Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 06/21/2005
As one of
alternative rock's most sought-after collaborators -- having
Sinéad on even one track would garner enough press to render a release noteworthy --
O'Connor racked up enough "guest vocalist" credits during the late '80s/early '90s to warrant two of these compilations. For the most part, her forays into
dub,
dance, and Anglo-Irish
rock were successful, culminating in multiple platforms for her distinctive and often otherworldly voice to rise into the great beyond from. Spirituality -- despite her habit of tearing up pinups of pontiffs -- has always played a huge role in
O'Connor's artistic persona, and many of the songs featured on
Collaborations rely on Eastern mysticism (
"Visions of You" with
Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart) and deconstructed Christianity (
Peter Gabriel's gorgeous
"Blood of Eden"). This preoccupation with the inward serves her well on lush, mid-tempo projects with
the Asian Dub Foundation (
"1000 Mirrors") and
the The (
"Kingdom of Rain") but has a tendency to fall short on works recorded with
the Edge (
"Heroine"),
Moby (
"Harbour"), and
Terry Hall (the latter's whimsical and sugar-coated
"All Kinds of Everything" sticks out like a sore thumb here). All in all it's as essential a piece of
O'Connor's history as anything in her catalog -- although the omission of
"Haunted" with
Shane MacGowan & the Popes is nearly unforgivable -- and a huge missing chunk in the puzzle for fans who had to sit through records by
Afro Celt Sound System and
Damien Dempsey to get the pieces in the first place.
~James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
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