Streams and sales of the late Sinéad O’Connor’s music rose by 2,885 per cent after her untimely passing last month. According to Billboard, interest in the singer’s discography spiked during the week of July 21-27, with streams shooting up by 7.9 million in the US.
O’Connor’s music was streamed 243,000 times from July 24-25, before that number rose to 7.3 million from July 26-27 following the sad news of her death at age 56. Her famous cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” racked up 3.2 million streams alone during the week and amassed an additional 10,000 downloads. UK statistics are yet to be released.
Listen to “Nothing Compares 2 U” below:
The Irish musician and activist was found unresponsive at her London home on July 26th and shortly thereafter pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities have yet to disclose an official cause, but have ruled out any possibility of foul play.
O’Connor, whose death comes 18 months after her 17-year-old son took his own life, had been publicly vocal about her mental health struggles and was hospitalised on her own volition in early 2022 after revealing suicidal thoughts in a string of since-deleted tweets.
Following the tragic news of the singer’s passing, tributes flooded in from all over the world, with many prominent music industry figures sharing touching messages on social media. Bryan Adams wrote: “RIP Sinéad O’Connor, I loved working with you making photos, doing gigs in Ireland together and chats, all my love to your family.”
RIP Sinéad O’Connor, I loved working with you making photos, doing gigs in Ireland together and chats, all my love to your family. pic.twitter.com/49ryuIhGTQ
— Bryan Adams (@bryanadams) July 26, 2023
Ian Brown also reminisced about his shared experiences with the singer, a woman he deemed a “beautiful soul”.
RiP SiNEAD O’CONNOR A Beautiful Soul. Hearin Collaborating with and hearing Sinead sing my songs in the studio in Dublin was magical and a highlight of my musical life. A Beautiful soul LOVE TO HER FAMILY X
— Ian Brown (@ianbrown) July 26, 2023
Morrissey and Lily Allen, however, criticised their peers, condemning the empty platitudes offered up by personalities who hadn’t supported O’Connor while she was alive.
It’s hard not to feel incensed when there are so many people posting about Sinead and how fearless she was, people who would never in a million years align themselves with with anybody who stood for something or had anything remotely controversial to say. It’s so spineless. If…
— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) July 30, 2023
Allen recently took to Twitter to express her dismay at the “spineless” tributes posted by people who only empathised with the Irish singer in death, while the former Smiths frontman released a lengthy message on his website:
“[…] The cruel playpen of fame gushes with praise for Sinéad today…with the usual moronic labels of ‘icon’ and ‘legend’. You praise her now only because it is too late. You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you. […] Music CEOs who had put on their most charming smile as they refused her for their roster are queuing-up to call her a ‘feminist icon’, and 15 minute celebrities and goblins from hell and record labels of artificially aroused diversity are squeezing onto Twitter to twitter their jibber-jabber. […]”
Never one to shy away from controversy, O’Connor was known for her outspoken nature and strong beliefs, consistently bringing attention to issues such as child abuse and women’s rights. In 1992, she famously tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a performance on the TV show Saturday Night Live, in protest of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Although the stunt attracted much criticism, O’Connor remained undeterred in her activism – in her 2021 memoir she declared that it was more important for her to be a protest singer than a successful pop star.
