Hozier becomes first Irish artist since Sinéad O’Connor to top US charts

Hozier earned his first Hot 100 No 1 on the Billboard songs chart with “Too Sweet” and shared a lovely message for his fans.

The singer-songwriter is the first Irish artist, and the fourth overall, to top the chart since Sinéad O’Connor, whose song “Nothing Compares 2 U” spent four weeks at No 1 in 1990.

In a video message he posted on X, Hozier said, “I want to say a huge, huge thank you to all of the supporters, all the fans around the world.”

“It’s absolutely staggering. I’m taken massively by surprise by it, and I want to say thank you for your support. I’m so thrilled that you’re enjoying ‘Too Sweet,’ and it means the world to me.”

Irish rock band U2 topped the charts twice in 1987 with “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “With or Without You” and singer Gilbert O’Sullivan did the same in 1972 with “Alone Again (Naturally)”.

“Too Sweet”, which has become incredibly popular on social media and US radio, is from his recent extended play Unheard, released in March.

It has four previously unreleased songs recorded during sessions for Unreal Unearth, which was released in August 2023.

Hozier previously cracked the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2014 with the hit song “Take Me to Church”, which featured at No 2.

After the release of Unreal Unearth, Hozier spoke to The Independent on the themes that shaped the album, primarily the fears and anxieties of the lockdown during the Covid pandemic.

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“It was funny, because in some ways I thought I’d spent enough time [on his favoured themes of life and mortality], and then we were thrown into these new conditions,” Hozier said.

“So there was a lot of death hanging over me.”

“I was confronted with things that were working in my life, and things that weren’t. Things were changing and shifting. People, careers, habits, places… relationships around me were breaking down and forming in new ways.”

On fellow Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor, Hozier told BBC’s Newsnight in 2023 that he had been “walking on this road that she paved”.

O’Connor made headlines in 1992 when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on the US TV show Saturday Night Live in protest against the Catholic church, sparking a backlash.

He was referring to the way his debut single “Take Me To Church”, in which he criticised the church’s teaching of “shame about sexual orientation”, was received.

“I think sensibilities have changed,” he said.

“I think part of it is because Sinead was a woman. I think a lot of it is she was one of the first who had that courage to stand up and say it.”

“That was such a taboo at the time.”

O’ Connor was 56 when she was found unresponsive at a home in southeast London on 26 July 2023. The coroner confirmed that O’Connor had died of natural causes.