TESTY Sinead O'Connor has endured some difficult partnerships, picking fights with God, the last Pope, the music industry, her hair, her family, Ireland, England, U2, Bob Dylan, herself.

Yet even more than her fellow voices for hire, Cocteau Twin Liz Fraser and the late Kirsty MacColl, the Irish malcontent has a list of collaborators longer than Guy Fawkes.

While working on her startling debut album, she first came to attention guest-singing the ethereal Heroine for U2 guitarist The Edge's soundtrack to the 1986 movie Captive.

Such fruitful relationships have studded her erratic career, her mermaid vocals as suited to the fevered trip-hop of Massive Attack's Special Cases as the dub reggae of Jah Wobble's Visions Of You, the clammy claustrophobia of The The's Kingdom Of Rain and the lullaby loveliness of All Kinds Of Everything, her kitsch Eurovision tribute with Terry Hall. Scary she may be, but they all want a one-night mike stand with Sinead.

Updated: 09:11 Thursday, June 23, 2005