Happy 25th: Sinead O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

25 years ago today, Sinead O'Connor released her sophomore effort, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, which was anything but a slump: not only was it critically acclaimed, but two and a half decades later, it remains the most commercially successful album of her career, thanks predominantly to a little single called “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

But, of course, you already knew that, because the song went to #1 in Ireland, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. When a single goes to #1 in 13 countries, it's pretty reasonable to presume that someone visiting this website is going to be well aware of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

What you might have forgotten, though, is that the Prince composition in question wasn't actually the first single released from the album. Actually, that's a half truth: it was the first single released from the album when there was an album to be released, but there's a song on the album that was released as a single before there was an album for it to appear on.

Confused yet?

Anyway, we're talking about “Jump in the River,” which saw release as a single in September 1989, a full six months before the arrival of I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. It's an interesting track because it's the only song on the album that O'Connor co-wrote with Marco Pirroni, best known for his collaborations with Adam Ant, but what's also funny is that Pirroni didn't play on it, although he did play on a song that he didn't co-write, one which was the third single from the album: “The Emperor's New Clothes.” Oh, and there was a fourth one as well - “Three Babies” - but Pirroni didn't have anything to do with that one at all. In fact, no one but O'Connor did: she wrote it, sang it, and played every single instrument on it. (She's as talented as she is opinionated, that one.)

In the end, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got went double platinum in both the US and the UK, and it went five times platinum in Canada, so it was an unqualified success. It's just a shame that O'Connor took that kind of momentum and followed it up with an album of jazz standards. Not that Am I Not Your Girl? is a bad album - although it's a bit of a grower - but it certainly served to dismiss a number of fly-by-night fans from O'Connor's fanbase. The new folks who've stuck around, though, have gotten a lot of good music over the years, and you can bet that, even after all this time, they're still saying, “Gee, I sure am glad I picked up I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got.”