On April 21, 1990, thirty-five years ago, Sinéad O’Connor scored her first and only No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with her unforgettable and emotional cover of the Prince-written ballad “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
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O’Connor’s version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” was the second single released form the Irish singer/songwriter’s sophomore studio album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.
[RELATED: Sinead O’Connor’s Cause of Death Revealed One Year After Her Passing]
“Nothing Compares 2 U” bumped pop singer Tommy Page’s “I’ll Be Your Everything” from the top of the Hot 100. It spent four consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the chart, before it was replaced by the Madonna smash “Vogue.” The track wound up ranked at No. 3 on Billboard’s list of the top Hot 100 singles of 1990. No other song by Sinéad ever reached the Top 40 of the chart.
O’Connor’s cover of “Nothing Compares 2 U” also topped the singles charts in more than a dozen other countries.
According to SongFacts, the idea for O’Connor to record the tune came from her manager, Fachtna Kelly.
The song’s popularity was bolstered by a music video that received heavy airplay on MTV. The clip, which was directed by John Maybury, mainly featured a closeup shot of Sinéad’s face as she sang the tune. At one point in the video, she begins to cry. O’Connor explained that, while filming the video, she was thinking about her late mother, who died in a 1985 car accident when Sinéad was 18.
The clip also includes atmospheric footage of melancholy-looking O’Connor walking in a Paris-area park.
Accolades, Honors, and Legacy of “Nothing Compares 2 U”
O’Connor’s version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” was nominated for 1991 Grammy Awards in the Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female categories. The video also received a nod for the Best Music Video – Short Form honor. Sinéad’s album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, took home the Best Alternative Music Performance prize.
“Nothing Compares 2 U” also won three “Moonmen” trophies at the 1990 MTV Music Awards, for Video of the Year, Best Female Video, and Best Post-Modern Video.
In 2019, O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry, which recognizes recordings that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
In Rolling Stone’s 2024 list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” “Nothing Compares 2 U” was ranked No. 184.
O’Connor died in 2023. In her honor, Annie Lennox performed “Nothing Compares 2 U” with former Prince band members Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman at the 2024 Grammy Awards ceremony during the “In Memoriam” segment.
Prince’s Version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”
Prince wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U” in 1984. The first version of the song to be released was in 1985 by The Family, a short-lived funk group Prince put together. Prince’s own original demo version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” wasn’t officially released until 2018.
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