Customer Reviews

Scott 3

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Scott Walker has one of the most compelling, unforgettable baritone voices in popular music. Marc Almond put it best when he said that Scott could sing three blind mice and make it seem like the only song in the world and, as David J added, it would also seem like the saddest song in the world. Though it's one of my personal favorites, the lush orchestral music on this album will not appeal to everyone. It's a style largely derived from cabaret performers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck and the production mimics Phil Spector's classic "wall of sound" minus the horns and background singers. That said, the lyrics tell the strangely fascinating stories of vagrants, transsexuals, mercenaries and other marginalized figures. In recent years, Scott's words and music have become far more abstract. But here his narratives, with a few exceptions, make the Velvet Underground seem tame.

I don't think mainstream post-1950's pop music has found a better crooner than Scott Walker. His voice seems to be capable of moving high and hanging low and losing neither its resonance nor its pathos. This is in evidence on this album in particular. I am not sure this material could have been covered effectively by anyone other than this oddly melodramatic voice that takes itself so seriously yet comes across with few (if any) pretensions. Is that even possible, really? The large orchestral arrangements coupled with the social commentaries seem perfectly executed and never drip with the irrelevance so much mainstream over-the-top pop seems afflicted with lately. This album is a highly serious affair and what is so wonderful is there is nothing tongue-in-cheek about it. Walker appears to care deeply about what he is saying and you feel as you listen (I did at least) that this music matters. Can't music be important and not simply because it is entertaining?

If you enjoy Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra and Leonard Cohen and Judy Collins, this may just be the perfect synthesis for you. Walker's voice can run the gamut from rock to pop to folk to easy listening but he's never trapped in any one genre and neither, for that matter, are his songs.

Five stars. Pop music does not get any better than this.

You want to know if you'll like Scott Walker? First of all, you have to like and appreciate what's called an 'over-the-top' performance style that's sometimes very sincere and earnest to the point of being laughably pretentious and sometimes done with tongue-in-cheek for effect. Either way, serious or not, when the song works, the over-the-top style doesn't just deliver the goods, it literally hits it out of the park. You have to appreciate very weird sensibilities that might seem somewhat square or unhip at first. Know for instance that Scott is the only artist I know of who had a number top 20 hit in the UK with a song whose chorus included the word "stupidass" ("Jackie" on Scott 2). Next, click on the very first track sample on amazon on Scott 3 "It's Raining Today" (a Scott Original) and the very last track "If You Go Away" (a Jacques Brel song adapted from the French into English that outdoes the original). Now, as you listen to Scott's super-smooth baritone croon, imagine someone with the vocal abilities of Tom Jones but much mellower and not some kind of macho poseur but more of an oversensitive, intellectual manic depressive who writes and covers songs with very weird lyrics. There, you're almost there! Like Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel, his French counterparts, he's a crooner who takes a lot of chances and does not succeed with every song, but when he does, watch out! Despite the crooning, Scott is also more of a hipster or rocker in spirit than Tom Jones ever was. His covers of Tim Hardin's songs are the best demonstration of that. "If You Go Away" & "It's Raining Today" are Scott's two best performances of ballads after the incredible "Angels of Ashes" on Scott 4 which is one of the greatest songs of the 60s, period. If you want the highest-class, smoothest back-to-back taste of the lushly romantic side of the groovy 60s, do this, record "Angels of Ashes" back-to-back with "Hood Explores the Triton" by David Whitaker (track 13 off the album the David Whitaker Songbook, originally off the Hammerhead soundtrack), then press play, it's like being instantly transported in a time-warp to an incredibly bizarre and beautiful place with a mood and vibe that's hard to imagine ever existed. Don't do this too often or you'll get addicted and never want to experience the lame, artless and clueless, backwards 21st century reality of retardation in the arts and everything else existing outside your door ever again. What the hell happened? When did real artists disappear from the face of the earth and why did they impart their secrets only to Radiohead, Swans, Beck and Norah Jones?

There are afterthoughts in our life, nostalgic ruminations that keep us suspended in precious times. These moments never really existed in reality, yet our senses recall them vividly because they're the imagery of holiday specials, of merry cheers and happy hopes. Yet, although the sounds are achingly lovely, the juxtoposition with Walker's lyrics on the downcast, downtrodden, the vice and vain creates a sophisticated (if too ironic) layer of complexity.

The opening track 'It's Raining Today' speaks volumes about the feeling of afterthoughts, painting a delicate portrait to a trite theme. The closing chorus in 'Copenhagen' is simply the most luscious example of melancholy ever recorded.

Hmmm... when it comes to it, it's rather hard to say what one's favorite album ever is, but no....this is it... I've been moody as hell all my life and no matter how mad it gets, this album is the soundtrack to it and the soundtrack out of it. Also the one I put on to calm down and think about what I need to make. Brialliant record. Never misses, from point A to point B. I have to say I look up to this man, not as an idol, but as someone, who has said things that have stayed in my mind forever.

Scott 3 is the third solo album of the uncompromising musician Scott Walker (a.k.a. Engel) whom Julian Cope called a "godlike genius." Scott composed ten original pieces for his third solo album. And many of these original pieces, such as It's Raining Today, Copenhagen, and Big Louise, are what I call the masterpieces. The music pieces Scott created for this album communicate not only the truth of human realities but also wisdom. Again, I highly recommend this album to anybody who appreciates complexity and ambiguity of human emotional life.

This is smack-dab where Scott's pop sensibilities were first immersed in experimentation. Beautiful vocals, lush arrangements and a bit of dissonance. It's a work of glacial grace -- chilly and evocative of steam from breath. And I swear the opening string shimmers on "It's Raining Today" were revisited on 1978's "The Electrician". The whole album points to "Farmer In The City". Essential!

All of Walker's work is worth getting. Now that his Scott 1 through 4 are available here at AMAZON, fans from around the world can once again enjoy his underrated musical magic. This collection reveals to the listener Walker's break away from the Walker Brothers into a world of his own, a world which later brought us the masterpieces' TILT and CLIMATE OF HUNTER. If you enjoy the works of Nick Cave, Johnny Hartman, Tom Jones, Crime & the City Solution, David Bowie and/or Dead Can Dance, I would highly recommend this CD, as well as any other available by this legend.

I suppose on first glance one could lump Scott Walker's 60s third solo album Scott 3 in with the likes of crooners Andy Williams or Perry Como but if one actually listens to this music you'll find there is much more going on under the surface than facile pop. The odd chord choices in the orchestration, the touches of dissonance, the elegiac sometimes spooky lyrics and Scott's baritone vocals bring to mind Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance more than typical pop fair. Like the best ambient electronica, Scott 3 creates an odd theatric sound space all its own. It's still, quietly powerful, slow and for me his most deeply moving album of the sixties. Most of the songs are originals with the exception of three Jacques Brel covers at the albums end. One can hear the influence of Brel on his own compositions, but I find his originals to be more compelling, more personal.

I'd heard of Scott Walker but was unfamiliar with his music until I saw the documentary 30th Century Man and I am now thoroughly hooked. One can hear his influence on David Bowie, Brendan Perry, Brian Ferry among many others. His career arc is fascinating and what he's doing today is among some of the most original music in any field. This guy deserves to be heard.

I've only recently discovered scott walker, being a big david bowie fan, I heard that he had been really influenced by Scott, so I got all his first four solo albums and it's utterly astonishing how overlooked his work is. It's beautiful music with pure poetic brilliance in the lyrics, keep yer Bob Dylan!

'She smiles through the smoke from my cigarette'............It's raining today

'They spoke transparent phrases to looking glass women
And they took the detours that scattered the way
They departed from summer like two ragged soldiers
Dragging their heels through their fantasies'.......................Two ragged soldiers

'Evenings with your mother's friends
Pregnant eyes, sagging chins
Swollen fingertips
Pour antique cups of tea'.................Rosemary

And behind these lyrics some of the most beautiful string arrangements I've ever heard, well actually you don't actually listen to these songs, you experience them.
I just hope at some point Scott Walker will get the recognition he deserves especially for Scott 3 and his masterpiece, Scott 4. Not many people have heard these albums but I think everyone who has, was inspired immensely by them.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone with taste. You won't regret it, his voice will enter your soul!