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It’s Sinéad O’Connor’s Birthday And I Can’t Think Of A Headline

by with No Comment playlists

The latter half of the eighties was a great time for alternative rock music and its fans. During the years after the new wave boom but before Nirvana penetrated the mainstream, bringing a host of new rock acts with them, we would hear fresh, interesting acts on WLIR/WDRE and see them on MTV’s 120 Minutes.

In early 1988 120 Minutes aired a video from a new Irish singer named Sinéad O’Connor. The song was “Mandinka.” It grabbed me immediately. I bought her LP The Lion and the Cobra. It was (and is) great. I became obsessed. Not in a creepy stalker kind of way. I felt the need to own every note this woman released. I bought the albums, the remixes, the non-LP singles (e.g. “My Special Child”), the singles with non-LP b-sides (the UK CD single of “Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home” with its cover of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” the UK CD single of “This Is a Rebel Song” with its cover of “Redemption Song”), every movie soundtrack album she appeared on (Married to the Mob, In the Name of the Father) and every compilation she appeared on (Red Hot + Blue, Help, A Very Special Christmas 2). I loved her passion, her songs, her intelligence, her tenderness, her individuality and her look. She stood out from the pack.

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Today Tunes du Jour celebrates the birthday of Sinéad O’Connor with a playlist inspired by her and the music of the 120 Minutes era.

It’s Friday and I Need To Dance!

by with No Comment playlists

I love to dance. I also love to eat and to sleep, but I really love to dance. It is my favorite activity. Yes, I like it even more than swimming. If the music is right I can go for hours at a time. In the early nineties, while living in New York City, I would go dancing almost every weekend. Those weekends when I wasn’t at a club I’d be dancing in my living room. Being that I lived in a 200 square foot apartment, my living room also served as my bedroom, den, and dance studio.

Every Friday, Tunes Du Jour will publish a dance playlist. Play it loud and get down, whether in your living room, bedroom, den, dance studio, on a bus, in the waiting room of your ophthalmologist’s office or at the dog park. It’s a great way to welcome the weekend.

Being today is the birthday of Tina Weymouth, a founding member of both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, we will spotlight some of her work. Our party kicks off with “Wordy Rappinghood,” a UK million-seller that topped the dance chart in the US in early 1982.