At the year's end, Sinéad found a new manager (Steve Fargnoli, a former member of Prince's management team) and had gone a long way toward repairing her relationship with Ensign's Grainge and Hill. They had heard a previous version of Sinéad's new record, they thought that I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got was a great record, but nobody thought it would sell much. Sinéad's second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, was intended to be a record about stripping away artifice, it's all about honesty in the face of unremitting, unexplained treachery. With I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, Sinéad takes it inside for real, dumps the element of artiness that prevented The Lion and the Cobra from living up to its expectations, and finds far more that is applicable to the outside world.

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got bears little relation to either of those, landmark albums or to what was happening in pop music in 1990. Sinéad's ability to plunder the same ideas she first addressed on The Lion and the Cobra: betrayal, spirituality, unrequited love, and more betrayal-with more assurance and without her , debut album's occasional inscrutability.

Her musical and lyrical language is much less adorned (i.e., less wordy), and that extra space in her sound and her words gave her freedom and confidence. "Feel So Different," the first and longest of the album's ten tracks, clocking in at just under seven minutes. It starts with the Alcoholics Anonymous-derived Serenity Prayer and for a moment the first-time listener worries that he or she has stumbled into a psychotherapy session by accident.

After the agenda-setting Serenty Prayer is out of the way, she is accompanied by Nick Ingmam's sweeping string arrangements. A focused Sinéad begins to sing as if she is indeed a different woman from the one who wrote, performed, and toured behind The Lion and the Cobra. The point of the song's lyrics is that she is a different person, and Sinéad's performance lives up to her words. At first listen, even a fan of the debut album can immediately sense lyrical and musical growth in this manifesto., "Feel So Different" showcases Sinéad's improved control at addressing lyrics to an imagined second person, an old folkie trick that Bob Dylan turned into a rock-lyric imperative.

Up on I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got is "I Am Stretched on Your Grave," the definitive James Brown beat atop a Phillip King melody of a Frank O'Connor poem. One of the two great brave remakes on I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, "I Am Stretched on Your Grave" lets Sinéad fantasize for five and one-half minutes about being the world' s first Gaelic rapper. Steve Wickham's circular fiddle on the coda completes the circle. The track works well coming right after "Feel So Different" by showing how Sinéad's new- found strength is the vehicle by which she has become able to dig deeper into her Irish heritage and link it with her more newfound love, rap music and hip-hop culture.

Music on "Three Babies" bears a superficial similarity to that of "Feel So Different," with its Ingram-directed strings and Sinéad's breathless delivery, but here the spiritual aspects are more neatly integrated into both the song proper and its performance. Sinéad sings along with her lanky acoustic guitar chords and august synthesizer lines (except for the strings, she is the only musician on the number), thrilled by the words she recites.

"The Emperor's New Clothes" bas a dumb title conceit; otherwise it is a perfect pop song. The first straight-ahead rock tune on I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, it is an ideal example of tyrical imagination presented as autobiography. The narrator is a woman in the public eye with a young child, which sounds more than a little like Sinéad herself, as it is supposed to. But when listeners reduce the song to straight autobiography, it diminishes the deftness, resourcefulness, and professionalism of Sinéad's songwriting.

Because Sinéad frequently declares that her songs are extremely personal, she opens the door to such interpretations. But in doing so she sells herself short and invites her fans and critics to do the same. In the first verse of "The Emperor's New Clothes," Sinéad claims, "And there's millions of people/To offer advice and say how I should be/But they're twisted/And they will never be any influence on me." A literal reading of those lines would suggest that Sinéad had an active audience in the millions (not true when she wrote the song) and that she thinks the members of that active audience are foolish (probably not true).

Listeners should not use her songs as an excuse to say they know something about her private life of what makes "The Emperor's New Clothes" sublime is that it takes autobiography as its starting point and then, thanks to its supple chords, leaps in a dozen fertile directions. Like "Mandinka," another song on which guitarist Pirroni was a substantial presence, "The Emperor's New Clothes" unrolls an exemplary mix of acoustic and electric guitars.

Sinéad's acoustic lines caress Pirroni's more aggressive electric ones, reinforcing the similar relationship in the lyrics."The Emperor's New Clothes" goes out on a powerful, willfully repetitious outro in which the band keeps steady and plays the chords harder and harder. The title of the song does not appear in the lyrics until Sinéad repeats it four times and dances into the outro. Because the title is a cliché--and a cliché with no resonance, at that-it does not resolve the song as well.

"Black Boys on Mopeds", which Sinéad plays alone, accompanied only by her Takamine twelve string acoustic guitar and an overdubbed harmony. Arranged by Sinéad with World Party's Karl Wallinger, who had developed into an ace pop dissector, "Black Boys on Mopeds" is a protest song whose beauty enhances the ugly tale it tells. The song is essentially about the inarguable disintegration of Great Britain under its prime minister of more than a decade, Margaret Thatcher, the Tories' Iron Lady. The song is primarily based on the pointless death of Nicholas Bramble, a young man on a moped pursued by policemen who thought he had stolen it. Terrified, Bramble sped up and was killed when his bike crashed; the consensus was that Bramble would not bave been scrutinized had he not been a black man. Although an inquiry absolved the police of wrong doing and the accident was technically caused by Bramble's own mistake, Bramble's was a death that would have been inconceivable without the malevolent intervention of the authorities, and it is emotionally right-if not legally right-for Sinéad to charge England as "the home of police/Who kill black boys on mopeds.", also being the shortest song on I Do Not What What I Haven't Got, "Black Boys On Mopeds" covers the most ground.

Sinéad was introduced to a song called "Nothing Compares 2U", by O'Ceallaigh, Sinéad's version was not as cluttered, or distractful as the others had been. Prince himself applauded Sinéad's performance. In Sinéad's hands, "Nothing Compares 2 U" is as bereft of hope, but she sings it with such phenomenal lung power that it is impossible to conceive of her as someone as drained as she claims to be. If she can sing this hard, this intently, she was probably too good for whoever left her She is a strong woman, one who will persevere.

" Jump in the River," the Married To the Mob soundtrack cut of the previous year, is the next number. Sinéad's rough guitar riff never develops into a full song, but this hard-yet-submissive tune succeeds on insouciance alone. lt works well on I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got following the desolation of "Nothing Compares 2 U," providing both lyrical and rhythmic relief.

The next two songs are anguished originals. "You Cause as Much Sorrow" is a sweet but intense put-down, as the singer herself acknowledges : " It just sounds more vicious/Than I actualty mean/I really am soft and tender and sweet." Although Sinéad's incessant exploration in her songs of her childhood beliefs will lead some to believe that she is addressing this song to Jesus Christ.

In recent interviews Sinéad has talked disparagingly of organized religion, but at the same time she makes clear that she is extremely familiar with the Catholic Church. Around the time she was writing the songs for I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, Sinéad made her acting debut in Hush-a-Bye Baby, a film that was part of the Dublin Film Festival and appeared on British tetevision.

Sinéad's role was that of a fifteen-year-girl (with hair; she wore a wig) whose friend becomes pregnant. "It just shows some of the bad effects an Irish Catholic upbringing can have on young girls," Sinéad told Pulse ! of the film, which had as its factual basis the story of Anne Lovett, an Irish girl found dead at a grotto for the Madonna, clutching her dead baby.

The I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got track "Three Babies" was originally written for Hush-a-Bye Baby, which leads to yet another interpretation as to who the narrator is supposed to be. "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance" is the most pitiless song on I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got ; it is the most honest, unsparing song about a break-up. based around Reynolds's titanic drums, sets off quiet explosions as Sinéad puts down a soon-to-be-ex-spouse as she fantasizes a divorce meeting in a lawyer's office at which "I'll talk but you won't listen to me."

The listener never does find out what tore them apart, but it is clear that the narrator holds herself blameless. The explosion of " The Last Day of Our Acquaintance " comes the magical fallout of "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" . It is a closely microphoned a cappella track that opens with a big breath and over six ravishing minutes retraces a path no less malevolent than the one in Pilgrim's Progress.

Sinéad walks through the Valley of the Shadow, and emerges wiser and more serene. Not before or since has her singing ever sounded so at peace, so untroubled. ."I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" is the album's culminating manifesto. Its tale of a spiritual search picks up where the lead-off number "Feel So Different" ended and comments on the intervening eight cuts, which upon reflection detail precisely the sorts of spiritual challenges she alludes to in the title track.

Recorded in the last days of one of the greediest decades through which Western civilization has suffered, a pop star says Enough Alreadyéad has the luxury to sing " I have all that I requested/ And I do not want what I haven't got " She has suffered trials, she has survived them, and all she wants to do is lead a quiet, normal life. The only problem was that as soon as people heard the album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got,it was clear that never again would Sinéad be able to lead such a life.

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got was a far more substantial and lasting work of art than The Lion and the Cobra, those clear heads also wanted their salaries covered. But such objections were overruled when they saw the video that stalwart John Maybury had directed for "Nothing Compares 2 U."

Maybury had shot a moody clip for the Prince cover tune, tracking a forlorn-looking Sinéad as she walked around a park; gargoyles provided color and relief For the requisite lip-synch shots, Sinéad performed in tight close-up, the camera reaching from her forehead only as far down as the top of her black turtle- neck sweater. Sinéad was unavoidable, all-encompassing: could not look away from the waif. The time came to edit the "Nothing Compares 2 U" clip, it instantly became clear to Maybury and Sinéad that the tracking footage was adequate, but the close-up footage was simply amazing.

lt had to be the basis for the entire clip. Filmed against a black background, the minimalistic, iconoclastic shots were an affront to the excessive videos that clog MTV and other channets. The tear that runs down her cheek toward the end of the song is not stage glycerine; it indicates how deeply Sinéad believes in the song, how deeply she identifies with it, and how deeply it inspires her Sinéad tries to keep her gaze fixed on the camera, but frequently she has to look away, sometimes toward the floor, sometimes toward the sky.

One of these latter, heaven-directed scans that Sinéad decided to use as the album/cassette/compact disc cover for I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. The cover still is a 180-degree turn from the tortured shot that graced The Lion and the Cobra. Sinéad looks at peace with herself (it is amazing how different a shot can look out of context), keeping in line with the title of the album and the driving idea behind it. "Nothing Compares 2 U" also reintroduces Sinéad as a vulnerable performer to those put off by her Grammy-night aggressiveness, and made a strong impression on those who had never before seen her.

Because the clip was mostly tight close-up, her crew cut (she had briefly let her hair grow a bit) did not get the chance to alienate anyone. A month after the single and video came out " Nothing Compares 2U " and I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got sat at the top of Billbord's pop singles and album charts. "Sinéad O'Connor just made things explode." Trans World Music Corp., a chain of 437 stores, reported that I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got was the chain's top-selling album from the day it was released.

Chrysalis hustled to press as many copies as possible. In the United Kingdom I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got topped the album charts in its first week of release : not a rare occurrence in a music industry bent on responding fast to a new trend, but still a noteable achievement. Sinéad had no such history behind her-just one good record and a tremendous street reputation-which makes the out-of-the-box achievement that much more startling.

Strawberries reported that I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got was outselling the chain's second-best-selling title by a phenomenal ratio of five to one. "Nothing Compares 2 U" was the year's first genuine platinum single. In one stunning day, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got sold more than half a million albums, or nearly as many albums as The Lion and the Cobra did in a full year of release. The success of I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got followed the same road Chrysalis traveled to break The Lion and the Cobra, but Chrysalis had a running start and, since Sinéad was already a known quantity in some areas, the company's promotion staff started far ahead from where they did the first time out.

At every level, the video to "Nothing Compares 2U" was the strongest selling tool of the Chrysalis promotion force. Album radio did not need a hard sell as it did the first time; by the time " Nothing Compares 2 U" had topped the pop charts, many AOR stations had already begun regularly tracking "The Emperor' s New Clothes'. without any prodding from the Chrysalis staff. Sinéad was now famous, those in the record industry who did not care about music (i.e., too many of them) focused on her shiny scalp and made that the new hook. Sinéad was thrilled and tickled that her music was reaching a much larger audience, but she wanted her life to remain hers.

She began the first of two lengthy treks across media-hungry America, Sinéad pledged to make an effort to remain normal. Knowing it would be hard, she separated again from Reynolds. Sinéad began her 1990 American tour as an unlikely new star; she ended it as the most controversial pop performer around at a time when pop performers were causing commotions everywhere. Solo appearances on MTV Unplugged and VH1 New Visions solidified her position as a changed, major artist, and her first few performances before sold-out theater audiences were intense, affirmative affairs greeted with near-Messianic fervor.

During her show in Boston at the Orpheum, the second date of the tour, two young girls in the orchestra seats yelled, "We love you, Sinéad!" between songs--and sometimes during the quiet songs. Audiences seemed to know all the words to the songs from I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got by heart. Sinéad was not intimidated by her welcome, but she was careful not to take advantage of it or become a typical rock star. Sinéad and her band rocked out on "Mandinka'. and "The Emperor's New Clothes'. and cushioned her during the ballads.

Some nights the highlight was "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance,' which began as the quietest of ballads and ended with everyone raving. As if the tune was not unwavering enough on record, Sinéad played a longer version of it live. With the success of concerts, and record sales Sinéad also got a chance to perform for the tv audience, Sinéad also got herself booked onto the May 12 installment of the formerly innovative comedy-variety series "Saturday Night Live" By 1990 the NBC show had long lost aIl of the daring and spontaneityhad characterized its first few seasons.

In its fifteenth season, "Saturday Night Live" was just a variety show., it was a variety show with an audience in the tens of millions, so bands that were offered spots on the show did not turn it down. At the same time, "Saturday Night Live" nabbed a host for the show on which Sinéad would sing two songs, a not-so-nice Brooklyn boy named Andrew Silverstein who performed under the name of Andrew "Dice" Clay. In his "Dice-man" character, Silverstein either-depending on one' s point of view-speared liberal sacred cows or advocated the most vicious kind of hatefulness.

Clay's material (not jokes so much as incessant put-downs) was homophobic, sexist, racist, size-ist, xenophobic, and, perhaps most important, not funny. Clay, who has the misfortune of not being able to marry his hate to a single funny joke, is far less interesting. His act consists of unformed attacks on groups who cannot fight back, like new immigrants who work the overnight shifts at convenience stores, and AIDS victims.

Someone alerted Sinéad to what Clay was all about, and she was appalled. She pondered what she should do it, but "Saturday Night Live" regular cast member Nora Dunn made it easier for her On the Tuesday before the show with Clay as host, Dunn decided she had to boycott it. Calling Clay's act "hateful," she told the Associated Press: "I love 'Saturday Night Live' and I feel loyal to my colleagues, my cast members, and the writers of the show, and I respect them very much, but I will not perform with Andrew Dice Clay and I don't want to be associated with him and I oppose his work.

Sinéad's conscience left her with the only one course of action. Skeptics argued that Sinéad had a number one album and single and did not need the exposure. The two acts who replaced her, David Lynch chanteuse Julee Cruise and father-son rockabilly team the Spanic Boys, were grateful for the break and did not think twice about the last-minute offer. After Sinéad pulled out of the show,"Saturday Night Live" talent coordinator Liz Welch received a phone call from representatives of the incendiary rap group Public Enemy, offering to appear on the show, then only four days away. They were rejected out of hand. "Saturday Night Live" officials figured they had enough controversy for the night with Clay, and for musical guests they felt it would be safe to go with relatively unknown, certainly more mannered performers like Cruise and the Spanics.

A few months later, Sinéad was still on a sold-out tour, Dunn had appeared in the critically acclaimed film Miami Blues, and " Saturday Night Live" still faded away each episode after the first two sketches. As for Clay, he already begun his inevitable fade into oblivion.

Days after she was supposed to perform on "Saturday Night Live," Sinéad showed up at a soundstage on the South Side of old Chicago to appear in a video for "The Emperor's New Clothes." It was a strong choice for a second single off of I Do Not Want What I Havent Got. The video made for "The Emperor's New Clothes" had not captured the audience like that of "Nothing Compares 2U", case in point, "The Emperor's New Clothes" would not be a major hit single.

The tour went on, consequently, Sinéad dropped Hugh Harris, the opening act for her concerts. Sinéad got involved in other projects, such as Red, Hot, and Blue: A Benefit for AIDS Research and Relief. Sinéad contributed a version of "You Do Something to Me," with a film shot by John Maybury in which she wore a period wig that evoked both Veronika Lake and Jayne Mansfield. On July 21 in Berlin, when she was part of Roger Waters's The Wall extravaganza. Nothing much came from the event, except that Sinéad sang an undermiked "Mother," she played with former members of the Band Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and Garth Hudsonz and she got her picture taken with her idol Van Morrison.

On August 24, Sinéad and her band pulled off the Garden State Parkway in Holmdel, New Jersey, to play at the Garden State Arts Center. It was a typical day of show. Before she was to go onstage, Sinéad learned that the custom at the Arts Center was to play "The Star-Spangled Banner," the national anthem of the United States, before each show. Sinéad was puzzled; then she was livid.

She demanded that the anthem not be played. Arts Center officials told her she had no choice, but the truth was that they had no choice. The New Jersey Highway Authority, which runs the Arts Center, allowed her to go on so as to avoid trouble, but informed Sinéad that she was banned from the Arts Center for life. One of the idiots defending the Arts Center was Frank Sinatra, who ironically performed there the next night.

In fact, OI' Blue Eyes spoke in terms far less gracious or coherent. He really said, "This Sinead O'Connor, this must be one stupid broad. I understand she said some things. I'm not even going to repeat them. I' d kick her ass if she were a guy, she must beat her kids to stay in shape." Sinéad treated Sinatra's outburst as dismissively as was appropriate, telling MTV News that Sinatra needed the press, and suggested to Entertainment Today that "it's probably very important to Frank that he thinks the American authorities are on his side."

Sinéad realized that she had to address the issue. The day after the Sinatra concert, she told USA Today that she did not see what anthems had to do with her, her music, or her fans. She said she did not mean to be disrespectful, and that she disapproved of playing after any anthem, not just that of the United States. Sinéad' s well-reasoned anthem veto came barely a month after sitcom star Roseanne Barr made fun of the anthem while "singing" it before a San Diego Padres baseball game. Barr was joking, Sinéad was smart and serious, but that did not stop many from likening their two acts.

Within forty-eight hours of Sinéad's Arts Center show, New York state senator Nicholas Spano called for a boycott, and helped organize a protest in Saratoga, which Sinéad attended incognito in a brown wig and baseball cap. On August 27, The New York post showed a picture of Sinéad at the Grammy Awards with the page-filling headline "IRISH SINGER SNUBS U.S." Cathy Burke, whose grasp of the issues involved seemed formed by Sinatra's phatanx of publicists and apologists compared Sinéad to Barr in her lead sentence, and only quoted sources from the Highway Authority which had embarked on nothing less than a smear campaign. After being scalded (to put it lightly) by the press, Sinead just tried to keep the tour moving, with one change : she added the Bob Marley and the Wailers song about demanding freedom, "Get Up, Stand Up,'. to her set. The Marley cover was a calm, thought-out gesture, which means it had nothing in common with the simpleminded attacks on her a week later.