Both icon and iconoclast, Sinead O'Connor has been making music, rejecting stereotypes and defying expectations for more than a quarter century. At the age of 14, she wrote and recorded the debut single for the Dublin-based Irish band In Tua Nua, then left the band because she was too young to tour. In 1990, her sophomore album, "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got," peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 while her Prince-penned single, "Nothing Compares 2 U," reached #1 on the Hot 100 and earned her a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance. (Over the next few years, she would later withdraw her name from Grammy consideration despite multiple nominations.) Her groundbreaking video for "Nothing Compares 2 U," featuring Sinead's unforgettable performance in single-shot close-up, took home the Best Video trophy at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards, marking the first time a woman had ever won the Best Video category. Her clean-shaven head, ferocity of intelligence and intent, dignified persona, and penetrating aesthetic acuity established a new template for women in popular music and culture. Her uncompromised image obliterated objectification while the unprecedented potency of her music demanded that she be taken seriously as an artist. Twenty years after she first began transforming the pop cultural landscape with the release of her debut solo album, "The Lion and The Cobra," Sinead O'Connor continues to delight and surprise, challenge and inspire with the sound of her voice and the power of her music on "Theology." The album is being released by Koch Records on That's Why There's Chocolate and Vanilla, Sinead's own label imprint. "Theology is an attempt to create a place of peace in a time of war and to provoke thought," says Sinead O'Connor about her new studio album, the artist's first since her 2005 reggae collection, "Throw Down Your Arms." "The events of September 11, 2001 contributed to the writing of the songs very very much so, as did events subsequently as they have panned out all over the world. The whole world became a very dangerous place on that day. I simply wanted to make a beautiful thing, out of something beautiful, which inspires me. Theology, the record, apart from being a place of peace and meditation, is a very personal emotional response."