Daily Jam - Nothing Compares 2 U

Sinead O’Connor played a very vivid role in my pre-adolescent, pop-cultural memory bank, a massive hit single, a memorable video to accompany it, a live (totally overblown) TV scandal (of which time has proven that she was completely in the right), and…you know…she was a girl with a shaved head. (I was eleven! What do you want?!) The artist was everywhere, on the radio and MTV, invading the whole spectrum of pop culture and media, even getting parodied on the after-school cartoon show, Tiny Toons Adventures.

What remains 25 years later is an artist who, while not at the same level of popular awareness or achieving the creative heights that she once aspired to, still manages a certain amount of transcendence with her version of the Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U.” In all earnestness, it’s one of the best pop songs ever recorded.

It is heartache personified.

Anyone who has ever loved and lost should be able to identify with the range of emotions and feelings on display therein. There’s desperation, and despair, a little shade of anger, and those false kind of personal affirmations you put up to save face…even when you know it’s all bullshit. You try to stay strong, to have fun and carry on. You move on with your life, meet other people, forget about the past. And then you cry.

This song will never cease to move me, so Sinead O’Connor, you are sorely missed, and you will always be all right in my book.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.