IT’S ALMOST EMBARRASSING NOW to admit how astounded I was by the video for Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” in 1990. There’s scrub 12-year-old me gawking at the unflinching close-ups of this self-possessed Irish woman with the shaved head and the black turtleneck and the tears rolling down her cheeks. And she’s just singing: no explosions, no quick cuts, none of that hyperactive “MTV-style editing” everybody was always complaining about. Just the stillness, the gravity, the gorgeous severity of
