Watcher of Men" and
simply uneventful "Out of the Depths," aren't as moving. But
even if they were, the slow float-trip through so much
repetitive material is a daunting one. And that's not
to say spirits and salvation don't work as creative
impetuses theoretically--but on a record where 16 tracks are
fully derived from the Old Testament, the listener grasps
the big picture from the album's onset. O'Connor's
always been fond of Biblical references, even back to
her debut album, 1987's The Lion and the Cobra, but
this time it's all-out plagiarism. Witness both
versions of "Psalm 33," "If You Had a Vineyard," and
"Whomsoever Dwells" (a throwback to her double-album
of b-sides and live material She Who
Dwells...), which all pack a stigmata's worth of
fervor but blend into a forgettable wash, thanks to
unvaried production and sheer length.
Of course, even a
prayer-a-thon like Theology is entitled to its
disarming exceptions. Recalling her refined treatment
of the Evita landmark "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from the
early '90s, O'Connor tackles Jesus Christ Superstar's "I
Don't Know How to Love Him," and she surges with
theatricality worthy of stately applause from Tim
Rice. The whispery version of her hero Curtis
Mayfield's "We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue" never
quite leaves the gate, but it also presents a welcome
off-road excursion from the album's tired
trajectory.
As expected,
Sinead O'Connor's sincerity is never in question throughout
Theology, and honestly that's what she's
concerned with promoting. What isn't evident remains the
effort to extend that sincerity to someplace
challenging, provocative, or buried within surface
readings of preexistent text. O'Connor has demonstrated time
and again she's a self-possessed--or possessed,
depending on your analysis--artist with the gall
to make a perfect mess of a conventional vocal
showcase. But on Theology, the only thing
perfected is the music's fit to a genre. That said,
Theology churns with enough hymnal serenity to
sway you into remembering O'Connor's earnestness, but it
won't reignite your memory of her once-blazing
passion--or sadly, even give you much reason for
a second listen.