Sinead O’Connor appeared on The Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy in Dublin on Friday night to explain her war with Miley Cyrus and added that reality show creators Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh were “murdering rock and roll”.
“All the Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh stuff, it all amounts to the murder of music and that’s what concerns me,” O’Connor told Tubridy.
Just days ago Sinead O’Connor wrote an open letter to Miley Cyrus warning her about prostituting her talent for the men of the music industry. Miley responded with a retweet of a two-year old post from Sinead crying for help. Sinead then threatened to sue the pop star.
Sinead explained to Ryan Tubridy that when she was a young star her record label executives tried to make her “look sexy”. “I was asked by my record company to start wearing short skirts and grow my hair and try to look really sexy,” she said. “That’s why I shaved my hair, in fact. What I did was I wanted to be genuinely judged on my talent, if any, and not how I looked or my sexuality. I didn’t wander around on all fours in a dog collar. Maybe I should. Its not too late”.
Sinead said the initial letter came from trying to explain to Miley how the music industry has always worked. “It’s not really about Miley or me or anybody else,” she said. “It is really about the broader issue of how the industry of music has taken over control the sounds of records. The videos that are being made at the money making end of music is now running everything about the artist. Why I wanted to conversate with certain artists would be a: as a mother but b: as a person who loves music and the power of music to change things. The industry has taken of so much, the money making side of it, that all the sexualising of extremely young people that go and make records and all the worship of money and bling and diamonds and the pop idol stuff”.
She says a lot of the blame falls directly with reality show creators Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh, the people behind the Idol and X-Factor franchises. She said Cowell and Walsh are killing music. “All the Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh stuff, it all amounts to the murder of music and that’s what concerns me,” she said. “All those things are a distraction from music. You don’t see any people standing in their t-shirt and jeans and playing their songs and moving people”.
Tubridy brought up the subject of One Direction. “Why One Direction are popularised is because girls want to have sex with them,” Sinead answered. “If you look at how the music business works and how the associated media works it is sexualising extremely young people and sexualising the bands. I am not dismissing the records. They are great records. I do feel that the industry of music does exploit people who are probably a little to young to know what they are doing”.
Watch the complete interview with Sinead O’Connor at the RTE website. Sinead starts 51 minutes into the show.
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