Hazel O'Connor

Hazel O'Connor, a British-born singer, songwriter, and actress, has sustained a steady creative output ever since her first major exposure playing Kate in the 1980 film Breaking Glass, even though public attention has at times centered more on her celebrity profile than on her music. The soundtrack album for Breaking Glass, which O’Connor composed herself, registered major commercial success in the U.K. and yielded several singles that established her recording career, yet she continued accepting acting parts on British television and in stage productions while keeping up regular tours with her band Megahype. Her recorded catalog spans the 1980 debut Breaking Glass and that year’s Sons & Lovers, followed by 1981’s Cover Plus, 1984’s Smile, 1993’s To Be Freed and Over the Moon...Live, 1995’s Private Wars, 1997’s Live in Berlin, 1998’s 5 in the Morning, 2000’s Beyond the Breaking Glass, 2002’s Acoustically Yours, the 2003 “best of” compilation A Singular Collection, 2005’s Hidden Heart together with the double-disc Fighting Back, and a 2008 edition of Smile. Throughout her career O’Connor has drawn on the intense media pressure and public scrutiny that attended her sudden fame as a recurring motif, examining the bewildering complexities of contemporary existence in a world shaped by mass communication.