“The Emperor's New Clothes” by Sinéad O'Connor

"The Emperor's New Clothes" is the bounce in the step of Sinéad O'Connor's second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, and it went out as the record's second single on 5 June 1990 through Ensign and Chrysalis. She wrote it, sang it, produced it and strummed the acoustic guitar herself, and it has the feel of somebody talking straight at you over a brisk, rattling beat, defiant and a little amused at once.

The band behind her is sharp company: Marco Pirroni on electric guitar, Andy Rourke on bass and John Reynolds on drums, with Chris Birkett engineering. They keep it lean and nimble, a clipped, springy groove that leaves her voice to do the heavy lifting as it swoops from a conversational murmur to a full-throated cry.

It moves like a pop hit without softening a word. It went to number three in Canada and number five in Ireland, reached the top 20 in Australia, Italy and Switzerland, and spent a week at the top of Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. John Maybury directed the video.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.