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Kalaroga Shark Media. We're at number five on our countdown
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of the top ten best cover songs of all time,
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as voted by the staff at Kalaroga Shark Media. We've
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crossed the halfway point, and as we climb higher on
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the countdown, the stories get bigger, the cultural impact gets deeper,
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and the transformations get more profound. This week, we're looking
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at a cover that's inseparable from one of the most
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powerful music videos ever made. A cover that took a
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song by one of the greatest artists of all time
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and somehow made it more famous than he ever did.
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Nothing Compares to You by Shane O'Connor, That voice, that face,
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that single tear running down her cheek, the video that
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made you stop whatever you were doing and just watch
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the song that became the sound of heartbreak in nineteen ninety,
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but before Shane O'Connor made Nothing Compares to You one
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of the biggest hits of the decade. It was a
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deep album cut by a side project band that almost
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nobody had heard of, and the person who wrote it,
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the person who gave it away, was Prince. This is
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the story of how one of Prince's most Beautiful Songs
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sat unknown for five years until an Irish singer with
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a shaved head and an uncompromising vision turned it into
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a phenomenon. Let's Start. In nineteen eighty four, Prince was
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at the absolute peak of his powers. Purple Rain had
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just been released. The album would go on to sell
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over twenty five million copies worldwide. The film was a
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cultural event. Prince was everywhere MTV radio, stadium's magazines. He
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was arguably the biggest star in the world, and he
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was writing constantly, not just for himself but for other artists.
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Prince had this incredible generosity or maybe it was restlessness
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or abundance or all three three, where he'd write songs
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and then give them away to other artists. Sometimes these
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were songs he thought would work better for someone else's
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voice or style. Sometimes they were just songs he'd written
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and moved on from because he was already onto the
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next thing. In nineteen eighty four, Prince wrote a song
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called Nothing Compares to You. The story goes that he
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wrote it after a relationship ended with one of his
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longtime collaborators, Susan Moonsey, who was part of a girl
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group called Apollonia six that Prince had created. The song
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was deeply personal, achingly vulnerable. It was about the kind
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of heartbreak where nothing, not flowers, not being alone, not
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spending time with friends, can fill the void left by
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losing someone you love. Prince recorded a version himself, but
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he didn't release it. Instead, he gave it to a
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band called The Family. The Family was one of Prince's
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side projects. He was constantly creating these satellite acts bands
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that he would write for, produce, sometimes play on anonymously.
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The Family consisted of Paul Peterson on vocals, along with
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Susanna Melvoyn, Jellybean Johnson, and Eric Leads. They were talented musicians,
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part of the extended Minneapolis scene that revolved around Prince
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and Paisley Park. In nineteen eighty five, the Family released
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their self titled album on Paisley Park Records. Nothing Compares
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to You was track eight. Paul Peterson sang it beautifully,
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a smooth, soulful vocal over a sparse arrangement with synthesizers,
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program drums, and that distinctive mid eighties production that Prince perfected.
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The album came out. The single from it was the
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Screams of Passion, which got some attention, but Nothing Compares
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to You was just an album track. It wasn't promoted,
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it wasn't released as a single, Very few people heard it.
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The family disbanded after one album. Paul Peterson went on
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to work with other artists. The album became a footnote
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in Prince's vast catalog of productions, and Nothing Compares to
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You remained unknown to most of the world. That could
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have been the end of the story. Prince wrote a
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beautiful song, gave it to a side project band. The
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band released it, nobody noticed. Everyone moved on. But five
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years later, an Irish singer named Shanai O'Connor was working
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on her second album. SHANEI had released her debut album,
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The Lion and the Cobra in nineteen eighty seven. It
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had gotten critical acclaim and modest commercial success. She was
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known for her shaved head, her uncompromising artistic vision, and
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a voice that could shift from whispersoft vulnerability to primal
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scream intensity. She wasn't a typical pop star. She was confrontational, political,
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deeply spiritual, and utterly unwilling to compromise her vision for
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commercial success. For her second album, I Do Not Want
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What I haven't got. Shaney was looking for material she
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on its songs that matched the emotional honesty she was
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bringing to her own writing. Her manager suggested Nothing Compares
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to You. She listened to the Family's version, and she
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knew immediately that she had to record it. Shine's version
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of Nothing Compares to You was recorded with producer Nellie
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Hooper and Chris Barquette. The arrangement was completely different from
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the Family's version. It started with a simple program drum beat,
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that distinctive opening pattern that's now instantly recognizable, then keyboards.
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There was no attempt to smooth out her vocal, no
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attempt to make it pretty in a conventional sense. Shine
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sang with total vulnerability. Her voice cracked in places. She
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let the emotion overwhelm the technique. When she sang about
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how nothing compares to the person she lost, you believed
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every word, You felt it in your chest. The production
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was sparse. There were no big instrumental flourishes, no attempt
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to build to some massive climax. The song song just
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existed in this space of raw heartbreak, and Shanai's voice
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carried all of it. Nothing Compares to You was released
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as a single in January nineteen ninety, and then the
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music video came out. The video was directed by John Maybury.
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It's one of the simplest, most powerful music videos ever made.
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Shane's face in extreme close up against a black background.
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That's it. No narrative, no special effects, no cuts to
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other scenes, just her face, singing directly to the camera
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for the entire song. You watch her eyes, you watch
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the emotions cross her face, and about two minutes and
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forty seconds into the video, a single tear rolls down
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her left cheek. That tear became one of the most
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iconic moments in music video history because you couldn't tell
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if it was performance or if Shane was actually crying.
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It felt real. It felt like you were witnessing genuine heartbreak,
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not someone acting heartbroken. Years later, Shane revealed that the
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tear was real, but it wasn't about romantic heartbreak. She
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was thinking about her mother, who had died when Shine
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was young, who had abused her, and about the complicated
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grief of losing someone you loved but who also hurt you.
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But viewers didn't know that. They just saw someone breaking
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down on camera, being completely vulnerable, showing you what it
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actually looks like when you're trying to hold it together
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and you can't quite manage it. MTV played the video constantly.
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Vh one played it constantly. It was unavoidable, and every
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time it played, people stopped what they were doing and watched.
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The song went to number one in seventeen countries. In
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the United States, it topped the Billboard Hot one hundred
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for four consecutive weeks. In the UK, it stayed at
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number one for four weeks. In Canada, New Zealand, Australia,
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across Europe, everywhere it was number one. It became the
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biggest selling single of nineteen ninety worldwide. It won a
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Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. It was certified
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platinum multiple times over. It made Shanee O'Connor a global superstar,
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and almost nobody knew it was a cover. Almost nobody
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knew Prince had written it five years earlier for a
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band that had broken up after one album. We'll be
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right back. So what makes Shane's version so much more
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successful than the families? Why did this song sit unknown
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for five years and then suddenly become one of the
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biggest hits of the decade. Part of it is the
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vocal performance. Paul Peterson sang it beautifully, but he sang
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it as a soul ballad, smooth, controlled, polished. Shane sang
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it like someone who was barely holding herself together. The
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vulnerability in her voice was almost uncomfortable to listen to.
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It felt too raw, too exposed, and that rawn has
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made it impossible to ignore. Part of it is the production.
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The Family's version had that mid eighties synthesizer production that
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was already starting to sound dated by nineteen ninety. Shane's
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version had a starker, more timeless production that let the
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vocal take center stage. But the biggest part of it
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is the video. That close up of Shaneai's face, that tear.
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That's what made the song a phenomenon. MTV was at
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its peak in nineteen ninety. Videos could make or break careers,
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and this video was unlike anything else on the channel.
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Most music videos in nineteen ninety were narratives, performances, heavily
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choreographed productions. Shanei's video was just her face, and somehow
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that simplicity made it more powerful than anything with elaborate
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sets or special effects. You couldn't look away, and because
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you couldn't look away. You heard every word she was singing,
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You felt every emotion. The song in the video became inseparable.
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Prince's response to Shane's success with his song was complicated. Initially,
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he was pleased she'd taken something he'd written and made
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it huge. She'd honored the song. The royalties from it
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were substantial. As the songwriter, he was making money every
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time it was played, purchased, performed. But Prince also had
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mixed feelings about someone else having the definitive version of
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his song. He was competitive, he was a perfectionist. He
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eventually recorded his own version, performed it in concert, tried
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to reclaim it, but it was too late. Nothing compares
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to You belonged to Shane Now. When people thought of
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the song, they thought of her face, her voice, that tear.
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Prince's version, the one he eventually released, was received as
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Prince covering Shanee O'Connor, even though he'd written it. That's
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the power of a truly transformative cover. It doesn't matter
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who wrote it. It does doesn't matter who recorded it first.
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What matters is who made it unforgettable. Shinai O'Connor's career
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was never the same After Nothing Compares to You, she
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became one of the most famous musicians in the world.
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Her second album went multi platinum. She was on magazine covers,
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winning awards, selling out arenas, but fame made her deeply uncomfortable.
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She was outspoken about the Catholic Church, about child abuse,
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about Ireland's treatment of women. In nineteen ninety two, she
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tore up a picture of Pope John Paul the Second
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on Saturday Night Live, ending her mainstream career in America
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essentially overnight. She continued making music, speaking out on issues
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she cared about, refusing to compromise even when it cost
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her commercially. She had a complicated relationship with Nothing Compares
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to You. It was the song that made her famous,
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but it was also a reminder of a moment when
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the world paid attention to her voice before deciding it
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didn't like what she had to say. Shine O'Connor passed
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away in July twenty twenty three, at age fifty six.
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The tributes that poured in all mentioned Nothing Compares to You.
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The video was played millions of times. People who'd seen
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it when it first came out in nineteen ninety watched
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it again and cried. The song became her eulogy, her legacy,
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the thing people would remember forever, and Prince, who'd written
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it in nineteen eighty four and given it away, who'd
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watched it, become huge for someone else who tried to
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reclaim it. Prince passed away in twenty sixteen. His catalog
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of work is astonishing, hundreds of songs, dozens of albums,
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innovations in music and performance that changed popular culture. But
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Nothing Compares to You remains one of his most famous compositions,
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not because of his version, because of Shinai's That's why
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Nothing Compares to You is number five on our countdown
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because it's a perfect example of a great songwriter being
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generous enough to give away a master piece, Because it
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shows that sometimes the person who writes a song isn't
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the person who can best communicate its emotional truth. Because
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that music video is one of the most powerful four
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minutes ever put on television, and because Shanai O'Connor took
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a song about romantic heartbreak and made it about every
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kind of loss, every kind of grief, every moment when
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you realize that nothing, absolutely nothing can fill the space
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left by someone who's gone Prince wrote a beautiful song.
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Shanee O'Connor made it eternal. This is Garrett Fisher and
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this is the hit Maker Chronicles. Join us next Sunday
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for number four on our countdown of the top ten
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best cover songs of all time.