Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Something Beautiful [Dublin Sessions]
2. We People Who Are Darker Than Blue [Dublin Sessions]
3. Out of the Depths [Dublin Sessions]
4. Dark I Am Yet Lovely [Dublin Sessions]
5. If You Had a Vineyard [Dublin Sessions]
6. Watcher of Men [Dublin Sessions]
7. 33 [Dublin Sessions]
8. Glory of Jah [Dublin Sessions]
9. Whomsoever Dwells [Dublin Sessions]
10. Rivers of Babylon [Dublin Sessions]
11. Hosanna Filio David [Dublin Sessions]

Disc 2:

1. Something Beautiful [London Sessions]
2. We People Who Are Darker Than Blue [London Sessions]
3. Out of the Depths [London Sessions]
4. 33 [London Sessions]
5. Dark I Am Yet Lovely [London Sessions]
6. I Don't Know How to Love Him [London Sessions]
7. If You Had a Vineyard [London Sessions]
8. Glory of Jah [London Sessions]
9. Watcher of Men [London Sessions]
10. Whomsoever Dwells [London Sessions]
11. Rivers of Babylon [London Sessions]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87031 in Music
• Released on: 2007-06-26
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Album Description
Extremely limited two disc (CD + NTSC/Region 0 DVD) release from the Irish singer/songwriter. The CD and DVD document the live debut of many of the songs featured on 2007's Theology, recorded in the intimate environs of The Sugar Club, in front of an invited audience of Sinead fans from around the world; and featuring Sinead and a stellar band of Irish musicians specially assembled for the evening. The DVD also includes an extended interview with Sinead. Both discs are presented in a lavish hardback outer case with a foil-blocked Theology logo. The booklet includes photographs from The Sugar Club concert in Dublin on November 8th, 2006, as well as additional portraits of Sinead by Kevin Abosch, Amelia Troubridge and Thomas Canet.

Amazon.com
The uncompromising Irish artist, spiritualist, and provocateur gives a twist to the critical truism that double albums would generally be stronger if edited into a single disc. With what she terms her "attempt to create a place of peace in a time of war," Sinéad O'Connor consciously risks charges of not merely padding but redundancy, as the two discs feature practically the same set of material recorded in different settings. The "Dublin Sessions" are more minimal and acoustic, and the "London Sessions" incorporate full-band arrangements including harp, strings, horns, and percussion. Finding dual inspiration in Jerusalem and Jamaica, the material proves all the more revelatory in the contrasting settings, as the minimalist approach underscores vocal intimacy while the band arrangements build to majestic intensity. The opening "Jeremiah (Something Beautiful)" ranks with O'Connor's loveliest music to date, with "Job (Watcher of Men)" among her most tormented. The cover(s) of Curtis Mayfield's "We Are People Who Are Darker than Blue" fits perfectly, though a misguided attempt at "I Don't Know How to Love Him" (from Jesus Christ Superstar, mercifully featured only on the second disc) proves that some musical miracles are beyond even Sinéad's power. The second disc sounds more like pop; the first disc sounds more like prayer. --Don McLeese

Customer Reviews

3.5 Stars... Two-fer album is ambitious and sprawling
In 2005 Sinead O'Connor came roaring back (as if she really ever was gone!) with the outstanding all-out reggae album "Throw Down Your Arms", which was one of the best albums of the year for me. As it turns out, it was regretfully only a one-time diversion, as Sinead went on her merry way after that to the next project.

"Theology" (2 CDs, 22 tracks, 91 min.) essentially brings a two-fer album. On CD1 "Dublin Sessions" (11 tracks, 41 min.) Sinead O'Connor brings all of the songs in an intimate setting, just acoustic guitar and vocals. One might almost be tempted to say those are the demos from which CD2 would come, but that's doing injustice to the intimate songs of CD1. The best song for me on CD1 is "Rivers of Babylon", one of the few traditional songs (arranged by Sinead), and almost unrecognisably so, but very beautifully. I rate the first CD 4 stars. On CD2 "London Sessions" (11 tracks, 50 min.). the same songs (but in a slightly different running order) are brought with a full band, and some songs are better than others. I liked the very different sounding "We People Who Are Darker Than Blue" (with drum machine, no less), as well as "Whomsoever Dwells" with the long intsrumental intro. CD2 has an extra song, a truly dreadful cover of "I Don't Know How to Love Him", what was Sinead thinking on this one? I rate the second CD 3 stars.

In all, "Theology" is ambitious and sprawling (not unlike Sinead's earlier "She Who Dwells" double album), but there is no denying the beautiful voice that Sinead continues to showcase. From that angle, CD1 works better for me than CD2. I had the good fortune of catching Sinead on tour last Fall in Chicago in support of this album, and it being my first time seeing her live, I enjoyed it from start to finish. She played a number of songs from "Theology", but also a number of her classics including of course "Nothing Compares to U". An unforgettable evening of music!

Wow, I Was Wrong: This Album is Truly Awful
Confession: as an ardent fan of O'Connor's musical genius since her international breakthrough in 1987 with "The Lion & the Cobra," each successive release over the years has been highly anticipated, no matter what media battles and so-called controversies the artist herself may have been fighting (or instigating) at any given time.

Indeed, the fact that O'Connor was able to maintain a global fan-base of millions over a 20-year period has been amazing to note, given her stated disdain for being a pop-star and her attempts (whether conscious or not) to sabotage her great fame. But there are good reasons why she retained a fiercely loyal following, sold 20 million albums, and enjoyed the deep respect of her peers for two decades.

Namely, her brilliant, otherworldly voice and emotive excellence has been a constant "thread" throughout virtually all of her many endeavors. Her fusion of hip-hop, Celtic, reggae, trip-hop, and rock influences (via her songwriting and arranging) was the pioneering icing on the cake. Whether she was singing about universal motherhood or black boys on mopeds, O'Connor transcended her public controversies in the studio and used That Voice and That Vision to make truly alternative records on her own and with dozens of high-profile collaborators. O'Connor has earned her mythic rock status.

But not with this album.

I bought "Theology" with the usual anticipation on the day it was released. What was not to anticipate? O'Connor singing spiritual music! Excellent. Writing her own songs again! Ideal. DOUBLE album! Woo-hoo. I played it and forced myself to like it, but after two weeks (and then a last, third week of hope), it was--shockingly!--booted out of my mp3 devices, home system, etc.

The album is really bad, and there are reasons for its badness that many O'Connor fans should have seen coming, and which merit explanations.

For one thing, O'Connor has veered away from any sort of healthy label support in the past 6 years. This is not necessarily a bad thing; O'Connor's long-term, steady success has enabled her to fund her own recordings. To escape the demands of crap-pop major labels is legit--she claimed that such labels would never allow her to make the music she really wants to make.

But that claim has been ingenuous. Many sturdy, semi-major labels (Nonesuch, Nettwerk, etc.) would likely be thrilled not only to boast O'Connor on their rosters, but offer her the much-needed support and direction that comes from a worthy production team, along with marketing strategies that are calibrated for her specific needs and audience.

O'Connor is to be admired for recording acclaimed albums of grooved-out Celtic trads and die-hard reggae roots tunes all on her very own since 2002. She's even more to be admired for attaching herself (over 20 years, but most recently) to excellent producers and collaborators like Moby, Massive Attack, Rhys Fulber (of Conjure One), Daniel Lanois, and DJs Tiesto, Creamer & K, Push, etc. These ventures, in particular, have resulted in some of her most widely appreciated work: the "Troy" and "Tears from the Moon" remixes were international hits for O'Connor, introducing the diva to new fans, as was her successful Massive Attack venture.

But these instances of strength-of-production and direction have only underscored a disturbing trend apparent in her two most recent solo albums, inlcuding "Theology": O'Connor's vocal instrument has been severely damaged by cigarette-smoking and her judgment in songwriting and self-production has hit a frightful skid.

Her 2005 reggae album (Throw Down Your Arms) was redeemed by a hard-core adherence and obvious devotion to good spiritual roots songs produced (perfectly) by legends Sly & Robbie. But the O'Connor voice was unsettlingly awry. In one UK interview about the making of the album, O'Connor herself joked ominously about how her chain-smoking might affect her sessions, but she kept on chain-smoking (among other "smokings"), all the same.

It's one thing for a singer to hit a speed-bump with lame material, but quite another for a singer whose entire artistic calling-card has been one of the most pure, pristine, ethereal voices in modern music to have such cavalier disregard for (and indeed to outright destroy) her greatest musical gift. In O'Connor's case, this calls her very artistic integrity into question: how are her listeners to believe in such serious music when the singer herself apparently no longer believes (or cares) about the value and basic health of her own voice--the voice that communicates her creativity?

This brings us (yes, at last) to the "Theology" mess. This ill-conceived album epitomizes the ruination of everything brilliant that she once was, and it hints at what precious little may remain of O'Connor as a top-flight musical artist.

To begin, O'Connor funded the album herself (which is lovely, but if one of her caliber is going to do so, why not do it properly?). Her stated goal was delineate (for herself? for her audience? for the world?) her own view of spirituality, which usually masquerades as 'theology' in the wider world. To this end, she did not really "write" brand new songs, as promoters for this record stated. She did not offer something new or innovative in terms of recording a personal spiritual document that might have accessibility and focus for a wide spectrum of listeners, like similar works in the past by peers like Dylan, Cash, and Morrison.

Instead, O'Connor lazily cobbled together verses cribbed from some of the more generic, benign portions of the Old Testament Psalms and set them to lackluster melodies, pedestrian arrangements, and (in the case of Disc 2, "London Sessions") to cheap and amateurish beats and production values. Worse, her voice is (comparative to her former heights) atrocious on virtually every track.

The evidence of cigarette-damage is so pronounced that one can hear her missing beats for failure to breathe in time, she is huffing and puffing through songs, and utilizing shameless phrasing "tricks" to mask even minor stylisms she once owned but which are now wholly inadequate. Most glaring of all, O'Connor's bell-clear alto, with all of its rich, keening, archangelic effect, has been obliterated. She is singing exlcusively here in a lower register, which is bracing, and she is singing poorly.

Adding insult to injury, O'Connor has recorded most of the same songs on this unfortunate album twice. Disc One, the "Dublin Side," features O'Connor rasping and croaking with too much reverb (again to mask the ruined larynx), her own ridiculously out-of-tune guitar, and the solid guitar accompaniment of Steve Cooney to mask O'Connor's deficiencies.

The songs here have a reverent, contemplative impact, but they are unremarkable melodically and in terms of structure. The Old Testament words co-opted are obviously worthy, but they do not offer any unique personal "theology"--they offer a specifically Old Testament patriarchal ancient Jewish theology. Which would be fine, if O'Connor had called the album "Old Testament Patriarchal Jewish Theology" and not tried to sell this record in interviews and marketing as her own unique spiritual vision.

The songs are virtually all two-chord affairs, giving the effect of same-sounding dirges and portending the sad possibility that O'Connor was too lazy to get her old guitar skills back up-to-speed to add dimension or some melodic diversity to her Psalm interpretations. She may have been able to interject more actual "writing" of her own into the mix, had she done so.

On the Dublin Disc, a song like "Something Beautiful" tries to rise above the mediocrity, but the whole tune is a wandering mess that can't seem to decide whether it's a plaintive hymn justifying a personal moment of bookstore Bible-shoplifting...or a jarringly sudden and intrusive treatise on how God views the general scourge of War and feels neglected by the global community, replete with imagery of jewel-bedecked brides and wounded masses. The themes, again, seem cobbled and incongruous, making what is otherwise a sweet (but ho-hum) lullaby into a hackneyed ramble. The Disc 2 "full band" version of this song is a miasma of awful mixing, mastering, and arranging--with O'Connor's vocals also poorly mixed and processed to the nth degree of shrill. A bizarre and disatrous take on an already iffy song.

Her Dublin Side version of Curtis Mayfield's "We People Who Are Darker Than Blue" fares a little better because it's (at last!) a well-written song and O'Connor gives it an understated delivery that minimizes the breathlessness and cigarette-squawk evident on other tracks. Even so, the track bores on Disc 1 because it demands an inherently funkier treatment, and, in fact, gets one on Disc 2, which makes its rendition on Disc 1 ultimately obsolete and pointless.

O'Connor seeks to cram the bulk of her personal "theological insight" into the song "Out of the Depths," wherein she harps on (again, as in the past) that she wants to save God from religion and insitutional rules. All well and good, but the only people who are going to be (and have proven to be) attracted to this record in the first place are die-hard O'Connor fans, and they are all too familiar with this pet-obsession of the singer, no matter how noble it may be.

As it is, if O'Connor found new metaphors and more creative melodies in which to deliver this message, it might work. But "Out of the Depths" plods along with O'Connor again unforgivably out of breath, wobbling off her own bad-strumming, and hoarse as she offers a bland dirge that might just as well be sung by a stoned amateur soloist at some folk-Mass. The Disc 2 version (with stilted harp, no less) finds her braying one of the most hideous off-pitch, tone-deaf squeals imaginable ("...don't let my cry for mer-ERRRR!-cy be ignored"). A strangled barnyard chicken could not have come up with a blunder like that, and it's scary to think that such a gaffe was not rectified during recording. Or mixing. Or mastering. On a Sinead O'Connor record. Or that Sinead O'Connor might be capable of hitting such a clunker of a note to begin with, much less allowing it to stay on the finished commercial disc.

"Dark I Am Yet Lovely" offered so much promise, lifted, as it was, from the poetry of the Songs of Solomon (again, O'Connor is not really "writing" these songs--she's scoring bits & scraps of the Old Testament). But once again, her dulled voice drones-on without any change in the structure of the song's melody, for some 26 or so lines. If it were a solemn chant, it might have flown. The effect, though, is not conducive to contemplation and does not showcase the mystical Old Testament lyrics.

Instead, it drags interminably (no doubt like this review, but I can't help it), with the same two-chord monotony. O'Connor here seems also at her most monotone--she has apparently forgotten how to write a convincing personal song, or has lost her motivation. Choruses would have made this song ideal, but at this stage, I wouldn't want O'Connor to risk it--she likely would have interjected something about the drudgery of changing baby-diapers, or some such.

"If You Had A Vineyard" is actually a great song on Disc 2, and a stale old piece of toast on Disc 1. In the acoustic-only setting of Disc 1, we find O'Connor once again in some sort of fog, mumbling about the strife between Israel and Palestine (hardly very unique as a personal theology motif), robbing her own song of vitality via poor phrasing, tempo, and the terminally bored two-chord guitar-strumming that poisons the entire first record. The song demands a militant, driving, on-the-march delivery, and gets it on Disc 2, but even then O'Connor's voice is barely up to the challenge. She can't stay on key, on tempo, gets pitchy, and shockingly out of breath during her "And sadness will come..." interlude, falling embarrassingly behind her own accompaniment!

"33" is another bland reworking, this time of--you guessed it--OT Psalm 33 (one does begin to wonder whether O'Connor's bizarre allusion to stealing a Bible in a bookstore, in the song "Something Beautiful," was a subconscious metaphor for what she's doing throughout this merely "half-original" album). On Disc 1, "33" is a dreary sleeper, while on Disc 2, it comes acceptably alive, albeit via the utterly atrocious "uptempo" production of Ron Tom.

"Watcher of Men," an interpretation of the lament of poor old Old Testament guinea-pig, Job, is the only song that truly "works" on both Discs. On Disc 1, O'Connor sings the tune as if she's awake and hasn't touched the Marlboros for at least a couple of hours, and her simmering resentment suits the dirge ideally. In the sense that this lament is actually meant to be an ominous drone, of sorts, the composition works and "fits," just as a Gregorian chant would fit on an album of genuinely medieval church-music. The Disc 2 version of the song is the only one that does not suffer from the hackneyed, cheap, on-the-tat arrangements of producer Ron Tom.

The arrangement here, with smart but scary cello-flourishes and insinuating electronica (as well as a vibe with an actual pulse!) is indicative of what O'Connor is capable of when on-her-game, i.e. crafty, creative grooves surrounding subject matter that is ideal for said groove. The song comes across almost as a viable contribution from her Massive Attack collab, and the lyrics are among the only on the record that support a wider spiritual accessibility, with its theme of personal despair tempered by self-realization in the nick-of-time. Understated tune, but it works with O'Connor's compromised voice, with her apparent plan for the album, and showcases some actual vision on the part of everyone involved.

"The Glory of Jah" is a cheery, uplifting Rasta-Christian piece of harmless acoustic fluff on Disc 1 and a cheery, uplifting Rasta-Christian piece of cheezy contemporary Rock Gospel fluff on Disc 2. It's nothing that a thousand mediocre Christian rock bands haven't already done, and done better. Again, on Disc 2, Ron Tom's production is insulting. Dated loops, half-baked musicians, and lackluster attention to detail in the overall mix.

"Whomsoever Dwells" is a winner on Disc 2--another Massive-Attackish vibe and creative use of both creepy cellos and notable verve on the layered quasi-chorus, which is vintage O'Connor but appropriately modern and very 2006 (or 2007). One wonders if stalwart John Reynolds had a hand in the production of this number, because "Whomseover" (like "Watcher of Men") on Disc 2 is glaringly NOT Ron Tom-ish, which in this album's case means cheap, twee miasma. Again, the clever arrangement masks O'Connor's vocal degeneration without being too obviously processed; she'd be wise to use this approach for any future efforts, as the voice may be beyond rehabilitation due to her sad and admitted cig-abuse.

"I Don't Know How To Love Him," the Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice song from Jesus Christ Superstar, is featured only on Disc 2, and that alone is torture. This marks the lowest point of O'Connor's musical career. The nadir. The abyss. The song itself was unforgivable schmaltz back in the early '70s, and O'Connor's rendition brings to mind the efforts of an aged, slightly drunken, nicotine-toxified barfly half-heartedly choking the local pub's LAST KARAOKE SONG OF THE EVENING, FOLKS!

And she chose that as the first "single." It charted nowhere on the entire earth.

Unforgivable song--both on the part of O'Connor's foolish choice of it (she admitted to including it almost as an afterthought because there was no New Testament-themed song on the project, which why should there be, since the entire remainder of the TWO records was strictly Old Testament motifs?). It reeks also due to her performance (shamefully bad) and Ron Tom's apparently underpaid production effort, a song-arrangement that might appear on a bouncy record of tunes sung by "Barbie," for the consumption of 8 year-old girls.

"Rivers of Babylon" is a failure on both Discs. O'Connor brings nothing new or remotely exciting to the old standard (despite her bally-hooing about "added lyrics"--lyrics that turn out to be marginal at best). Again, her voice is worn, off tempo, pitchy, shrill, and Ron Tom's Disc 2 production is not only overwrought, but an offense to ears everywhere.

This is, unquestionably, the most galling misfire of Sinead O'Connor's otherwise rich 20-year career--and it is not due to the fact that she wanted to record an album of original spiritual tunes. That's a great and very O'Connor-ish idea. It's simply that these spiritual tunes are not really original, they are very poorly sung in terms of O'Connor's formerly high standards, lazily conceived & written, tepidly arranged, of very narrow scope as far as stated intent and theme, and hideously produced on the London Side of things.

The added insult of seeking to torture listeners with TWO(!)Discs, each with generally different but equally craptastic or mutually negating versions of the same songs, speaks loads about how O'Connor is totally out-to-lunch here.

This record was begun in 2005 as an acoustic-only project and slated for several release dates in 2006, but its creators kept fiddling and tweaking a work that was virtually unsalvageable. The hurried and cheap-sounding "full band" second disc seems to indicate that, perhaps, everyone involved knew they had a stinker on their hands and thought that adding to the stench might somehow mitigate the original badness.

It didn't.

Most sadly of all, O'Connor approached this record with absolute disregard for her once-exquisite voice. She's ruined it, and at only 39-40 years of age during the recording, there is no excuse for such self-destruction of an instrument that was a gift in every way, both to the singer's life and to her audience.

If she had been born with the voice of Marianne Faithfull, one could proffer some latitude, but she was not. To blithely abuse and wreck her great gift is to tarnish her artistic legacy, render an insult to her body of work, and likewise to her hitherto faithful audience. It's one thing to pursue her muse in directions that may stymie fans for a bit, but quite another to do it so badly that they are forced to walk away. Moreover, one could see this coming on her 2005 reggae album, at least vocally.

Yes, this is a long review, but as a 21-year fan of O'Connor's once-amazing voice, astonishing catalogue of music, pioneering spirit, and commitment to quality (even when she experiments), I feel that a hideous bomb like "Theology" is worth some cold, hard truth. Sinead O'Connor is worth it. Or was. Hopefully she will find an accomodating label that will encourage her to focus on saving her voice and her art, while demanding reasonably releasable product and joining her with producers and collaborators that can, via genuinely sensitive direction, help restore her now rudderless ship-of-a-career.

"Theology" is not recommended by this longtime fan. Please, don't encourage the woman at this point! If you must have some tracks, purchase single mp3 versions of "Whomesover Dwells" (Disc 2), "Vineyard" (Disc 2), or "Watcher of Men" (Discs 1 & 2).

what i know
Sinead's new album meets her goals...it gives me such a feeling of peace in this troubled world. I'm not the keenest on religiously-toned music even though i'm religious. Much of what is out there does not touch my heart. This album both touches my heart AND my soul. I feel so relaxed when I pop either disc into the player. I almost want to cry...out of sheer joy.

The spirituality is not in your face...and that's much of why it appeals to me so much. Her songs are gorgeous and so tender. Give it...and peace a chance.