The Sweet And Sour Taste Of Success

By Joe Kavanagh

Perhaps it is the Irish penchant for begrudgery as a veritable spectator sport, or maybe even an atavism from our past life as whipping boy for an empire, but Irish people have never been overly comfortable with success.

From alcoholic writers and sozzled boxers (sometimes a mix of both) to our famed willingness to put down those who achieve more than ourselves, our race has an uncanny knack for cutting the ground from underneath anyone whom it deems to be "getting notions above their station", whether that notion is true or not.

Indeed, such is our proclivity for this particular emotion that we have become somewhat synonymous with it and typing the words "Irish" and "begrudgery" into Google results in over 10,000 hits ("begrudgery" and "English" results in a shade over 4,000).

Nor is this fondness for belittlement a phenomenon that arrived with the advent of the recently euthanized Celtic Tiger, for the famous English writer and intellectual of the 18th Century, Samuel Johnson, once quipped: "the Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another".

Perhaps this is why Dolores O'Riordan has never quite gotten her due as one of the most successful female songwriters that the island has ever produced, selling an astonishing 40 million albums globally.

In two weeks time, the latest installment in her dazzlingly successful career will be written with the release of her second solo album, No Baggage, a record that is her most personal since the early days of the Cranberries.

To talk about O'Riordan without mentioning the Cranberries would be tantamount to attempting to describe The Godfather trilogy starting with Andy Garcia, such is their shadow on her career, as Ireland's second most successful group of the 1990s, behind only U2.

Formed in the first year of the decade, the band originally known as The Cranberry Saw Us, initially was fronted by male vocalist Niall Quinn, but upon his decision to leave the band, the rest of the members posted an ad locally, in an effort to find a female replacement.

Quite what they thought when they first saw O'Riordan stroll into the audition in a pink cat-suit is anybody's guess, especially given the fact that she announced herself with the immortally precocious line: "Ok, show me what you've got".

We can certainly gauge their reaction after hearing her perform given their decision to immediately offer her the role of lead singer after only one rehearsal together.

Proficient on several instruments, including the guitar, keyboards and flute, she also impressed the band with her songwriting skills by adding a melody and lyrics to one of their tracks, setting the foundation for what would eventually become their global smash hit, Linger.

Barely one year and two demos later, the band became the subject of an intense bidding war in the UK, which eventually saw them sign a six-album deal with Island Records, but even then they teetered on the brink of breakup, due to an earlier deal that they had signed with an Irish manager who now sought to attain his pound of flesh.

After a relatively disastrous debut with the critically-panned single, Uncertain, the band managed to escape free themselves of the hindrance, signing with manager, Geoff Travis, and handing production duties on their debut over to the legendary Stephen Street.

Taking on the more concise version of their name that we know today, the band released the aforementioned Linger, and saw their star immediately flash across the sky, making them a name of global proportions, a position that was consolidated with the release of follow-up single, Dreams.

Their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?, became a smash hit around the globe, shifting in excess of five million copies Stateside alone.

Their success continued unabated with 1994's No Need To Argue, an album that was driven by another global smash hit single, Zombie, which took the IRA bombing campaign to task.

The song also provoked the first backlash in Ireland, where some viewed its somewhat naïve, rudimentary lyrics as an oversimplification of a complicated issue, or, worse still, a cynical attempt to exploit the Troubles.

It also marked the band's high water mark, and though they still remained musical behemoths of global proportions, the release of To The Faithful Departed, saw the band receive a sound thrashing from critics who were not enamored with their new, heavier sound.

Follow-ups Bury The Hatchet and Wake Up And Smell The Coffee, fared even worse as they failed to evolve from a heavy indie-guitar sound that was fast dying with the decade that had given birth to it.

By 2001, they were reduced to releasing a Best of, in the form of Stars, and though they were rumored to be working on a new album, they announced that they were going on indefinite hiatus in 2003.

Of the time, O'Riordan recalled: "It had become too much of a compromise. At the end of the day, I was very much feeling like a product. The weird thing about having success with a record is that everyone says, 'Okay, now the next one has to be bigger and better!' Eventually it becomes very much a ball-and-chain situation, and I got tired of it. I wanted to be free of that collar."

Though she continued writing her own songs throughout this time, she only stepped back into the industry on rare occasions over the course of the subsequent three years.

In 2004 she appeared on a duet with Italian singer, Zucchero, while the following year saw her collaborate with German trance act, Jam And Spoon, and even perform at the Vatican's annual Christmas concert, at the personal behest of Pope Benedict XVI.

She also used her newfound free time to make her first foray into Hollywood, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance during Adam Sandler's comedy, Click, where she performed a reinvention of Linger.

2007 saw her return to her roots, releasing her debut solo effort, Are You Listening?, which essentially represented little divergence from the formula that had made the Cranberries a household name.

This lack of imagination and a perceived dearth of depth, both lyrically and melodically, saw the album receive a sound kicking from critics throughout the globe, though it still managed to move over 350,000 copies, mostly in continental Europe. As if to compound her problems, she was also forced to cancel a slew of European and US tour dates, due to her own illness and that of her drummer.

Hurt by the criticism and perhaps not entirely ready to resume her career, she returned to the happy confines of family life, far from the spotlight that increasingly seemed to burn her every time she approached it.

In fact, in contrast to many of her contemporaries, O'Riordan has never been comfortable with the concept of fame, happiest in her own company from her earliest days on the family farm just outside Limerick, where her guarded persona was free to exist in complete anonymity.

It is true also, that some of the attacks on her work have also strayed a little bit too near the person, hurting her in the process and making her ever more reluctant to offer herself up for public scrutiny.

This year, however, has seen her return in some style, firstly in January when the Cranberries reformed for a ceremony "to celebrate Dolores becoming an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society (Trinity College, Dubline)".

The gig does not, however, mean that a reunion is imminent, as O'Riordan recently explained: "Definitely down the road, but not right now because we've all got kids and babies. You can't really do both - be on the road all the time and be a good parent. To bring kids into the world, you need to be there for them. I'm really enjoying taking things at my own pace."

Instead fans will have to be happy with her latest solo effort, the appropriately titled, No Baggage, which hits shelves next month.

Debut single, The Journey, recently received a low-key release and offers a slightly Eastern-edge without straying too far from the formula that one would expect of a Dolores O'Riordan song, though quite how any critic could expect her to reinvent the wheel at this stage in her career is rather puzzling and perhaps a touch unfair (have you ever heard anyone wondering why Christy Moore doesn't do a concept album?)

This time around, one gets the impression that the critical response will no longer matter too much to someone whose path to fame has been littered with praise and detractors in equal measure.

As always with her songwriting, the words and music may come from the heart but she has come to realize that they are the only parts of this business that are truly personal.