What The Cranberries Taught Me About Music Activism and Love Songs
Truth be told — I was ready to take the lighter more scenic route before I heard the news of the tragic demise of Dolores O’Riordan — the delightfully fiery lead singer of The Cranberries — the indie-pop/pop-rock/Irish folk group that dominated the earlier part of the nineties with such hits like “Linger”, and “Dreams” and “Zombie.”
A 2003 review of the group’s debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? — paid homage to the stellar contributions of the members — almost a decade later — by pointing out the reasons why the music maintained its relevance back when the artists of that era were immersed in similar coding:
“while the Cranberries’s music is firmly rooted in the pop-scape of the early ’90s, their dreamy sonic textures and plaintive melodies weren’t exactly something everybody else was doing.”
My affair with The Cranberries was able to thrive because I had experienced the passionate renderings of another Irish gem — U2.
I was old enough to understand the political messaging of The Joshua Tree (1987) and the cultural analysis of 1991’s mega-hit Achtung Baby. From the heart-wrenching ballad of “Where The Streets Have No Name” to the gratifyingly potent “Zoo Station” — I was trained to recognize how music activism can serve as the…
