The Lion and the Cobra

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
To quote her fellow Irishman, poet William Butler Yeats, when Sinead O'Connor's debut, The Lion and the Cobra, was released, a terrible beauty was born. O'Connor has a haunting voice as dark as the Irish bogs, and her unwavering delivery simultaneously inflames and chills. She sings in two ranges: her soprano ("Never Get Old," "Jackie") is a nearly monastic chant that's angular and breathy like a pan flute or a tin whistle, while her alto, reigning in "I Want Your (Hands on Me)" and "Mandinka," is a suspended, forceful spoken-word tone that never quite yells. By switching back and forth between these two vocal modes, she yanks the listener into her turmoil, giving you no choice but to empathize. She was only 20 years old during this recording, and her difficult relationships with lovers, motherhood, her parents, and the Catholic Church were traumatic and fresh. But rather than mellow with maturity, she gained notoriety with publicly unfavorable political antics that would accompany and often overshadow her equally astounding follow-up, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. --Beth Bessmer --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

The Lion and the Cobra
Average customer rating:

This Is Originality!

Lion and the Cobra

Still just too good

One of my Top 10 Albums ever!!!

The best

The Lion and the Cobra
Sinéad O'Connor
Manufacturer: Capitol
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000003JAW
Release Date: 1990-10-25

Tracks:

Jackie
Mandinka
Jerusalem
Just Like U Said It Would B
Never Get Old
Troy
I Want Your (Hands On Me)
Drink Before The War
Just Call Me Joe

Amazon.com

To quote her fellow Irishman, poet William Butler Yeats, when Sinead O'Connor's debut, The Lion and the Cobra, was released, a terrible beauty was born. O'Connor has a haunting voice as dark as the Irish bogs, and her unwavering delivery simultaneously inflames and chills. She sings in two ranges: her soprano ("Never Get Old," "Jackie") is a nearly monastic chant that's angular and breathy like a pan flute or a tin whistle, while her alto, reigning in "I Want Your (Hands on Me)" and "Mandinka," is a suspended, forceful spoken-word tone that never quite yells. By switching back and forth between these two vocal modes, she yanks the listener into her turmoil, giving you no choice but to empathize. She was only 20 years old during this recording, and her difficult relationships with lovers, motherhood, her parents, and the Catholic Church were traumatic and fresh. But rather than mellow with maturity, she gained notoriety with publicly unfavorable political antics that would accompany and often overshadow her equally astounding follow-up, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. --Beth Bessmer

Customer Reviews:

This Is Originality!.......2007-04-13

The days before Sinead O'Connor became an all out psycho were good. She produced some really interesting music without trying way to hard. She showed she could sing and create a style of her own. "The Lion And The Cobra" is where her inspirational journey began. Though short, the album summed up Sinead O'Connor with only a few little glitches. The CD hasn't dated too much, though you can certainly tell it is not from todays music. This record was clearly influenced by Kate Bush, using some of the same techniques (the whale sounds in "Jerusalem" sound identical). Her epic stories told in the songs are incredibly in depth and dramatic.

The album opens with the soft "Jackie" which crescendoes into the loud, fast and extremely catchy "Mandinka". Both these songs are winners and together provide a great opening into the CD. Just as the CD starts strong, it maintains depth and demands attention until "Drink Before The War". Although this is a strong song on it's own, it just feels like more of the same at the end of the album. "Troy" sounds like a much stronger version of this song and it could easily have been replaced by something catchier. "Just Call Me Joe" fades into the background due to O'Connor's soft singing and the album ends on a good note, instead of an excellent one. These last two songs are the fault with an otherwise stunning debut. "Just Like U Said It Would B" is one of the most imaginative songs I've ever heard and "Jerusalem" maintains an appropriate dramatic and spooky atmosphere throughout.

The album, which is considered a classic by some, is definately worth a listen. O'Connor is truly different to the generic artists that can be heard playing on the radio and this is possibly her finest work. The instruments are simple on the album, usually keeping to drums, giutars and maybe synthasisers. The instrument of distinction, however, is O'Connor's voice. Hopefully one day soon she'll release an album as good as this again.

Download: "Mandinka", "Jerusalem", "Just Like U Said It Would B"

Lion and the Cobra.......2007-01-06

Fantastic album! Only a couple of duff (in my opinion) tracks, the rest all good, and some excellent ones too.

It's the only one of her albums I've ever felt I wanted to buy, & got the cd to finally replace the vinyl album I've been playing for years!

Still just too good.......2006-11-18

There are albums that can be reviewed casually, and then there's that less-than-one-percent or so that move and scare you so much that you're almost afraid to say anything. (Or maybe that's just me.)

To this day, this is one of those albums for me. As with Tori Amos's "Little Earthquakes" many years later, I was not entirely prepared for this particular debut. It simply showed up and said, "Will you be my friend, or would you prefer to take a hike?" The choice was not difficult.

I wrote in my review of her second album that I consider it even better than the first, and that's true, and the only problem with that argument is that the second album doesn't contain "Jackie" or "Mandinka" or the breathtaking "Troy." This one does.

One of my Top 10 Albums ever!!!.......2006-11-02

Ok,an teenage gay James bought this straight away after hearing 'Mandinka' just once. Not long after I saw Sinead O' Connor on 'Top of the Pops' and was blown away by her presence and appearance. I read all I could in the music presses and was really impressed when I found out that originally she had long, lustrous, hair and her agent or whoever wanted to market her in that way - appearance was everything; and so she promptly shaved it all off. Essentially she was going to get far on her musical ability or not at all. So you can imagine how important she was to a young man developing his own 'un-conventional' identity.

Ok, the prelude is over ....... GASP! The tracks on the album were at the time and indeed still are uniquely different. I love the sampling with Gaelic on 'Never Get Old' as well as the beautiful lyrics - "young man in a quiet place". 'Jerusalem' and 'Jackie' are fantastic for the vocals alone and 'Troy' is my all time favourite 'angry breaking up with someone' tune.

Yeah, the album is nearly twenty years old, but yet to be equalled. Not many men like Sinead O' Connor, and neither seemingly do many women and strangely enough for the same reasons. Few people it seems like a woman who stands up for herself and believes in what she does. Ok, so I'm biased, but try it out before you disregard it out of hand.

The best.......2006-09-15

I was hesitant when I first listened to Sinead. I liked Nothing Compares 2 U, but I was really into alternative rock and metal at the time (about 10 years ago).

At first I thought The Lion and the Cobra was OK. In particular, I enjoyed the catchy sound of I Want Your (Hands On Me).

I Want Your is now easily my least favorite song on this CD.

Jackie, Jerusalem, Just Like U Said It Would B, and Drink Before the War are among the best songs of all time by anyone.

Troy is even better.

The more I listen to other music, the better this album gets.

I consider Sinead to be the greatest musical artist of all time, as much as it pains me to put her ahead of the Smashing Pumpkins. Sinead continued to do a lot of extraordinary music, including You Cause As Much Sorrow, The Last Day of Our Acquaintance, Success Has Made A Failure of Our Home, Rising Sun, many others, and yes, Nothing Compares 2 U.

But this remains the best collection of her raw, passionate, beautiful music.

This is the best album of all time, and deserves critical listening by everyone.

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