Music General : Scott Walker, the musician

Scott Walker, the musician

He died a couple years ago. Strange guy. An American who got big in England in the Swinging Sixties with a band called The Walker Brothers who were not his actual brothers. Kind of sounded like Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. In my opinion those bands have an overproduced sound that tires out the ears. That is probably a psychoacoustic fact but I haven't done the research. Their singing reminds me of an organ. Not good in large doses. Their big song, number one in the UK, number thirteen in the US:


Another UK number one, number sixteen in the US:


After The Walker Brothers broke up he became a sort of lounge singer but was popular enough in England to have a career. His first two solo albums were mostly covers but he moved away from those and became the primary or sole songwriter. The albums were all named Scott but indexed, so Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3, Scott 4. I only point that out because I think it indicates some sort of mental illness, maybe autism. Scott 4, released 1969, is considered to be his best work but all of them are well regarded by hipsters. He does have a silky voice. Some "choice" selections:






After all that he released several unindexed solo albums that flopped and then a couple more flops with The Walker Brothers reunited and then they released their last album Nite Flights in 1978. I think it was the final album of the deal with their record company. They didn't write together so it was kind of like Cream's final album, three guys doing their own thing to fulfill a contract.

Scott Walker wrote four songs for it and they don't sound great to me, maybe even bad, but people in England again thought it was somehow special. It sounds like mental illness to me, particularly Fat Mama Kick. Like something you'd hear from Syd Barrett or Skip Spence. Brian Eno and David Bowie and others were blown away by it. The Lodger album was influenced by it. I think Look Back in Anger especially sounds like a Scott song.








Then he lay low for several years allowing his mental illness to fester and released Climate of Hunter. If generous I could call it impressionistic since it sounds like sketches of songs rather than a finished product. That half the songs have titles like [Track Three] and [Track Five] supports this theory. It is only listenable as a curiosity. His vocals continue to deteriorate, not like a man's naturally aging voice but something becoming inhuman. All that is left is the sound of pure sadness, always on the edge of crying.


Eleven years later he released Tilt and now he's doing sort of opera. I actually sort of enjoy the first song, Farmer in the City (Remembering Pasolini), as bad opera. I hate opera in general but this is outsider art opera that still retains some semblance of traditional music. He's like a crazy bum singing under a bridge at night to nobody. When the music swells near the end I get a feeling that he has a moment of clarity and realizes what he has become but that recognition quickly fades away.


He released a few more albums after Tilt. There was another eleven year gap but then four albums in eight years. I have listened to the one after Tilt but despite the inexplicably positive reviews I didn't care for it. He was clearly insane and what he was producing was hardly music. It is a cacophony of noise and bad singing. From his second to last album, a completely sane song by a completely sane man:


It's a mess. Who was paying for his studio time? How did these albums get made?

Re: Scott Walker

LOL!

When I saw the title of this Thread, I actually thought that it was about the Former Governor of Wisconsin.

Re: Scott Walker, the musician

"Jackie" is the go-to here for his music.
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