The Greatest Ever Pop Star - Scott Walker

Contrary, visionary, sophisticated, mercurial, prolific then reclusive: the career of Noel Scott Engel, from teen idol to avant garde experimentation, is the most magnificent in the history of popular music.

Ah, Scott... How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1) For being in a band called the Walker Brothers when none were called Walker and there were no brothers.

2) For “The Sun Ain’t Going to Shine Anymore” and “Make it Easy on Yourself” two of the greatest ballads of heartbreak ever recorded. “Loneliness… (bom bom) is the cloak I we-e-ear…”

3) For having the best hair ever.

4) For going to live in a monastery when the teen adulation got too much.

5) For the four mental sixties solo albums - your Trojan Horse baritone smuggling in songs about prostitutes, transvestites, opium dens, funerals and gonorrhea over enormous orchestral arrangements. And for them being commercial successes! Scott 2 was a number 1 chart topper. Scott 4, the best, was a relative failure. You can only trust the public so much.

6) For doing fuck all then getting back together with the Walker Brothers! Your songs being influenced by Eno-Bowie and in turn influencing them.

7) For Tilt, a record so impenetrable that I saw a review which gave it 0 and 5 stars – “we just don’t know.”

So, 7 ways then.

Oh! And for conning people that you were some crazy recluse when you were actually hanging around your London local playing darts. 8 ways. And mysteriously producing a Pulp album. 8 and a half ways.

Just realised that these aren't ways of loving Scott Walker at all. They're reasons. Oh well, you get the idea.

Comments

[laura]

Do you remember that band wot woz called Scott4? It had a lot to live up to...two cardinal rules of naming your band:

1. Don't name it after work belonging to an artist who's better than you are.
2. Don't call yourself 'The Also-Rans' or 'The B Team' (my personal fave). It'll do you no favours when it comes to reviews.

Sorry, off topic, but important.

[Danny]

He can't do Brel justice though.

[Dan]

I don't know. His cover of 'Jackie' (probably actually 'Jacqui' or something if you're going to get all poncy about it) is still the finest pop song ever. Ever.

[Stefan]

Hey everybody, look whose blog it is:
http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=americanalien

(scroll down for a pic - why not make a game of it and try and guess who it is before you get to the photo?)

(No, it's not Scott Walker)

[laura]

"The best day in my life was the 22 March 2004 when limpbizkit visited Poland...concert did not take place by one of my countrymen who thought that very funny will be ring to concert hall and say that bomb is there... To be happy of disaster ,disappointed and furious fans ... Such man like him is able to cross out dreams of the others .."

Tee hee...

[Alistair]

Wish it had been Scott's blog:

7th May: Played darts in Dog and Duck.

8th May: Wrote song about polio. Played darts.

9th May: David Bowie called again. Wish he'd leave me alone. Suggested we meet up. He wasn't keen on darts.

[Kathy]

Met him. In a street in Leeds. In 1968. Wouldn't give his autograph though.