The Lion And The Cobra
by Sinéad O'Connor
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Sinéad O'Connor bestography
The Lion And The Cobra is ranked 2nd best out of 15 albums by Sinéad O'Connor on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Sinéad O'Connor is I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got which is ranked number 1065 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 1,652.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
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The Lion And The Cobra track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 81 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
The Lion And The Cobra rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 4 hours ago)
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The Lion And The Cobra ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 214 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 08/11/2026 08:30 | JamesMowbray | 5,643 | 69/100 |
| ! | 07/28/2026 00:21 | xhitmanx | 1,573 | 75/100 |
| ! | 07/04/2026 11:34 | Pluto11 | 12,259 | 72/100 |
| ! | 05/16/2026 18:55 |  CharlieBarley | 3,270 | 81/100 |
| ! | 05/09/2026 21:55 | Smith | 262 | 85/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 77.8/100, a mean average of 77.3/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 78.0/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.4.
The Lion And The Cobra favourites
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The Lion And The Cobra comments
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jeremy9 09/27/2019 11:35 | #243110
This is her best album
RoundTheBend 04/22/2016 05:17 | #164266 | TOP COMMENT
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Really dig Mandinka, but the rest I just don't connect with. It's not bad, just not my thing.
Ever since this album I follow Sinéad. This is one of her best albums.
Luvulongtim 03/10/2014 14:34 | #105888 | TOP COMMENT
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Enchanting and haunting debut that just keeps sounding better with each listen. By far her greatest effort. (Edited)
Though her subsequent work often leaves me cold, O'Connor's debut is a brilliant, eclectic collection in which even the love songs, such as the gorgeous "Just Like U Said It Would B," sound fiery and raw. "Troy," one of the finest songs of the decade, is a devastating entreaty to an ex-lover she can't—or won't—shake free of. "Drink Before the War" is a passionate anti-war cry housed in a lovely ballad. "I Want Your (Hands On Me)" is a lusty little dance, catchy and about as subtle as the title would suggest. Songs such as "Jackie," "Just Call Me Joe," "Mandinka," "Never Get Old," and "Jerusalem" show an extraordinary array of subjects, styles and influences. These songs are deep and literate and often sound as if they cost O'Connor a piece of her soul to get them on record. (Edited)
With this album, Sinead O'Connor combines hard-rock riffs, discordant electronics, neoclassical arrangements, funk grooves and hip-hop. These elements emphasize the full impact of her expressive and 'acrobatically' intense emotionally charged vocals that fuse Gregorian chants, African-American spirituals, Celtic ballads, middle-eastern Litanies and Laurie Anderson's and Meredith Monk's experiments on the human voice. The result is a masterpiece of an album that resembles a hallucinatory psychodrama that exudes vulnerability and loneliness.
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