The UK’s The Guardian reports today that Universal Music has decided to shut down the Sanctuary Records UK label, leaving Dolores O’Riordan without a record label.

This closure follows Sanctuary’s closing of its US division at the end of June. Universal Music bought Sanctuary, which has been having financial struggles

for the past few years, for 44.5 million pounds in August.

Universal said in a statement, “Sanctuary Records UK division will no longer continue as a stand-alone, frontline record label. Consultations with employees have begun to minimise redundancies as a result of the restructuring.”

Sources: Guardian Unlimited, Reuters

theguardian.com

uk.reuters.com

Surprise! Dolores O’Riordan has already filmed the video for “When We Were Young” with longtime collaborator Olivier Dahan and it’s online now for viewing.

Production company U-Man Films has put the video in Quicktime format, along with a few screencaps, online on their site. Download Dolores O’Riordan’s “When We Were Young” music video here. (LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE)

With its gritty green color scheme, on-rails camera, and lots of up-to-no- good vagrant extras, the video looks almost as if it could have been made on the same set as The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Ava Adore.” Dolores, for her part, wears plenty of bling to help her remember “how things just seemed so ezah.”

Cranberries fans will remember that Dahan directed the videos for The Cranberries’ “Salvation,” “Promises,” “Animal Instinct,” and “This is the Day.”

Big thanks to Maxence for the tip.

MySpace user “Ben & Jan” posted the following note on Dolores O’Riordan’s MySpace:

UPDATE: We just spoke with a rep at the LA House of Blues and she said the band is trying to reschedule (yay!) possibly sometime in November, but more word will not come until midday Monday at the earliest. If we hear anything more we’ll share!

Still no official announcement of rescheduling the Los Angeles show (or the DC one, for that matter), but we’ll have any official announcements posted here on Zombieguide. (Thanks to GlenninLA for the tip.)

Promotional CDs for the new single “When We Were Young” have started being sent out to radio stations. “When We Were Young” is the second single from Are You Listening?

Here’s a photo of the new promo, courtesy of Sigma on the ZG Forums:

Singer Amy Lee of Evanescence said in an interview posted online today that she recently got to see Dolores O’Riordan on tour — “it was awesome,” she said. Lee added, “I really like her new music.”

Here’s the excerpt:

Q) With all of the bands getting back together like The Police and The Spice Girls, which one are you most excited for?

A) The Police, we’re going. We’re going to the New York show and we were trying to get tickets. This has been the big talk of the band and crew for the past couple of months is how we’re going to get Police tickets because they all sold out instantly. We finally got our hands on Police tickets and Terry just went and said it was incredible and he wants to go again. I think Tim is going this weekend so everybody, I think, has jumped on and everyone’s found their own way to get to The Police. That’s the one that everyone’s been talking about.

Q) Are there any other ones that you saw?

A) Actually, last night I went and saw, let me try to say her name right – Dolores O’Riordan from The Cranberries and it was awesome. She’s incredible! I loved The Cranberries and I was way too young to go really see them and they didn’t come to our town. It was really cool to see her, but I really like her new music. It’s really cool! It’s strange and it gets really heavy sometimes, but it’s very sincere and I think she’s awesome. So, I don’t know if you call that reuniting, because it’s not that, but it’s kind of the same thing. I thought she was incredible.

A staff member for San Francisco’s Fillmore just told Zombieguide Forumsmember Hollywood Sav over the phone that “As far as we know, [the concert]’s still on for tonight.”

Fans have been worried whether tonight’s concert (and indeed, further shows) would be canceled due to Graham Hopkins’s medical issue that canceled last night’s concert in Los Angeles.

Ireland’s Hot Press reports that Graham was discharged from the hospital earlier today.

Hot Press also writes, “An official statement on the continuation of the tour is to be released shortly, as Dolores & her team assess the situation.”

hotpress.com

Drummer Graham Hopkins had a seizure on stage last night during Dolores O’Riordan’s show in Los Angeles. The rest of Dolores O’Riordan’s tour may be canceled, although we are waiting for an official announcement. Update 9:08 PM EST: Looks like tonight’s San Francisco show will go on as scheduled. Dolores’s crew is unpacking at the venue and a queue is forming in front of the hall. (Thanks Sue and Anna.)

New Zombie wrote on the Zombieguide Forums,

I just got back. I seriously thought the drummer (Graham Hopkins, I think) was going to die. It was not a pretty sight and it was not a fun night…I hope he makes a full recovery. There is no replacement drummer. Refunds will be issued at the point of purchase (yes for LA too as she only got through about 3-4 songs). The rest of the tour is CANCELLED (not postponed) and an announcement to that effect will be made tomorrow.

The drummer had a seizure right on stage. They killed the lights and lowered a screen. He had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital after what seemed like 20 minutes of medical treatment while he was laying on stage.

bendomino writes,

To let everyone know, my wife and I were there at the concert in LA tonight. To clarify the account posted on Perez Hilton’s site, Dolores wasn’t screaming, she was calmly asking for the lights to be turned down and then an ambulance. There was no chaos, and we didn’t see any police, only the ambulance she asked for. Sunset was not shut down either. I applaud everyone at the event for handling the situation as best they could, there was never a threat to ours or anyone’s safety. The Perez Hilton comment posted is totally blown out of proportion. We hope and pray the drummer is ok, by the way his name is Graham Hopkins and he is a renowned Irish drummer who has played with many bands in the past. In light of the news that the rest of the tour is probably cancelled, we wish the band the best and look forward to their next visit in LA, which hopefully is in the near future.

For those that haven’t had a chance to meet him, Graham is a wonderful and all-around awesome guy, and we hope he gets better as soon as possible.

Whew! After a week of travel, I’ve finally had a minute to sit down and sort through a few hundred photos that we took at Dolores O’Riordan’s concerts in New York and Philadelphia. A sampling of the best ones are now available on Flickr. Here are Zombieguide’s Flickr sets of Dolores O’Riordan @ New York’s Irving Plaza 07.10.2007 and Dolores O’Riordan @ Philadelphia’s Fillmore at the TLA 07.13.2007

Speaking of tours, we want to take a second to once again recommend Felipe’s site Cranberries Shows, where you can find lots of useful stuff like past setlists and tour photos. If you have setlists, merchandise photos, or ticket scans from the current tour, send it to Felipe!

A dental injury has canceled Dolores O’Riordan’s planned show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC tonight.

A member of the crew told Zombieguide that Dolores broke her front tooth on a Japanese rice cracker at dinner. She did not show up for the 5:00 PM soundcheck as planned, and evidently never left her tour bus. Concert goers saw crew returning Dolores’s clothes and personal effects to the tour bus after 7:30.

Staff members for the 9:30 Club announced the cancellation around 8:00 (first announced as a postponement, later changed to a cancellation).

A person close to Dolores reported that she was in quite a lot of pain, but “were lining up dentists as we speak.”

It is currently unknown if Dolores will perform tomorrow night’s scheduled Philadelphia show. Crew members were preparing for the trip to Philadelphia, but did not know if it would occur as scheduled.

Fans who bought tickets will receive full refunds from their place of purchase through July 27th according to verbal announcements at the show and a post on the 9:30 Club website. Major online ticket vendors such as Ticketmaster should refund automatically.

We wish the best for Dolores and hope she gets fixed up soon!

GayWired has a straightforward Q&A with Dolores posted. The interview hits all the same topics as the other interviews floating around, with the addition of some Q&A about gay rights, specifically gay marriage in Dolores’s part- time home of Canada.

Here it is:

Ten Minutes with Dolores O’Riordan 06.22.07
Who can ever forget Dolores O’Riordan’s glorious vocal gymnastics? As the leader of mega-successful alt-pop band the Cranberries, O’Riordan took listeners on countless musical joy rides, her crystalline instrument rising slowly from a whisper to a gorgeous and cathartic emotional cry. Still in awesome vocal form, O’Riordan has just released her first-ever solo album Are You Listening? on Sanctuary Records. Co-produced by Youth and Dan Broadbeck, the eagerly anticipated album is a 12-track tour de force and marks her first release in four years.

“The Cranberries couldn’t couldn’t do another ‘Linger’ or ‘Dreams,’ because you can’t really do the same thing twice,” said Dolores O’Riordan in an interview published yesterday in New Jersey’s Courier-Post, explaining why she left the band.

At the same time, she’s quick to point out that there will be plenty of Cranberries material in her live shows during the upcoming US tour. The article in the South Jersey paper is specifically to promote the Philadelpha show on July 13th. (We’ll be there!)

“The Cranberries stuff is great and I still like to sing those songs,” she said via phone from Greece. “They bring back memories and it’s light-hearted now to sing them.”

Here’s the article text, as posted in the forums by CordellNJ:

Former Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan performs at the Fillmore at the TLA on July 13 with her four-member band. During her years with the Cranberries, O’Riordan, 35, helped the band sell more than 40 million records between 1993 and 1999. The group, which released four albums during that time, had it’s biggest hit single with 1994’s “Zombie.” This month, O’Riordan embarks on her first U.S tour in more than 5 years to plug her just released solo debut album, “Are You Listening?” The records earned raves as a striking return, “With angular chords and O’Riordan’s distinctively powerful vocals.” Written and recorded over 4 years, the album is largly inspired by personal experience. Her name, speaking by phone from greece, said she “Didn’t feel any pressure at all” in making the CD. “The more success you have, the more pressure you aquire.” She says. “The Cranberries couldn’t couldn’t do another ‘Linger’ or ‘Dreams,’ because you can’t really do the same thing twice. But after I stepped away from all that, and just focused on being a fulltime mom, music became a hobby to me again, and the pressure disappeared. “Music then was truely just for theraputic purposes.” The resulting effect, O’Riordan says, was “more experimental than her work with the Cranberries, while still retaining her melodic flare. For her solo tour, O’Riordan will be backed by a four member band, and plans to do a mix of old and new material. “The Cranberries stuff is great and I still like to sing those songs,” she said. “They bring back memories and it’s light-hearted now to sing them.”

Dolores O’Riordan is on the cover of the June 13th issue of the American edition of the Irish Examiner, plus the full interview is online at their site. (LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE)

Here are some good quotes pulled from the interview:

“I’d a good break, and I’ve the hunger back, the whole vibe is back. Most of the material (for the new album) was written in Canada. In winter, there’s four feet of snow there. It’s very cold, but very inspiring. I have a piano in my house, and I use the weather, the ever-changing climate to inspire me while writing,” she claimed.

The music scene in general however, has changed a great deal while she’s been away. “The emphasis is not on CDs anymore, it’s more on Ipods. It’s always changing, when we were teens, it went from vinyl to cassette. Good music is good music though.”

Dolores, discussing her cameo in Click, also revealed that she isn’t as interested in acting now as she was just a few years ago. (”I want to play some kind of femme fatale – curly hair, big breasts and a tight dress. I imagine it would be like ‘Hollywood! I’m here – Dolores O’Riordan in person!’” she said in 2002.)

Of her cinematic venture, she told us: “Adam (Sandler) is a big fan apparently. It was a blast, we spent ten days (on location). There’s a lot of waiting around for your scene. It’s a good laugh, and very interesting behind the scenes. Every morning, we’d three and a half hours doing make up, it makes you aware of so many different forms of art.”

Of a future in acting however, she said: “Maybe when I’m older, if it felt good at the time. I did like the whole experience, but you’d have to move lock, stock and barrel to Los Angeles.”

It looks like back issues of the cover article may be available for ordering. We’ve emailed the Irish Examiner about it and will update if you can order online.

Lastly, the Irish Examiner has some juicy circa 2000-2002 hi-res photos that you obsessive picture collectors can grab here and here.

Read the whole article here or below, after the jump. (LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE)

Dolores O’Riordan told Toronto’s the Star that the process of writing and recording Are You Listening? was therapeutic for her.

She describes the process of writing over a period of four years as a “hobby and a kind of escape” from both the good and bad elements in her life.

The Star is quick to point out that although it was written in seclusion at home, the album is loaded with heavy themes of death and insecurity — something we pointed out in our own review.

Here’s what The Toronto Star commented:

Are You Listening?, released in May, didn’t turn out to be a tip- toeing ode to domestic bliss, though. Minus the odd, sweet- natured ode to O’Riordan’s toddler daughter, it’s long on themes of death and escape while the music, like that of the Cranberries, is sometimes startlingly heavy and roiling.

Dolores also revealed that producer Dan Brodbeck actually moved into the basement of her home in Howth to work on the tracks on ProTools in O’Riordan’s spare time. She said:

“It was great because one minute we could be recording and the next I could be mashing the potatoes. He was brilliant,” says O’Riordan. “The set-up was downstairs and he’d be down there working all the time, so I’d go down and say, `I have an idea’ and I’d put it down and leave him to come up with some percussion while I went upstairs to peel some spuds. He only came upstairs when he smelled dinner cooking. Otherwise he was in the studio.”

You can read the whole interview at The Toronto Star or below after the jump. Thanks to Tara and others for the tip.

thestar.com

It looks like “When We Were Young” will indeed be the second single from Dolores O’Riordan’s Are You Listening? The song has just entered the charts at Otvoreni Radio (www.otvoreni.hr) in Croatia at #19.

This comes after much speculation on the Zombieguide Forums about which song would follow “Ordinary Day.”

Otvoreni Radio was the first reported station to play the debut single “Ordinary Day” way back in February, so it’s no surprise to us that they’re the first station to pick up the second single.

To those at Sanctuary: excellent choice! Maybe “October” for the third single, hmm?

Thanks to Sale for the news.

We’ve got 10 more print magazine scans having to do with Dolores O’Riordan’s new album in our Flickr set. Check ‘em out!

Has a newspaper or magazine published something about Dolores in your country? Send Zombieguide scans and we’ll add it to the set (with credit to you).

Pink is the New Blog is hosting a competition to meet Dolores O’Riordan and attend her July 19th show in Los Angeles.

Entry into the contest is quite simple: Just send in a photo of you and your friends enjoying an ordinary day in the spirit of Dolores’s debut single “Ordinary Day.”

The winner will receive 2 tickets for the House of Blues show and a meet and greet pass to meet Dolores backstage — plus will have a photo op for the blog. Good luck! Visit Pink is the New Blog for more details.

Thanks to Bruno for the tip

Dolores O’Riordan is this week’s “Singer of the Week” on AskMen.com
The site has 3 pages dedicated to Dolores (click here for page 1, click here for page 2, click here for page 3) including one where they rank her “personality and talent,” “sexiness,” and “natural beauty.” Dolores got a not-too-shabby overall score of 75/100.

AskMen wrote,

Dolores can be described as cute, though hardly cute in a seemingly innocent or perky sort of way. She reminds us of that rare breed of moody, introspective-looking girls we remember from high school whose looks were accentuated by an alluring air of mystery. Her pretty, delicate features are counter-balanced by that ubiquitous stern expression on her face that actually makes her more attractive. Although we understand that guys who go for girls with a permanent smiley face won’t agree with such an assessment.

They also have an interesting quote about what motivated Dolores to finally complete her long-brewing solo album:

“Really, I think I decided to make a full album because I had buckets of songs and I thought, ‘It’s now or never,’ ’cause I’m not getting any younger.”
– Dolores O’Riordan on making her solo album.

 

Who would have guessed? Dolores O’Riordan has a small article in one of America’s most mainstream magazines, People.

As far as we at Zombieguide can recall, the last time Dolores was mentioned in the mag was an (astoundingly positive) review for Wake Up and Smell the Co ee in 2001.

Check out Zombieguide’s newly launched Press Gallery Flickr set for the scan.
Thanks CanadianLeprechaun.

London’s The Times has put up a review of Dolores’s performace at the Koko on Friday. The paper gave the performace a 3/5.

Dolores O’Riordan
David Sinclair at Koko, NW1

The Cranberries’ slide down the greasy pole of pop was so steep during the late Nineties that it is easy to forget how big they were before that. Their most successful album, No Need to Argue, sold more than 16 million copies. The Irish group suspended activities in 2003, but it was not until last month that their singer Dolores O’Riordan released her first solo album, Are You Listening?, a title which must surely be tempting fate.

There were plenty of diehard Cranberries fans among the audience at Koko — the only British show on O’Riordan’s European tour — but what had they come to hear? The singer, now 35 and a mother of three, was obviously there to promote her own album, and performed most of the songs on it. But she wisely opted to take control of the Cranberries’ legacy as well. With the help of a four-man backing band she performed an equal number of old favourites, beginning with Zombie and ending with the group’s first hit, Dreams .

The only woman in pop to have tried out more hairstyles and colours than Madonna, O’Riordan has now opted for a dark shade and a plain, straight cut that was more office secretary than rock chick. She skipped around the stage like a pixie, her slightness of figure emphasised when she strapped on a white guitar that seemed outsized by comparison to play When You’re Gone .

Her voice remains an instrument of fierce tonal extremes but limited emotional range. She has reined in some of the harsh ululating tics that became her trademark, and there was a reflective mood to some of the new songs. “I think that we weren’t always grateful,” she sang on When We Were Young. But a stroppier attitude surfaced on Loser, a disposable indie-pop tune with a lyric full of vengeful put-downs.

In fairness, her own material generally stood up well, especially when compared with the Cranberries’ most famous song, Linger, which was the least interesting performance of the night. But it was nevertheless the hits of her old group, including a pretty version of Just My Imagination and a fast, vibrant Salvation, that carried the show.

In an interview published by Calgary Sun Dolores was asked about her life in Canada, her inspirations for “Are you listening?” and the possibility of a The Cranberries reunion. Read it here:

Canada, specifically Northern Ontario, figures prominently in Are You Listening?, the first-ever solo record from Cranberries’ frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan.
In stores tomorrow, the 12-track album was largely written and demoed in O’Riordan’s longtime second home outside Peterborough that she shares with Candian-born husband Don Burton and their three young children. (She also has a 15-year- old stepson who lives in Toronto full-time.)
“It’s so inspiring up there,” said the Irish-born O’Riordan, 35, down the line from her other home in Dublin recently.

San Francisco Chronicle newspaper published a nice interview on May 13. It also appeared in the printed version. You can read it below:

As the lead singer of the Cranberries, Dolores O’Riordan owned the ’90s. Named the highest-earning woman in Ireland, she married Duran Duran’s tour manager in a transparent dress, relegated her band members to separate tour buses and feverishly battled anorexia rumors. The Irish band sold more than 30 million albums before imploding after its fifth release, “Wake Up and Smell the Co ee,” in 2001. After taking six years o to raise her family, O’Riordan, 35, returns with her solo premiere CD, “Are You Listening?” She plays July 20 at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
Q: How did you manage to make an album with two kids running all over the place?
A: Four, my darling.
Q: Four kids?
A: Four kids, yeah.
Q: I must have lost count.
A: I’m an Irishwoman. I always wanted a good brood. Q: But you only took six years o .
A: Well, I have a 15-year-old stepson. I gave birth to my first child 10 years ago this year, my second is 6 and my baby is 2. I’ve been a busy bee — hatching and singing and hatching and singing.
Q: In that order?
A: Totally in that order.
Q: That makes it doubly impressive.
A: Actually, it’s kind of weird. When you have a few good kids, they play with each other. The older kids entertain the babies, they help dress each other, they like to be involved. They like to help load the dishwasher and bring their laundry up.
Q: So, basically, you put them to work.
A: It’s good for them.
Q: It doesn’t look like a bunch of kids came out of you.
A: Thanks very much. I’m flattered. It’s funny, because when you’re having the babies you don’t socialize. You’re staying at the house waiting for this little thing to grow, so I took up knitting.
Q: It’s hard to picture the woman who sang “Zombie” knitting mittens.
A: I know. It’s amazing what we go through, us women. When we get pregnant, we get all soft and motherly and we knit. It’s quite normal, actually.
Q: Did you experience any postpartum depression?
A: No, I was very lucky. I breast-fed the children, and that helps out quite a lot. It makes you feel good because your body releases all these hormones that make you relax. Also, when you’re nursing your baby, it feels like they’re back in your tummy, so it’s not that big of a departure. It’s something I was really blessed to do.
Q: Britney Spears shaved her head after she had her babies. You did it before you had yours. What was your problem?
A: I was 18 years old when I joined the ‘Berries. The first album was huge. Six million is an awful lot to sell for a bunch of kids from a small town in Ireland. It was all a big party, and then the pressure was on to make another. The next one was even bigger, so there’s even more pressure. We were living in buses for five years now. No sense of normality. No friends. No freedom. I overdid it. I was obviously losing too much weight and getting depressed from working too much. I had no normality, no sanity.
Q: How did you get through it?
A: It was just getting away from the public eye. You have to jump o the treadmill because you’re going to break your neck otherwise.
Q: Do you feel sane now?
A: Totally. You relax more in your 30s. You realize the most important thing is that you have to look after yourself and get dinner on the table. It’s grand when you find that head space.
Q: So people shouldn’t be afraid of you anymore?
A: No. I don’t bite at all.
This article appeared on page PK – 46 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Star-Telegram published a five question interview with Dolores O’Riordan on May 13:

Dolores O’Riordan joined the Cranberries at age 18 and didn’t look back. Five albums and roughly 13 years later, the group took a break, allowing the 35-year-old singer to live life and enjoy her children. Gradually, O’Riordan began writing again, taking four years to piece together her first solo record, Are You Listening?, which hits stores Tuesday. O’Riordan called from Dublin, Ireland, to talk about the new album, her gradual return to the spotlight and the Cranberries’ legacy.
1 Did you have any kind of road map, a grand plan for this record?
No, I didn’t at all. I just wrote. Basically, I took a break from the music and entertainment industry for the first time in my life, since I was 18. As you get older, you start having kids and whatnot, it slows down a little bit. After the greatest-hits record came out and things ended between [the Cranberries] and Universal, I figured that was the right time to switch o , get completely o the merry-go-round. I loved the whole idea of not being contractually bound; I kind of became myself again.
2 What song from Are You Listening? would surprise fans?
I would say Black Widow, because it’s very di erent. … Stay With Me is kind of nice, because it’s darker chords but the chorus is unpredictable. I had a great time experimenting.
3 While you were away from music, did you keep listening to other bands?
Completely pulled myself out. To be honest with you, between the fourth and fifth Cranberries albums, I wasn’t listening to much, more so because you’re having babies, you’re reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, you’re breast-feeding. And if you’re not doing that, you’re reading books about houses and kitchens and that kind of normal family stu .
4 Were you concerned that because the musical landscape has changed so much in the last few years, you might have a tough time finding an audience?
No, I don’t worry too much about that stu because I have a belief in the power of music, or the power of art, whatever you’re doing and if it’s good, it’s good and if it’s [junk], it’s [junk]. At the end of the day, I think that’s what really matters. If you do get something beautiful in your hands — I think people out there have ears. … The music will get out there if it’s good enough.
5 Has enough time passed for you to look back and assess what the Cranberries accomplished, what you’re proud of?
Strangely enough, it has — at the time, you’re in the eye of the storm and you don’t really realize what’s happening. I think taking the four years o was really cool because then suddenly … you’re pulling all these things out of boxes, and you’re actually looking at them. Now you’ve time to look at things, you’ve time to look at the bigger picture. … We actually did something cool.

On May 25, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, published an article about Dolores Oriordan’s comeback with an exclusive picture. Screencaps of the printed version were posted on the forums.

For Cranberry’s new drive comes to fruition
“I want to keep my identity” … the former lead singer of the Cranberries, Dolores O’Riordan, has released a new album, Are You Listening? , and will begin touring again this year.
THERE was a time in the mid-1990s when hearing Dolores O’Riordan was unavoidable.
Her voice was everywhere, on the radio and in shopping centres singing and shrieking songs such as Linger and Zombie, which she wrote and performed with the Irish mega-group The Cranberries. Then, in 1996, O’Riordan had a nervous breakdown and the band, after selling 40 million albums, began to disintegrate, breaking up three years ago.
O’Riordan, 35, is now a mother of three who knits and practises yoga. The shaved head has been replaced by long dark locks.
“I don’t find much pressure in motherhood; I love being a mother,” O’Riordan said, in Sydney yesterday to promote her new solo album, Are You Listening? “It was more challenging growing up in the public eye – the fishbowl syndrome. My first son was born 10 years ago. Giving birth helped me to heal and helped me to open up and receive love.”
With such an idyllic domestic life, it seems di cult to believe O’Riordan would consider returning to the lifestyle that sent her over the brink.
Many of her songs are dedicated to family members: her children and her Canadian husband, Don Burton, the former tour manager for Duran Duran whom she met at age 19 while touring the US and married in 1994.
This year O’Riordan begins touring again, including Australia in October, but insists it will be with a di erent mindset. “I have been a singer and an entertainer longer than I have been a mother, and it is a big part of my identity. I want to keep my identity.
“In the four years I was at home, writing became a hobby, and that was lovely. When you are not trying and you are not stuck in a contract and you don’t think people are waiting, suddenly you get great inspiration.”
O’Riordan rarely smiles but admits it is a long way from the days when paralysis set in before going on stage with the band.
“There is no real pressure. Pressure is something we place on ourselves. When you are young you make mistakes – you sign yourself away for two or three years. It is hard to back off then.”

Thanks to gasjetter for the article images and OldieFreshGyal for finding the online article.

Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper posted a brief but positive Dolores O’Riodan’s solo album review on May 27. Read it below:

More than five years after her band, the Cranberries, quietly disbanded, Irish songstress Dolores O’Riordan has reemerged with a solo e ort worth the wait. Aside from a few artsy collaborations, O’Riordan had been keeping a low profile, working on this disc and raising her children. It’s no surprise, then, that issues related to family – love for her husband, the birth of a child – are sprinkled throughout, but the Youth- produced CD sounds more inspired than self-indulgent.

 

O’Riordan smartly sidesteps the overwrought, prog-rock flavorings of the end-stage Cranberries to focus on her greatest strength: a supple, strong voice that works best with melodic pop. Revved up by urgent guitars, sweeping keyboards and driving percussion – not to mention some nicely cinematic songwriting – O’Riordan takes on everything from romantic love (”Apple of My Eye”) to a death in the family (”Black Widow”) in a muscular fashion.

 

– Nicole Pensiero

The UCSD Guardian, newspaper of the University of California students, posted its “Are you listening?” review on May 10. Here’s the article:

The Cranberries were never the paramount wordsmiths in the biz, but their catchy-sweet songs also never failed to iron-brand our brains – nor the adult alternative niche of the 1990s, a scene the Irish band largely and so graciously helped carve out.
Lead singer Dolores O’Riordan, responsible for Cranberries tracks like “Dreams” and “Linger,” with which we have fierce love/hate relationships to this day, preserves that same elemental formula in her solo venture: primitive lyrics and a beguiling beat. O’Riordan clearly dragged some songwriting baggage into her new hurricane of haunting cries, occasionally upset by “Zombie”- like guitar crunches.
The problem is not only that it’s impossible for O’Riordan to be anything but “the lead singer of the Cranberries,” but also that her evident attempt at personal poignance is turned futile by elementary and predictable rhymes. I don’t know if the boys had a hand in editing her lyrics when she wrote for the band, but perhaps their presence would have been helpful here: The songstress sinks into such methodical triteness – “As the days go by/ The apple of my eye,” “Another lonely night in December/ It is the time of year people remember” – that it doesn’t even come as much of a shock when she rhymes the word “sea” with itself. In its old age, O’Riordan’s breathy Celtic yodel reaches new heights of sermonic insight: “Don’t let life consume you/ It could eat you up inside,” she projects in all seriousness.
On the album cover, the 35-year-old looks more chic than ever, sporting sleek black hair and a pea coat – a drastic departure from her Cranberries pixie cut and tomboy garb – but, unfortunately, her craft has not undergone the same maturing process. Sorry, O’Riordan – you may know “life is more intricate than it seems,” but your art is not. And congratulations, all you fading adult contemporary radio stations – you can finally take those old Cranberries staples out of rotation for a new breed of brilliance.

iafrica.com (”one of South Africa’s leading news and information websites”) posted its “Are You Listening?” review on June 1, which refers to the “small” changes that Dolores has made since The Cranberries era. Read the entire article below or by clicking here.

Although she was the last to join, it didn’t take long for Dolores O’Riordan to take control of The Cranberries. As their singer/chief songwriter/lyricist/keyboard player/guitarist she did virtually everything apart from clean the toilet on the tourbus. No surprise then that, despite featuring new musicians and appearing five years after her band faded away, her debut solo album sounds more than a little familiar.
But there are some small, important, changes.

That voice is still unmistakable but no longer has just two default settings: sweet and piercing. The songs still shift between innocent ballads and hard rockers that continue to recycle the grungy guitar riff introduced on ‘Zombie’, but the new backing musicians sound more dynamic and powerful. The trademark vocal gymnastics (“ooh ooh, aah aah”, “doo doo doo doo”) are still there but lyrically she doesn’t try so damn hard.

It’s probably the most striking change, with O’Riordan moving away from making brash political or social statements that just sounded stupid and ignorant (“At times of war, we’re all the losers, there’s no victory, We’ll shoot to kill and kill your lover, fine by me,” she sang so insightfully ten years ago on ‘Warchild’).

Instead she’s returned to the more personal, introspective lyrics and sense of innocence that provided the heart of The Cranberries’ never-bettered debut album. Now it’s all about relationships, emotions, birth, death and nostalgia again.
Despite its trite message of “be yourself”, bouncy first single ‘Ordinary Day’ is a sincere tribute to her youngest daughter; the sinister Tori Amos flavoured ‘Black Widow’ which explodes into full-blown yelling is about her mother-in-law’s losing battle with cancer; the familiarity of ‘Angel Fire’ is rendered irrelevant by its surprisingly inspirational yet religion-free message inspired by meeting Pope John Paul II.

And the high octane ‘When We Were Young’ is obviously about her childhood but for the first time since 1994 O’Riordan’s lyrics are obscure enough for them to be interpreted on many levels.

So when Therapy? drummer Graham Hopkins, Whitesnake bassist Marco Mendoza and The Cranberries tour guitarist Steve Demarchi tear into ‘Stay With Me’ it’s easy to identify with the brooding tale of obsession, or understand the venom of the punchy ‘Loser’.
But this is still the same woman who preached about “their tanks and their bombs, And their bombs, and their guns”, and she can’t resist a bit of lecturing most notably on the ill-advised Celtic-flavoured ‘Human Spirit’. “Don’t let life consume you,” she advises, “it could eat you up inside”. Thanks.

Slips like these notwithstanding ‘Are You Listening’ is a mature album that clearly reflects O’Riordan’s growth as a person, if not a musician. And, looking back at the latter days of The Cranberries, it’s certainly the best album she’s produced since ‘No Need To Argue’.

The Knoxville News Sentinel newspaper reviewed “Are You Listening?” on May 25 and gave it 1 out of 2 rating. The article is below:

Dolores O’Riordan (Sanctuary)
Rating: 1/2
Some 14 years ago, The Cranberries asked, “Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?,” with the title of their debut album, and it turns out they could: Over the next half decade, the band from Limerick, Ireland, posted a string of hits and platinum albums.
Eventually, enthusiasm for The Cranberries dried up, and now the group’s lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan, asks, “Are You Listening?,” with the title of her debut solo release.
Good question.
Rock music is at a commercial nadir, and it’s always been a particularly tough genre for women soloists, not to mention former lead singers of bands that wore out their welcome.
But at the least, past fans of The Cranberries ought to give O’Riordan a chance. The singer who gave voice to such delicate songs as “Dreams” and “Linger” and was a woman possessed belting through “Zombie” and “Salvation” is in as strong form now as she was for all those hits.
If anyone is indeed listening, O’Riordan has several chart possibilities on her solo release, which was co-produced by Youth and is a natural progression from The Cranberries’ modern-rock sound. That includes the first two tracks – the pop- rock dreamscape “Ordinary Day” and the more urgently buzzing “When We Were Young,” both eliciting nostalgic thoughts of her band. She also revisits the structure of “Zombie” with a “Stay With Me” that alternates meditative verses with desperate chorus outbursts.
O’Riordan evocatively uses wistfulness to sharpen the hook of the slower “Apple of My Eye,” and closing track “Ecstasy” sways with an oddly e ective combination of sensuality and drowsiness. Plus, despite its gimmicky premise, the sassy “Loser” – with its opening line of, “I’m sick and tired of people like you!” – packs a wallop.
However, just as The Cranberries often got bogged down in the murk, O’Riordan likewise sinks into muddy arrangements and all- around tepid tracks that water down the impact of the latter half of “Are You Listening?”
Those cuts aren’t a deal-breaker; they’re more flat than detrimental, but they won’t help O’Riordan beat the odds against her return to relevance

The Advertiser newspaper (adelaidenow.com.au) posted an article about Dolores’s comeback on May 30 with a beautiful picture of the singer.

Dolores is back
At one time in the `90s, Dolores O’Riordan was battling with Garbage’s Shirley Manson as the coolest chick in rock music.

The Irish band she fronted, the Cranberries had hits around the world with Linger, Zombie and Dreams.

In 2003 the band announced they would be taking time off to pursue other projects.

For their enigmatic frontwoman, that meant spending time thinking about things other than music; such as raising a family.

But during the time off O’Riordan found herself writing songs and is now back with her debut solo album, Are You Listening?

The Irish singer says after the Cranberries it was relief to get back to regular life.

“The writing became a hobby in the background, it took a backseat to parenthood and being a person and being a human being,” she says.

“My priorities were taking the kids to school and being a mum and being a daughter and being a sister. Just spending a lot of that time with my family that I’d probably lost a lot of, touring with the Cranberries.”

O`Riordan says inspiration for her songs comes from her day to day life and recording the new album was a much more home-grown process than any of the recording she did with the Cranberries.

“I always use my songwriting as a therapuetic kind of thing. We would work from my house and it was very relaxed, a very organic process.”

Are You Listening? (Shock) out now.

Contactmusic.com reported on May 25 that Dolores O’Riordan thanked the Adams’s Sandler movie “Click”, where she had a cameo role and sang “Linger”, for reminding her how much she missed the musical scene.

Former THE CRANBERRIES star DOLORES O’RIORDAN has thanked ADAM SANDLER’S film CLICK for convincing her to make a musical comeback. The Irish star – who left the band in 2003 after su ering a nervous breakdown – had a cameo role as a wedding singer in the 2006 movie and admits landing the part persuaded her to return to the entertainment industry. She says, “I went over to Los Angeles and spent 10 days on the Sony lot there for the cameo and I had a riot. I really enjoyed it, and I thought: ‘I miss this stu ’. “After that I realised that I should probably go back to the old entertainment world again.”

The Irish Voice newspaper published a positive review for Dolores O’Riordan’s “Are You Listening?” on May 24:

Listen Up! O’Riordan’s Still a Star
IT’S always a fun parlor game to dissect the sound of your favorite band when they hit the wall and the individual players release solo CDs.
Lennon and McCartney parted ways and began making music of their own, and even a casual listener heard a clear distinction between John’s bile and Paul’s sugar that made the bones of the tart pop that is the body of the Beatles work.
When Mick and Keith had their infamous spat in the 1980s, the ingredients of their successful sound were laid bare in both Jagger’s contemporary yet glossy pop CDs and the gloriously ramshackle blues of Richard’s Talk Is Cheap disc.
With Are You Listening?, the new CD from Dolores O’Riordan, the secrets of the Cranberries addictive pop rock sound are laid bare for all to analyze.
What a sonic feast it is! There is not a bad track on the 13 songs that make up this disc, and many of them stand alongside the greatest hits of the Cranberries’ mid-1990s heyday
If her interviews leading up to the record’s release are to be believed, Dolores has gone to hell and back since the Cranberries have been on hiatus. Burned out from fame and paparazzi, the singer admitted to the Irish Voice a few months ago that Are You Listening? was a hard-fought trip back into the spotlight.
“Ordinary Day” is the opening track, and it is an alternative rock masterpiece brimming with the kind of optimism seen around this time of year, when the school bell ushers in the start of summer break.
“This is just an ordinary day/wipe the insecurity away/I can see that the darkness will erode/looking out the corner of my eye/I Can see that the sunshine will explode/far across the desert in the sky/beautiful girl, won’t you be my inspiration?” she sings.
“This was my first career break ever. I took four years o , and it allowed me to get my feet on the ground,” she says on the prerecorded audio files posted on her o cial website.
The exuberant tone on tracks like “Ordinary Day” and the sexy shu e of “Accept Things” is truly infectious, but the good feelings are fleeting.
Over a grumbling bass line, she sings bitterly that “the summer is over and I am going through changes” on “October.”
“When We Were Young” is a wistful look at better days; it’s a ca einated cousin to No Need to Argue’s “Ode to My Family.” O’Riordan’s trademark banshee yodel is front and center in the mix, and its ability to illicit goose bumps in the listener is as potent as ever.
“Black Widow” is a beautifully creepy track built on a tentative piano tinkle. “It’s a metaphor for cancer and watching my mother-in-law dying slowly,” she explains. “It was a slow three month experience and very sad to see any human being go through it, particularly someone so loving and kind.”
Waiting for her lover/crying in her bedroom/over and over she calls,” O’Riordan whispers. Before long, the gauzy haiku prose gives way to an ornery metallic ri that electrifies the song with spine tingling results.
It might be a metaphor for illness, but this is a relentless rocker nonetheless. If the James Bond is looking for a killer song for the next installment of their franchise, they would be well advised to name their next flick “Black Widow.”
“Human Spirit” is based on a similar piano vibe, but it is tricked out with fuzzy drums and Middle Eastern flutes that usher in an orchestral pop arrangement. “Don’t betray your lover/you will just betray yourself/is there emptiness inside?” she warns.
“‘Human Spirit’ is about respecting yourself and being true to yourself,” she explains. “In a way, the song is saying that we all have one chance and we kind of mess up when we take things for granted. It’s kind of saying you’ve gotta count all of your blessings and appreciate it.”
Cranberries fans might feel like they’ve been left in the lurch with the band in hiatus, but they should count their own blessings for the great music coming out of the band’s camp recently.
Like Dolores, Cranberries guitarist Noel Hogan has branched out into solo work. His Mono Band samples electronica, pop textures from around the world, and a revolving door of singers to create an organic band sound on their debut CD that is completely addictive.
“We left it three years ago and we agreed to go our separate ways and see where we go at some point,” he said when I asked him the question about the Cranberries’ future last month.
With his experimentations fueling the creative fire and O’Riordan’s knack for writing killer pop tunes still intact, as is evidenced on Are You Listening?, the Cranberries will be a force to be reckoned with if they decide to compete for chart gold
In the meantime, feast your ears on Dolores’ disc. It’s mature, introspective, and kicks like a mule.
Are you listening? You’d be a fool not to!

TheCelebrityCafe.com, who claims to be the Internet’s longest running entertainment magazine, published their “Are you listening?” review on May 22. You can read it below:

Dolores O’Riordan’s solo album, Are You Listening, has been a long time coming. Though The Cranberries broke up following their 2001 album, Wake Up and Smell the Co ee, O’Riordan’s vocal stylings didn’t retreat into the woodwork. She collaborated with artists in other countries such as Germany’s Jam and Spoon and Italy’s Zucchero. But for her long awaited solo attempt, she sought production help from Youth, who has also produced albums for The Verve and U2. O’Riordan’s sweet and resonate voice will delight fans who have missed her songbird timbre.
“Ordinary Day” has both O’Riordan’s voice and the guitar echo in the intro. Then, drum work enters the mix as she expounds how she has found her muse in one person, and how they shouldn’t be so careless with their a ection, with lyrics like, “This is just an ordinary day. Wipe the insecurities away. I can see that the darkness will erode. Lookin’ out the corners of my eye. I can see that the sunshine will explode. Far across the desert in the sky. Beautiful girl. Won’t you be my inspiration. Don’t you throw your love around. What in the world, what in the world could ever come between us? Beautiful girl. Beautiful girl. I’ll never let you down.”
On “When We Were Young,” O’Riordan talks about how things seem so di erent when one’s age isn’t such a high number. Experiences seemed more defined, and the sensations were heightened, as O’Riordan croons lines like, “Funny how things just tasted better when we were young. When we were young. Funny how things just seemed so easy when we were young. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long day. I wanna get out. I wanna go home…I wanna get out. I wanna go home.” It seems O’Riordan is hankering for a time when things were simpler, and how she felt wasn’t so sad. Her voice as she utters each line reeks of despair and need, and listeners might think back to their younger days as they listen to this song.
“In the Garden” has piano in the intro which varies greatly from the previous tracks. On this song, O’Riordan croons about a child frolicking in her garden and how her disguise has broken down in O’Riordan’s eyes, with lines like, “I see you playin’ in the garden. Outside my window. Oh. You’re like your father. I see right through you. Just like your father. I thought I knew you…It’s a panic. You can’t go here. You can’t go. You can’t go here.” The song starts o with a slow tone, but then O’Riordan becomes overwrought and the instrumentation gets kicked up considerably into a frenzied pace. It seems O’Riordan is not comfortable with this revelation and is expressing it in a song that shows o her disposition as calm and collected at first, which then becomes distraught and scared.
Dolores O’Riordan’s Are You Listening will please Cranberries fans, and while doing that, might make listeners compare the situations O’Riordan is talking about to their own lives.
Reviewer: Sari N. Kent
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
Reader’s Rating: 10.00
Reader’s Votes: 3

Vanguardia, mexican newspaper, posted on May 21, an article about Dolores O’Riordan’s comeback to the musical scene. They a rm that “Are you listening?” is one of the most awaited albums in Mexico:

El pasado 7 de mayo se estrenó en Europa el álbum “Are you Listening?”, del cual se promociona el primer sencillo “Ordinary Day”, una canción que identifica inmediatamente el incomparable estilo de la intérprete, pero que poco se asemeja a lo que la convirtió en un icono de la generación “X” hace más de 10 años.
Aunque a nuestro país no ha llegado el nuevo disco de Dolores O’Riordan, puede considerarse como uno de los más esperados, sobre todo por aquellos que sobrepasan los 26 años de edad, generación que vivió al máximo el éxito de The Cranberries, una agrupación que influyó en el pop-rock de la época y marcó a la generación de los rebeldes que al fin encontraban un camino en la vida.
La cantante ha definido a su disco como una narración autobiográfica, “Es totalmente diferente a The Cranberries, jamás habría escrito algo tan personal y tan oscuro con los chicos”; y definitivamente lo es, “Ordinary Day” es una canción que en su video promocional, rodado en Praga, deja en evidencia la melancolía y la filosofía que siempre rodearon a la cantante, un video que a primera vista parece haber sido grabado en blanco y negro, pero el engaño visual se da sólo por la atmósfera depresiva que rodea a Dolores.
Para la realización del álbum se rodeó de grandes amigos, consejeros y buenos músicos, la producción del disco corrió a cargo de ella, Youth, quien ha trabajado con Paul Mc Cartney; Richard Cycky, Dan Brodbeck, Matt Vaughan y Morgan Page, quien hizo el remix de “Ordinary Day” y ha colaborado con Nelly Furtado, Coldplay y Delirum.
Su regreso se dio con la disquera Sanctuary Records, una casa productora independiente que dio a Dolores la libertad necesaria para manejar ella misma su carrera y proponer su propio estilo, sin exigirle que siga pareciéndose a aquella de los años 90.
Los cambios han sido radicales, es una mujer madura, no oculta en absoluto su edad, ya no luce como aquella muchacha extremadamente delgada que usaba el pelo casi a rapa, su look es totalmente neutral, dejó de lado las excentricidades, usa el cabello a ras del hombro, lo cual es sorprendente, sonríe más, es madre de tres hijos y lo que la sigue acompañando es su inseparable guitarra.
Dolores es más elegante y más fina, pero no ha perdido el toque rockero.
¿Y The Cranberries?
Muchas cosas han cambiado con el tiempo, la última producción musical de ella y la banda fue “Wake Up and Smell de Co ee”, editada en 2001, después de eso Dolores colaboró en diferentes proyectos, participó con una canción en el sound track de “Spiderman 2”, pero nunca dejaba claro si el grupo volvería a unificarse para realizar un nuevo disco.
A la fecha las incógnitas siguen siendo las mismas y su debut como solista sólo refuerza la idea de que para verlos reunidos de nuevo aún falta mucho tiempo, si es que eso llega a suceder.
Su separación, no fue un desencuentro de opiniones, ni el resultado tortuoso e inevitable de una serie de conflictos irreconciliables, Dolores había enfrentado diferentes problemas de salud a lo largo de su carrera, su constante batalla contra la anorexia era muy popular, pero sobre todo su matrimonio y maternidad requerían que ella alejara los pasos del escenario, para encaminarlos hacia una vida más relajada y 100 por ciento familiar.
La semana pasada, estuvo en Hong Kong y no pudo evitar los cuestionamientos respecto a la separación de la banda.
La cantante no descartó que vuelvan a trabajar juntos, incluso comentó que el hecho de trabajar como solista, no la aleja de su pasado, mucho menos de sus buenos amigos, pero no concluyó, ni cómo ni cuando, The Cranberries regresará a la escena musical.

Dolores O’Riordan [finally] got her driving license in Canada. World Entertainment News Network reported on May 19:

Former The Cranberries star Dolores O’Riordan is celebrating after passing her driving test in Canada.
The Irish singer, who is married to Canadian Don Burton, took her test in freezing temperatures in her adopted second home recently.
She tells Mojo magazine, “It was challenging… 20 degrees below and in about five feet of snow on the wrong side of the road.”

Barnet Times (UK) newspaper published a Dolores O’Riordan’s “Are You Listening?” review on May 17. If you want, you can read it below:

The name rings a bell, but its only when the music kicks in, does it all make sense. O’Riordan was, of course, the lead singer of the Nineties success story The Cranberries.
Once you hear that distinctive voice and trademark vocal key changes, it’s like she’s never been away, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.
Her debut solo album falls short because it sounds exactly like The Cranberries of ten years ago – folk-tinged, melodic rock powered by that crystalline voice – and it’s all rather dull and uninspiring.
Her voice may have been O’Riordan’s blessing, but halfway through AYL it begins to prove her curse; I was left stretching for the volume control as she grated like fingernails being run down a blackboard.
There are some bright moments, namely Loser, which catches the attention with a razor-sharp hook, and final track, Ecstasy, is a slow burner that shows a gentler side, but it’s hardly been worth the wait.