"I bleed the blood of Jesus over you," declares Sinéad O'Connor on "Take Off Your Shoes," a gospel-rock indictment targeting the recent Catholic Church child-abuse scandals. From a singer who tore up the pope's photo on Saturday Night Live and who tends to get filed under "bat-shit crazy," the viscera isn't surprising. What may be is the empathy, wit and beauty on this focused LP. The naughty reggae-folk "4th and Vine" channels the Dixie Cups' "Going to the Chapel," and "Queen of Denmark" is a wickedly hilarious lover's rant. On the power ballad "I Had a Baby," O'Connor cops, "I was always crazy" – true, perhaps. But it's a condition still fueling fierce art.

Listen to "Take Off Your Shoes":

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“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.