Scott Walker RIP

[Sin Agog]

I like a dude on youtube's description of the bass in The Old Man Is Back Again being 'like a stranger rummaging through your backpack.'

[kalowski]

This has really upset me for some reason. I actually really liked his last album with Sunn o))) and played it non-stop for weeks after it came out. Seems weird that he was mortal, he seemed almost mythical

Soused is incredible. Bish Bosch is the only one of his I've struggled with. Most of his solo work is wonderful (and I even like stuff like The Moviegoer)

[Brundle-Fly]

That's very sad news. I honestly couldn't put any Scott Walker music on the headphones in tribute because I would be a puddle of brine right now.

R.I.P.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Soused is incredible. Bish Bosch is the only one of his I've struggled with. Most of his solo work is wonderful (and I even like stuff like The Moviegoer)

I remember when Bish Bosch came out it got unanimous glowing reviews because the critics were absolutely falling over themselves to let everyone else know that they 'got it'. So when he went and baffled everyone again with Soused I was so pleased. He had done it again. An outsider once more

[Rocket Surgery]

The Sunn0))) ain't gonna shi...

wasted on you pricks. Don't know why I bother.

To whomever was about to dip into Tilt for the first time: dooooooooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiit. 'Farmer In The City' will be the first thing on the headphones when I get back from the offie.

[Blue Jam]

That's very sad news. I honestly couldn't put any Scott Walker music on the headphones in tribute because I would be a puddle of brine right now.

Was just listening to ...Sings Jacques Brel and had to turn it off before My Death. It'll be a while until I can listen to that one again.

I was the same with David Bowie's cover of the song in 2016.

[Blue Jam]

Here's a daft little video that always makes me smile (NSFW):

https://youtu.be/g1PYT2h7QpY

[Small Man Big Horse]

Fuck, this is shitty news. I remember being a fan of The Divine Comedy and then discovering Scott and realising how much Hannon had ripped him off / paid homage to his work, and then falling head over heels in love with all of Walker's albums. I don't know why but Scott 2 is my favourite, but they're all bloody fantastic.

[Blue Jam]

Fuck, this is shitty news. I remember being a fan of The Divine Comedy and then discovering Scott and realising how much Hannon had ripped him off / paid homage to his work

https://thequietus.com/articles/12744-neil-hannon-the-divine-comedy-the-duckworth-lewis-method-favourite-albums?page=14

I stopped sending all my albums to Scott Walker after I read, I think it was in Les Inrockuptibles as well, they managed to get an interview with him, which nobody could at the time and he said "yeah, this wee Irishman keeps sending me his records - I don't know why".

Gutted.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

fucking owned

[chveik]

Gutted.

haha. poor guy.

[grassbath]

Angels of Ashes is one of the more convincing theological treatises I've heard, and it's a two and a half minute pop song. I mean what fucking lyrics. Lost count of the times these perfectly turned lines have re-centred me in the universe during a slough of despond.

Youve been following patterns and fleeting sensations too long
And the fullness that fills up the pulse of durations is gone
Let the great constellation of flickering ashes be heard
Let them burn with a fire, all it takes to confess is a word

I can recommend angels, I've watched as they've made a man strong

[Blue Jam]

haha. poor guy.

The worst bit is the "I don't know why". Either Scott didn't bother listening to Neil Hannon's work, or he did, but couldn't recognise his influence at all.

That's my favourite Scott Walker story, along with the one about how he kept having to move house because Walker Brothers fans kept finding out where he lived and gathering outside screaming. One day he heard crowd noise and panicked and called his manager, telling him "they've found me again" before his manager calmed him down by explaining that his new house was near Stamford Bridge and it was a match day... Could be an urban myth though...

76 is no age for someone who shunned the drink and drugs and groupies for a life of seclusion, is it? Fuck's sake.

[Head Gardener]

I shall listen to nothing but Scott tonight R.I.P.

[Nowhere Man]

76 is no age for someone who shunned the drink and drugs and groupies for a life of seclusion, is it? Fuck's sake.

Especially when the likes of Sly Stone and Keith Richard's have their 76th birthdays this year, its shockingly sad we lost Scott so soon. Unlike most former heroes of the 60s, he was more than capable of devising career defining albums later in life.

Has his cause of death been established yet?

[king_tubby]

Hopefully Scott's ghost is now haunting the members of mediocre 90s indie band Scott 4.

[kalowski]

His influence on Bowie cannot be overstated.

[Blue Jam]

Especially when the likes of Sly Stone and Keith Richard's have their 76th birthdays this year

Mr Jam went to see Lee Perry (83) last week...

[Custard]

Ah, fuck. Horrible news

Deffo one of the greats. Scott 3 is a masterpiece in my eyes.

RIP

[Brundle-Fly]

Ok... going in...




Plastic Palace People
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMYHm7_0sA

[famethrowa]

Ok... going in...

Plastic Palace People
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMYHm7_0sA

See this is the thing, people go on about "oh it's about suicide" or whatever, but actually this song is about me. Me holding a line to the ambitious, soaring version of myself, wanting to see the world lit up from above, encountering strange and troubling people and worrying my mother... then eventually sadly drifting back to earth and morning drabness when the bubble bursts. Funny how Scott knew all that?

p.s. Humphrey Plugg is actually about me too

[jobotic]

RIP

[Rev+]

Bish Bosch is the only one of his I've struggled with.

Yeah, it never clicked for me either.  I don't know anyone who was blown away by 'Tilt' on first listen - it takes a little bit of familiarity for it to really bloom, but when it does it's like a switch being flicked in your brain.  I stick 'Bish Bosch' on very occasionally, wondering if it'll happen, but it hasn't yet.  I eat an avocado about once a decade for similar reasons.

This might be a bit inappropriate, but when an artist who you don't personally know dies, a part of you wonders about the future works that were lost too.  I have a suspicion that we'd already heard the last from him, which is why I'm sad that he's gone but not as cut-up about it as I'd expected to be.  This is all about me, after all.

RIP.

[Nowhere Man]

From teen idol to eccentric baroque pop crooner to eighties experimentalist to avant-garde noisemaker, Scott Walker almost always remained on the cutting edge. With a singing voice often described as "Sinatra on acid", Scott Walker was ultimately one of the most interesting and varied artists who came from pop music.

He was so much more than a pop singer, in many ways he was the antithesis of what pop was expected to be. The contrast of his earlier baroque pop period and later 'avante garde' horror inspired work is just astounding if you acknowledge it for a moment, and it was pretty much all consistently brilliant and thought provoking. Disturbing, hilarious, frightening, bewildering, incredible. His lyrics could be horrific and beautiful at the same time. I don't think there are many that can match the amazing run of albums he made from Scott 1-4. But certainly it is even rarer for an artist to make a return to music that is seen as vitally important to their discography as he did with his later works 'Tilt' and 'The Drift'.

What an amazing musical life, with a life lived the way he wanted it. His best work was never dictated by what was popular, but on wherever his muse was prepared to take him. The likes of Jarvis Cocker, Julian Cope, Marc Bolan and David Bowie were incredibly fascinated by him and the doors he opened for what 'outsider pop' could represent. Bowie in particular was hugely inspired, even up to the end, when his final work Blackstar drew comparison's to Scott's 2006 album 'The Drift'.

Scott had a voice that could sing anything and have it mean something. A special intonation that was in his voice from 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore' to his final, darkest works. He wasn't a inconsiderable songwriter, too. From his days of The Walker Brothers, to his early solo success in the 60s, to the 70s/80s Art Rock of Nite Flights and Climate of Hunter, to his most experimental works of the past twenty years, he was regularly an artist to be inspired by, even if just for the way he leaped into a musical career devoid of boundaries.

[Tikwid]

This might be a bit inappropriate, but when an artist who you don't personally know dies, a part of you wonders about the future works that were lost too.  I have a suspicion that we'd already heard the last from him, which is why I'm sad that he's gone but not as cut-up about it as I'd expected to be.

He released a book of lyrics in early 2018 that included several new songs (very much in the Bish Bosch mould - featuring lines such as "a genome eternity without even a shag", "hate-fuck, free radio", "the dildo-smacked cheek of l'après-midi d'un faune", etc). I was hoping we'd get to see those recorded and released one day, but with his passing I wonder if their inclusion was due to the ultimately real possibility of that not coming to fruition.

Still though, a sad loss to music - him and Mark Hollis, two of rock's true iconoclasts, gone in barely a month. RIP.

[Satchmo Distel]

Do Americans use the word "shag"?

[Sin Agog]

Ones who've spent a big chunk of their life in Engerland do.

By the way, props to Julian Cope for putting that Fire Escape in the Sky comp out in the early '80s.  It's what got him signed to 4AD and inspired the latest, greatest stage of his career.

[king_tubby]

Got my Scott O))) t-shirt on to general office indifference.

[jobotic]

Watched some of that documentary last night, was good when it wasn't just Jarvis Coxker and Sting telling me that Scott Walker was good.

Will give Tilt onwards a go but what are the albums between Scott 4 and tilt like? Fairly disposable?

[Sin Agog]

Til The Band Comes In, the album that followed Scott IV, is worth a punt for the original material- the first half- which might as well be part of Scott V.  The rest of the album is alright covers: I dig the Michel Legrand stuff.  That Walker Brothers reunion album's crap.  Climate Of Hunter I really like, what with having a thing for old arty relics' various ways of wrangling with '80s production techniques (love that Nico album from around the same time).  It's transitional, but great.