Straight Talk: Sinead O'Connor on Her Marriage, Her Sexuality, and Her New Album of Traditional Irish Music. (Music)

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Sinead O'Connor electrified the MTV generation when she entered our consciousness, beautifully buzz-cut and brazen, in the video for her 1990 Prince-penned hit single "Nothing Compares 2 U" (still a guilty pleasure, admit it). She solidified her rebel-with-a-cause stares when she ripped up a photo of the pope on Saturday Night Live, stating defiantly, "Fight the real evil," making her a hero to some and a subject of front-page controversy worldwide. Almost a decade later, people still can't stop talking about it. O'Connor has continued to make beautiful music, but reports about her personal life, including that she had come out as a lesbian, have since overshadowed her modestly selling CDs and film cameos (notably, playing the Virgin Mary in Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy).

Regardless, O'Connor's gay and lesbian fans have remained loyal to and interested in one of the true punk individualists. Now off the major labels, O'Connor has recorded a lush album of Irish folk songs, Sean-Nos Nua, perhaps an indication of a new sense of contentment and clarity. The Advocate sat down in New York with the painfully shy, still buzz-cut enchantress to set the …