Scott Walker
 

Was listening to Scott IV earlier today.

Forgot how much I like that album.Everybody should go listen to The Worlds Strongest Man, Hero Of The War and the The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated To The Neo Stalinist Regime).

Perfect Sunday listening , I need to get more of his stuff really.

Random fact - In the early 90s Radiohead had a song with the working title 'Our Scott Walker Song' .... It was Creep.

now thats creepy ;)

Just downloaded The Drift. Weird-ass album. Dense and will take quite a few listens to really get to the bottom of.

Scott Walker is fantastic. his early stuff like Scott 3 and his modern stuff like Tilt are so different but are both so amazingly awesome. Man needs more love.

I think I went through a phase of mentioning Scott Walker at least once per day around here for about year or something like that. I haven't listened to him extenstively for quite a while, but I'm sure another Scott Walker Day isn't too far off from me now.

I do love freaking people out with this tune;


^ One of the most chilling pieces of music I've ever heard, especially when that cello kicks in around about 1:25.

A few years ago I went to a Marc Bolan/T. Rex 30th anniversary tribute concert during which a singer named David Driver covered Scott Walker's "The War Is Over (Sleepers-Epilogue)". He introduced it as being a song by "the best singer and songwriter you may not know". This was the first Walker song I heard and it made such an impact on me (if not on others in the audience, it seemed). Soon after that concert I bought Scott 3, Scott 4 and 'Til The Band Comes In and was captivated by his otherworldly croon and quality of his songwriting.

^ He's quite a crooner, like you say, Liz.

Scott Walker's music isn't my style. It sounds like easy listening music to me, and all the songs are blending together in my mind now that I've heard the four you posted. Plus, the lyrics sound very mushy and simple.

I am interested, though, in reading more of Scott Walker's lyrics, because Wikipedia makes me curious about his writing technique: "Walker has spoken about his lyrical technique; he compares his technique of assembling images that are sometimes seemingly disparate from each other and unconnected into short blocks of text to that of 'a general, assembling troops on the battlefield."

His songs sound so unlike the military that this description of his writing technique surprised me!

An aside: when I started reading your post I got all excited, thinking maybe you were going to talk about Marc Bolan and T.Rex! :love: I would have loved to see the Marc Bolan/T.Rex tribute concert if they played T.Rex songs. Marc Bolan's music is so pleasantly quirky and feels so delightfully devious, while Scott Walker's music seems so straight-forward and conventional to me. :(

Plus, there's just something about Marc Bolan's appearance that fascinates me. He seems so pretty and natural and comfortable in his own skin, and unafraid to be different. I think I'm going to go post about him in the hot male musicians thread! :p:

Scott Walker, meanwhile, looks like my brother. I get brother cooties listening to him.

Scott Walker - Looks like Erica's Brother

http://vslam.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/scott.jpg

Marc Bolan - Looks like YUMMMM!

http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/IST...h_~1650358.jpg

Erica, I'm sorry I gave you 'brother cooties' by way of Scott Walker. :laughing: Actually Scott looks very much like my father, who had a clean-cut 'mainstream' appearance (oh no - 'father cooties'!).

I think Marc Bolan is very attractive also -- he started out as a male model, I believe.

More later...working late this evening...but had to pop in here, of course! ;)

Oh...I actually don't have father cooties, Liz! I am unashamed to say that when my dad was a young man, he was SUPER HOT!!!!!!!!! :D Even just last week, a nurse said to me, "Has anyone ever told you, your dad looks like Paul Newman?" I said, "Yes! It's true! I've always thought that!"

Really? Marc Bolan was a male model? I didn't know that.

"Also" as in "you and I both think Marc Bolan is attractive," or "also" as in "Scott Walker is attractive and Marc Bolan is also." ;) I'm assuming you don't get "father cooties" from Scott!

But back to Scott's music: is it his voice that you like, or the lyrics, or the overall feeling of the songs? Or the fact that his voice comes from his hot "looks like my father" body!

Scott Walker
 

I love Bish Bosh. Any other fans out there?

I really love the music on Bish Bosch but most of his vocals on it are too overly dramatic and monotonic for me to really get into it. I have been listening to Scott 3 and Scott 4 a lot recently though.

Have you seen the documentary about him? It's brilliant. Vocally I was a bit iffy about it when I first listened to it but upon my second time listening to it I really began to enjoy them. Scott 3+4 are wonderful though as well. I'm not a fan of the walker brothers though.

I found Bish Bosch to be unbelievably pretentious. There wasn't anything subversive or political in it that you couldn't find in the Christopher Nolan/Wachowskis/David Fincher Philosophy 101 textbook, and it's an aesthetic nightmare in the worst ways. Also, the Tiny Mix Tapes blurb for it in their Top Albums list was the only thing more self-indulgent than the album itself to come out in 2012.

Love his other stuff, though.

I didn't care for the album myself, but I feel you're being a little harsh. The albums whole point is to be subversive by being an aesthetic nightmare. While no doubt it's more than a little self-indulgent, i wouldn't go as far as calling it pretentious, there is a well thought-out, very real purpose and design to it. Really what I'm trying to say is that as music to be listened to it's not very good, but as thought-provoking art that is designed to provoke a reaction-and succeeds, it is probably one of the greatest albums ever.

Lol, Nothing new there, I'm surprised that entire site hasn't disappeared up it's own ass yet. Most everyone who writes for them is VERY deserving of the title pretentious.

I thought it was an incredibly personal album. I don't particularly care what he was talking about but I grew into the artistic direction he took.

I have no illusions that it wasn't the point, but there are far better examples of subversive art that, for one, subvert something (really, nihilism in 2012? not really the most cutting-edge political/artistic/philosophical statement). That's where I'm getting the pretentious label: it's so awfully executed and has been done to death in more sonically challenging ways (noise and early industrial, anyone?). The one concession I will make that I wasn't making before comes from a friend of mine who listened to the album on my insistence so I could know if it was just me. She found it pretty deplorable as well, but her opinion was softened by the fact that he used to be a pop artist in the most essentialist application of the term, so his use of his baroque pop stylings to create a more "serious" avant-rock piece now that's centered on decay is interesting in a, to use her words, "final installation" way. I can concur with that to an extent but stand by that it's probably never going to get another spin from me.

Well he (Scott Walker) really has got one of those singing voices that's worth a fortune.

There was a feature on his new album on BBC6 : sounds to me - sonically & philosophically - kind of like eg. an old Harrison Birtwistle opera with some drums & electric guitar bunged in, sung by a nightclub crooner. And / or something that's been more densely recorded and then parts have been subtracted away.

I quite like it, it 's really pretty good but feel a lot of it's not massively innovative if that's what he or critics try to put across (ie. it borrows a lot from BBC Radio 3 modern classical sort of stuff innit) .


excuse me now : this is my first post I just want to play with some of these thingees :

:shycouch: :wave: :band:

Listed to The Drift for the first time on earphones at work ... realised three quarters through that I'd been sat there doing nothing for over half an hour, just transfixed.

I love the early Scott albums but his more recent stuff I have a hard time with. The meat slapping and daffy duck voices are a bit heavy for me. I've not heard Bish Bosch yet though.

I've had Bish Bosch since the day of release and still haven't listened to it once :o:

This needs to change soon...

this is great sunday reflecting music...

The lyrics.

Just listened to Scott 3.

What a creamy delicious voice.

I own and love Scott 3 and 4. However, I wish he reserved all the Jacques Brel covers for a dedicated Jacques Brel tribute album, as it hampered my enjoyment of Scott 3 (my copy has the last few tracks removed).

The stuff he released from the '90s onwards was more interesting than essential to me.

Like Faulkner I always feel like if someone else tried anything like this we'd all go "That's ****." Mind you, I like it. It feels like Nick Cave fronts Frank Zappa's band. But still, I don't know if anyone else could really pull something like Funeral Tango

Tilt
 

There's a need to sleep
In the shag of his stomach
Slide around his eye

I love this whole album. Welcome to MB!

me too, fanx

It was fun while it lasted.