To say Dolores O’Riordan commanded attention would be an understatement. For one thing, she was surrounded by bandmates who seemed content to fade into the background: On four out of seven Cranberries album covers, her three associates are pictured sitting down on a couch, as if they couldn’t muster enough energy to stand. But it was more than mere positioning, as lead singers are often pushed into the spotlight. Whether she sang with a whisper or a roar, O’Riordan—who passed prematurely this week of undisclosed causes—was a live wire that thrived within the polite confines of the Cranberries. Her voice was a natural gift, but she honed her skill with deliberation. O’Riordan chose to sing with her Irish brogue intact, a decision that smacked of so much defiance, it gave the Cranberries’ softest songs a measure of toughness, and their loudest ones a lovely hint of vulnerability.
Such complexities were evident on the group’s trio of alternative rock classics: “Linger,” “Dreams,” and “Zombie,” all reaching their peak chart positions in 1994. The Cranberries racked up additional hits on both sides of the Atlantic until the close of the ’90s, but with diminishing returns: The new singles would hover in the middle of the charts before drifting away, dragging their accompanying albums with them. By the dawn of the millennium, mainstream audiences were no longer paying attention to the band’s new music. During their mid-’90s heyday, the Cranberries were guaranteed multiple platinum certifications in both the U.S. and UK; by 2001’s Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, they were only going gold stateside and silver across the pond. After its release, the group decided to take a hiatus.
The Cranberries may not have been active during the bulk of the 2000s, but curiously, the band never was really absent. They benefited from arriving at precisely the right time: at the dawn of the ’90s, when the music industry figured out how to capitalize on all possible revenue streams. While timing is certainly a factor in the band’s monstrous sales—second album No Need to Argue was certified platinum seven times within two years of its October 1994 release, a byproduct of big-box CD sales being at their peak—this finely honed cross-platform capitalism also explains why it seems the Cranberries were a constant presence on movie soundtracks through the ’90s.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Following the blockbuster success of The Bodyguard’s soundtrack in 1992, labels and studios conspired to replicate that phenomena in ways both big and small, targeting different demographics with individual soundtracks. The Cranberries popped up on a lot of original soundtrack albums—their hits were recycled on Boys on the Side and Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter), Empire Records was given the “Dreams” B-side “Liar”—but their music is in so many more movies and TV shows, it has become something of an on-screen trope. Their presence in movie trailers was so pronounced, one site joked that all romantic comedies are scored either to “Dreams” or the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’” back in 2009, the year O’Riordan traded her solo career for a reunited Cranberries.
What’s remarkable about the Cranberries’ longevity in film and TV is not only its persistence long past their prime, but how it’s limited to their trio of 1994 smashes—the songs that effectively comprise the entirety of their catalog for the average audience. “Dreams” plays as Meg Ryan rhapsodizes about online romance, as Tom Cruise shares a beer with Ving Rhames in Mission: Impossible, as teenagers reckon with angst in both the original and 2008 reboot of “Beverly Hills 90210,” just name a few. “Linger” anchors a pivotal flashback in Adam Sandler’s depressing It’s a Wonderful Life knock-off Click, then shows up in episodes of “Inside Amy Schumer” and “The Bachelorette.” And the fact that “Zombie,” a protest song written in the wake of England’s Warrington bombings, is used by Ed Helms’ character to torture his coworkers in “The Office” with his own caterwauling rendition shows just how firmly the song was embedded into popular culture: The producers could assume everybody would know “Zombie” because everybody actually did.
Much of the music the Cranberries made disappeared into the ether, yet these songs endure. In part, that’s because they are so embedded in pop culture’s DNA, but they wouldn’t have worked their way into our collective consciousness if they weren’t so expertly executed—a seamless fusion of producer Stephen Street’s studio craft and O’Riordan’s passion. Her bandmates are able, sounding particularly nimble when replicating the chime of Johnny Marr’s layered guitars, but O’Riordan is what makes these songs so special. She slides into the shimmering “Linger,” accentuating its dreamy, seductive haze. She steels herself for the onslaught of “Zombie,” her anger reaching a palpable peak when her voice catches on the song’s title, breaking in equal measures of rage and despair. And on “Dreams,” she summons a sense of hope and wonder that grounds the song’s inspirational march: When she sings, it feels as if all the possibilities of the world are opening up.
O’Riordan’s achievements aren’t limited to the Cranberries’ big hits, of course. Their 1993 debut Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We offers memorable moments in the vein of “Dreams” and No Need to Argue balances their inherent wistfulness with visceral outrage, while O’Riordan’s 2000s solo albums and D.A.R.K. (a recent collaboration with Smiths bassist Andy Rourke) show her sense of adventure. But it is remarkable how this trio of hits no one can forget crystallizes Dolores O’Riordan’s gifts as a singer/songwriter and captures her flinty open heart. For that, they’ll linger long after her untimely death.
