Dolores ORiordan's last Tweet. NYT Obit

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Dolores O’Riordan, the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Cranberries, died on Monday in London. She was 46.

Her death was announced by her publicist, who did not specify the cause.

“Irish and international singer Dolores O’Riordan has died suddenly in London today,” Lindsey Holmes, the publicist, said in an emailed statement, adding that Ms. O’Riordan had been in London for a recording session.

The statement said that family members are “devastated to hear the breaking news and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said on Monday that the police were called to a Park Lane hotel in Westminster at about 9:05 a.m., and that Ms. O’Riordan was pronounced dead at the scene. Her death is being treated as “unexplained,” the spokeswoman said.

Ms. O’Riordan wrote lyrics and often music for the Cranberries’ 1990s hits, including “Linger” (which remained on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for 24 weeks) and “Dreams,” which proclaimed both vulnerability and steadfastness. She was the sole writer of the noisier, angrier “Zombie,” a response to an Irish Republican Army terrorist bombing in 1993.

In the band, her voice — high and breathy, but far more determined than fragile — rode atop a rich wash of electric guitars. Her unmistakable Irish accent and the Celtic inflections of her melodies gave her singing a plaintive individuality and a flinty core.

The Cranberries were formed in 1989 as the Cranberry Saw Us and renamed the Cranberries after Ms. O’Riordan took over as lead singer in 1990. Along with the brothers Noel Hogan on guitar and Mike Hogan on bass, the band includes the drummer Fergal Lawler.

The group arrived during the early 1990s ascendance of alternative rock: tuneful, punk-derived, guitar-driven songs that often made their way from college-radio playlists to commercial radio.

Full obit at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/obituaries/dolores-oriordan-dead.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news