Sinéad O’Connor · 1990I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

If that sounds confusing and contradictory, think back to your internal state at that age. Exactly.

In those days I would never admit to my friends that I loved Sinéad. But as an adult it’s her 1990 pop-rock masterpiece that I come back to, far more than the raw fury of Metallica.

This record is like going to confession, but someone else does it for you. Someone with the immaculate voice of a pissed-off, hurt Irish angel who is fed up with the hypocrisy of the world.

As a teenager, I admired nothing more than those who told authority to fuck off. Sinéad does exactly that on the stark “Black Boys on Mopeds.” And as far as I know, Metallica never gave Margaret Thatcher the finger.

Yet it's the heartbreak songs that would foreshadow the feelings behind the collapse of many of my future relationships.

“Nothing Compares 2 U” may have been the breakout hit, but it’s “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance” that gets to the heart of the matter. No song I know begins in such lonely vulnerability and ends in such raw self-assurance.

Sinéad would eventually succumb to the sorrows of life, but the strength she demonstrates on this brilliant record continues to sustain me through mine.