Nothing Compares 2 U

I think I'd rank "Manic Monday" in there, too.

Sinead certainly has loads of unpleasant baggage that is largely extraneous to her music, mostly from her silly and feckless grandstanding. Nor have I really cared one way or another what she's done musically for the past decade or so.

But damn if her "Nothing Compares" isn't a great song.

it's odd that someone refers to o'connor's interpretation as "overblown." it would have to be overblown in some conceptual sense, as in, its overblown or ostentatious austerity. i can see how the video would contribute to this impression.

but really it's a remarkably austere and restrained performance, especially by o'connor's standards and also by the standards of pop ballads in general. i think it's devastating.

also, ca. 1990 o'connor looks a bit like winona ryder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0

The Family's version is better.

sweet tune

I prefer Dan Kelly & The Ukeladies tropical version:

http://www.last.fm/music/Dan+Kelly/_/Nothing+Compares+2+U

Might seem a bit spare to those fans of the overwrought.

Dan Kelly looks like Tim Robbins which is good in my book but his music kind of reminds me of Jack Johnson or something that could fit on that soundtrack for that awful Adam Sandler movie where he works at an aquarium.

I'm yet to hear a version of this song that I really like. It's a shame because it's a really good melody but every single version I've heard of it fucks up either with really cheesy arrangements or a schmaltzy vocal delivery.

I think it's funny that the original poster speaks of the Prince version as if he was some passerby who heard Sinead's version and wrote a low-key cover of it for a Greatest Hits collection, and not someone that, you know, wrote and ORIGINALLY performed the song....

Yeah, but she stole it from him. It'll always be her song. Same way "Respect" is Aretha Franklin's song.

in that it's associated with her more primarily than him, yes. better, no.

Sinead's version is glorious. kthxbai

^^

i performed it once. i even tried to hit the high note. my boyfriend says people thought it was so pretty.

Awwwww :D

her version is fine...not arguing that. just amused by the initial post from a gazillion years ago

1) it's more than "fine"

2) whoever wrote it/originally recorded it shouldn't dictate how good it is, right?

1. "fine" was the word I chose to explain that I wasn't knocking Sinead's version

2. no, i was making fun of the fact that the original poster didn't seem to know that Prince actually wrote the song and knocked him as if he ripped it off of her.

he just said he didn't like the prince version. that doesn't mean he didn't know he wrote it. i think everyone knows that. doesn't mean you have to like it!

sorry i'm being slightly argumentative. carry on. prince is cool.

The two versions are different enough to almost be considered separate songs; I sort of don't see a point in (wait for it...) COMPARING them.

i'm still slightly surprised there are ppl on this board who don't recognise a t0m 3wing post o:

princes version is terrible. i wish he would stop performing it live too.

I'm a huge Prince fan but to me it's still obvious that Sinead's version beats both the original Family version (which suffers from Paul Peterson's bland imitation-of-Prince vocals) and Prince's later cover (which lack the emotional austerity of Sinead's version, though like Al said upthread, Rosie Gaines does fine job on it) 5 to 1.

rosie gaines overpowers it. its not really a song really benefits from a big soul vocal or the npg sounding like a gospel covers band at a restaurant on a sunday afternoon.

is there a prince version that isn't the live one?

I don't think so.

Just got a copy of this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/The_Family_LP.jpg

Decent record. Sounds like what it is: Prince outtakes and B-sides. But it was 1984/85, and Prince's outtakes/B-sides were on a pretty high level during those years.

No one will ever touch Sinead on this song, though.

Attn songwriters: this is how you write a verse

All the flowers that u planted, mama, in the back yard
All died when u went away
I know that living with u baby was sometimes hard
But I'm willing to give it another try

The Prince version is good. They're both good, and very different of course.

Seems only Britishers (or Anglophiles) think that the Sinead version is better than the Prince live version.

it was a big thing in "britain"*. i do prefer it.

*i am from scotland and of latin american extraction and do not identify as british. tho aye a a brit cunt tbh.

Prince's live version is good, and it's definitely better than original version by the Family. But the Sinead version is still way better.

I'm Finnish, by the way, and a huge Prince fan in general, but I've no problem admitting that occasionally some artists can make a Prince song better than he himself did (see also: "I Feel For You").

Yeah, Sinead's is better. Duh.

I think it's funny that the original poster speaks of the Prince version as if he was some passerby who heard Sinead's version and wrote a low-key cover of it for a Greatest Hits collection, and not someone that, you know, wrote and ORIGINALLY performed the song....

except that Prince did hear Sinead's version and recorded a low-key cover of it for the b-sides disc of his 3-CD hits collection, and didn't ORIGINALLY perform the song

FACED, Cyberdune Butt

Yeah, it seems kinda obvious Prince put his live version on the Hits collection because he was a bit jealous that Sinead managed to make the song a hit, while the Family album was mostly a flop.

there's a demo of him doing it isn't there? so yknow techincally i guess he did perform it first.

Susannah looks great on the cover dun she?

i dont think ive ever heard prince do this in a low key way. he always makes it into a big melodramatic thing.

"Overblown", lol. Can you imagine Celine Dion, Xtina Aguilera or Meat Loaf going crazy on its ass?

What Sinead does beautifully here is a combination of exquisite tenderness, with occasional bursts of that shrill, slightly sharp tone (that's all over, say, Mandinka), but then pulling back from that again to softness, so sonically as well as emotionally it's unpredictable - when will it burst out again? Exactly like the emotion of loss/grief in question in the song - it hits you unexpectedly sharply and painfully and dies down again, against a background of general sorrow and hurt.

That strident tone was really something new in pop vocal style I think. Only maybe Suzie Sioux and Liz Frazer as far as I know had done that tone before Sinead, but they were more marginal figures, especially in the US, and didn't apply it to a love song in this way. (I know Sinead said the famous tears in the video were for her dead mother; not sure if that affected her recording?) Sadly I don't think Sinead did anything very good after this though.

^straight pyromania

Like many upthread, I wasn't old enough to really have any specific feelings about this song at the time - it was on Now 18 which I had as a ten year old, but I rarely played it through. Recently though I've been thinking about it. The Quietus have had a recent run of quite interesting articles about songs that make you cry. Manipulative as it is, this is one of those which even when I think about it gives me a strange shivery sensation.
The economy of language, devastating lines like "I know that living with you baby was sometimes hard, but I'm willing to give it another try" seem to pack a lot more than they do on paper.

Her version of 'all apologies' is nice, too. Not better than the original, but quiet and plaintive. Really nails the 'married, buried' part.

I vastly prefer Sinead's version to Prince's.

Prince's released (never heard a demo of his if there is ine in circulation) versions all miss the point of the song. Rosie Gaines is also not the right person for the job.

right on

I like the choir-like backing vocals, gives it a very Irish and religious feel. Like Sinead's Irish-punk take on soul, always did. Be stupid if she tried to sound black, she brought her own background to the song.

Apparently, it's not available on spotify (Sinead's version, I mean). Part of Prince's online policy ?
That's weird since there are other Prince songs by other artists available (Bangles, Times, Chaka Khan...).

Theres a live version on there. But yeah its bc of prince's policy of not cooperating with streaming services

so the version on the hits cd kinda sucks yah but if you saw p perform this in the 2014/2015 tour (he sang it all himself with mellotron backing) then that would be your choice version trust me. fuck it maybe ill put up a version on youtube.

he sang this at the piano last month when I saw him and it was great. he's fully capable of doing great versions of the song, it's too bad he never officially recorded one.

there's been very little "here's the shitty stuff Prince did" since his death; wondering when that will start to slip out. the only negative story I could remember (aside from him maybe personally being a dick to people) was that violent story Sinead recalled. Wonder what the story behind that is.

― akm, Monday, April 25, 2016 5:13 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

once the details of his speed & opiate addiction start to appear i'm sure there will be all sorts of tell-alls. Surprised that this interview with his alleged dealer hasn't been posted in any thread yet: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3555292/Prince-s-former-drug-dealer-reveals-extent-addiction.html

sinead o'connor is (like prince himself) a bit of a loon and a fabulist, so i'm not sure we should take her story at face value.

Over the last few days I've been positively haunted by this song. At the time in 1990, I had a hard time engaging with it ... the song and video were absolutely everywhere, the beat was strident and a bit plodding, and it was generally difficult to see past the cult of personality around Sinead. But 26 years (gah) later, this sounds to me like an absolute gem of a gospel tune -- and is just wrenching in the wake of Prince's death and what increasingly sounds like a lonely existence.

That said, before I go and call this one of Prince's best songs, I actually wonder a bit how much of the credit for her version should go to him. The lyrics are amazing and the verses are undeniably beautiful in all the versions of the song. But the chorus on the Family original (and the live version w Rosie Gaines) is an unlistenable train wreck -- the chords are totally different and oddly mismatched with the melody. It makes me wonder what Sinead or Nellee Hooper (the original producer before he and Sinead got into a row) saw in the tune in the first place.

Have they ever said anything about it?

I assume this is one of the songs which was inspired by his love for Susannah melvoin

Still never heard the family album. It's hard to search for in the downloadosphere

xpost All very good questions! I'm not sure I've ever read, or remember reading, how this obscure Prince song made its way to a (relatively) obscure Irish singer.

I don't understand what people are hearing that would make them say the version with Rosie Gaines is an unlistenable train wreck

weird hearing the family do this song recently as a tribute while sticking to the original arrangement so faithfully. the reason their version never went anywhere, apart from the aspirationally overwrought vocal, was because it has that stupid 'oh oh ohhh ohhh ohh' part after every few lines (how did that make the final edit?). it has the same problems as the prince/gaines duet, though that was somehow even worse, as it had unnecessary NPG bombast on top of the stupid hammy melodramatics of the family version.

its actually kind of amazing that anyone would hear that song in the late 80s and think 'i know what this song needs' (or rather, i know what this song definitely does NOT need)

I don't understand what people are hearing that would make them say the version with Rosie Gaines is an unlistenable train wreck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZlzN0Gtpp8

In the Gaines version (not sure if it's on YouTube), the chorus comes at 1:34 -- it's less that it's jarring and more that the chords are again different (different than the Family version, actually) and chorus doesn't really land.

So I guess the question is: who re-wrote the chorus for Sinead's version?

I can't stand the Rosie version.

Not big jazz fans you two, I'd guess?

also, prince and rosie singing this as a DUET doesnt work. its a song thats meant to be solitary. not two lovers singing back to each other, like endless love or something.

That. Like the Dixie Chicks doing Landslide as a harmonizing trio. Plus, love jazz, just think Rosie version is kind of generic and cheesy, both the production and the performance, but Sinead gets at something deeper, perhaps due to the austerity of the production/arrangement?

My snark was directed more at NTI, who seemed upset at chord substitution.

I don't think he was upset. He's just saying that it doesn't sound good and he's really right. I could honestly hear the Family version working with different instrumentation or a different mix or something though.

Family version would work better with a stronger and more distinctive vocalist. Clare Fischer's string arrangement is still sublime. Altho Sinead's version is still definitive, I think the recorded Family version would likely work with an impassioned vocal. There must be a demo/guide vocal version in the vault.

Impassioned Prince vocal, that is.

impassioned, sure, but its not a song that benefits from a big fire and desire-type soul vocal IMO

Here's an interesting article about the recording of Sinead's version.

My snark was directed more at NTI, who seemed upset at chord substitution.

Wrong.

Not really interested in getting into a debate over jazz theory here but suffice it to say that since the tune in the chorus on the Family version is also completely different than Sinead's there must be "melody subs" as well.

Ok, I can't help myself. Those aren't substitutions. They're different chords. The chorus of the Family version resolves on the I chord. The Sinead version resolves on the V.

And yes, it sounds terrible in the former.

Sound on Sound is a treasure.

Agreed

ex-post: I never debate with dude who have broken ears, but you do have my sympathy.

good to know

Dixie Chicks cover is pretty faithful to the Sinead version.

Tons of other covers of this song floating around out there.

The one by Taylor Dane is not bad and also features an amusing if a wee bit hard to follow story about getting invited to and performing at a Prince aftershow.

This may leave you cold or you might find it a wee bit moving:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt1YhpQb8go