Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticAlbum covers used to be mythically important — they could etch the image of a musician forever in your mind’s eye.
In “Nothing Compares,” Kathryn Ferguson’s incisive and poignant documentary about the life and career of Sinéad O’Connor, we see the image that was chosen in 1987 for the cover of O’Connor’s first album, “The Lion and the Cobra,” made when she was 20 years old and pregnant: an extraordinary photograph of Sinéad in mid-scream.
Talk about mythology! That’s how the album was released in Europe, but for us benighted souls in America, the image was deemed to edgy.
It was replaced by that demure shot of Sinéad staring downward.Sinéad O’Connor was far from the first pop star to scream (you can go back to the earliest rockers) or to scream in rage (John Lennon on “Plastic Ono Band,” a generation of punks).
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