It was never released as a single and went largely unnoticed. Unsure of what to do with it, he remixed the track and included it on an obscure flop of an album by his side-project The Family in 1985. Nothing Compares 2 U was the song that made, and almost broke, the Dublin-born performer. Instead, she “cried like a child before the gates of hell”, she wrote in her 2021 autobiography Rememberings. It should have been the greatest news a pop artist could ever have hoped for. Nothing summed up O’Connor’s feelings about her success more aptly than her reaction to being told that Nothing Compares 2 U and its associated album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got had reached number one in America. But it also brought her a level of fame – and a weight of expectation – that she neither wanted nor was prepared to handle. Nothing Compares 2 U was the song that brought O’Connor, who has died aged 56, success and riches beyond her wildest dreams. It also topped the charts in the US and almost 20 other countries and became one of the defining tracks of the Nineties. Accompanied by a stark video that showed the shaven-headed O’Connor breaking down in tears, the song reached number one in the UK the following week and stayed there for a month. “It’s been seven hours and 15 days/ Since you took your love away,” the Irish singer sang over a minimalist backing track. Lonely, direct and haunting, O’Connor’s cover version of Prince’s ballad sounded like nothing else at the time. Sinéad O’Connor’s version of Nothing Compares 2 U entered the top 10 at number three. Manufactured pop tracks (Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and New Kids on the Block) jockeyed for position with the brash commercial dance music of Mantronix and D Mob. The UK Top Ten singles chart in the week of Januwas a time capsule of the era.
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