Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan dies at 46

LONDON— Dolores O’Riordan, whose powerful voice helped make Irish rock band The Cranberries a global success in the 1990s, died suddenly on Monday at a London hotel. She was 46.

The singer-songwriter’s publicist, Lindsey Holmes, confirmed that O’Riordan died in London, where she was recording,

“No further details are available at this time,” Holmes said, adding that O’Riordan’s family was “devastated” by the news.

Her Cranberries bandmates — Noel Hogan, Mike Hogan and Fergus Lawler — tweeted that O’Riordan “was an extraordinary talent and we feel very privileged to have been part of her life.”

London’s Metropolitan Police force said officers were called just after 9 a.m. Monday to a hotel where a woman in her 40s was found dead. The police force said the death was being treated as “unexplained.”

The Hilton hotel in London’s Park Lane confirmed that a guest had died on the premises.

Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins said O’Riordan and The Cranberries “had an immense influence on rock and pop music in Ireland and internationally.”

O’Riordan was born on Sept. 6, 1971, in Ballybricken, Ireland. In 1990, she answered an ad from a local band in nearby Limerick city — then called The Cranberry Saw Us — that was looking for a lead singer.

A name change and a confluence of factors turned The Cranberries into international stars. Their guitar-based sound had an alternative-rock edge at a time when grunge was storming the music scene.

The band’s songs — on which O’Riordan was chief lyricist and co-songwriter — had a Celtic-infused tunefulness. And in O’Riordan the group had a charismatic lead singer with a distinctively powerful voice.

Heavy play on MTV for their debut single “Dream” and the singles that followed helped bring the group to the attention of a mass audience.

The Cranberries’ 1993 debut album, “Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?”, sold millions of copies and produced the hit single “Linger.”