I've always been a casual admirer of Sinead O'connor. I loved the contrast between her mournful and melancholic voice, and the feistiness of her character.The music however always seemed to be a bit hit and miss,(How I loved 'This is a rebel song', how I loathed 'Thankyou for hearing me'). I didn't know If I could take a whole album of her sweet but tortured voice and lyrics. How could I ever have doubted her. 'Faith and Courage'is an album saturated in beauty, mysticism and spirit.Not one of the thirteen tracks fails to move me in some way.Language is inadequate to describe songs like 'The state I'm in' and 'Jealous', these are genius productions, sung by a woman who clearly has a gift for expressing pain and despair, as well as joy and contentment.I knew Sinead was good, but I had no idea she was capable of such unbelievable depths, why did she hold out on us so long?
I would urge anybody who likes their music to have a haunting and ethereal quality to invest in this album, you won't be dissappointed. Sinead O'connor has recently made a statement that she plans to retire from music in the near future. This will be a real loss to the music industry, but I am at least grateful that she released this masterpiece first. It's a real shame that such a talented individual is most likely to be remembered for her Prince cover version( The admittedly very excellent'Nothing compares 2 U'), when she had such a wealth of natural talent to draw from.Sinead, You bet I'm Jealous!
