It’s not that I’m ashamed. It’s just that there’s a few things men don’t talk about very much. Mere words are hardly powerful enough to describe the sensations within the deepest, darkest parts of our hearts. Among those things we keep bottled up are the horrors of combat, the foolish chase of unrequited love, the shameful amount of tacos we eat when nobody is around to see and our unbridled, secret passion for the ’90s hit musical group the Cranberries.

Don’t even act like you don’t love the Cranberries. There’s no use hiding it anymore. The world has to know.

For anyone who has ever had any affinity for ’90s music or for anyone who was young and angsty in those days, there is almost nothing that can resonate within you like the powerfully distorted, three-chord refrain of “Zombie.”

Alongside tracks that served as epic anthems of teenage frustration and lost love were these strange, little throwbacks to ’50s pop but done with overdriven power chords and a pretty Irish brogue. I’m a sucker for ’50s pop and Irish brogues.

The singer for the Cranberries stole my heart with the first note I heard Delores O’Riordon sing and when MTV piped her image into my home I began to love her so much it hurt. And when the hurt just wouldn’t go away, I’d be like, “did you have to let it linger?” Yes. Yes, she did.

She was weird and beautiful and passionate and powerful and her voice was like that of an angel — a sweet, fist-fighting angel. (Her speaking voice was actually completely unintelligible.)

She was different from everything else the music industry had tried to market to me. When I discovered that beautiful women could convey all the heartache and angst, frustration and loneliness that I as a 13 year-old boy was experiencing, it shattered my every conceived notion of everything. I was 13. I didn’t know a lot of stuff.

Suddenly all these teenage feelings didn’t feel like the giant social goiter I’d made them out in my head to be. I got a pair of Doc Martens and I’ve been cool ever since. Thanks, Cranberries.

Rating: A+

To contact Jorge Krzyzaniak, email seniorwriter@occc.edu