Scott Walker

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Scott Walker (born Noel Scott Engel; January 9, 1943) is an American singer who has lived and worked in England since 1965. Originally discovered by Eddie Fisher and cast as a late-50s teen idol under his real name, he formed The Walker Brothers in the early ’60s and performed Phil Spector-influenced ballads. In 1967 the band broke up and Scott (taking the band’s name for his own) began a solo career. His heavily orchestrated versions of songs by Jacques Brel and others, delivered in a crooning style, became immensely popular in Britain and continental Europe. Since the 1970s his output has been sporadic, first touching on country and MOR sounds, then briefly rejoining The Walker Brothers, before heading off into experimental music, yet continuing critical respect to the present day.

His albums “Tilt”, The Drift” and “Bish Bosch” differ a lot from his earlier work.
His current artistic direction is extremely avant-garde and has been described as the “sound of nightmares”.

His musical evolution is examined in the acclaimed documentary film “Scott Walker - 30 Century Man” in which Walker gives a very candid interview about his creative process and allows access into the meat-punching and box-bashing recording sessions for 2006’s “The Drift.”

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  • exSpectacularrr

    To put it more succinctly, when we say something like "Well, she has a nice personality," we all know from context and experience that it's not a compliment and has nothing to do with her personality. You won't find that in the dictionary, though. /end usage rant

    6 Jun 10:48pm Reply
  • exSpectacularrr

    To make a parallel example: Dictionaries only recently revised the definition of "nauseous" to account for the fact that most people "misuse" that word to mean "I feel sick," as in "I feel nauseous." However, the original meaning was/is "something that causes sickness." Thus "I feel nauseous" should mean "I cause you illness." Which is a distinction people who are feeling nauseous don't give a shit about. As any linguist will tell you, dictionaries describe how people talk now, they don't dictate how they should talk. So it's one thing to pick at the meanings of words when you're in a freshman linguistics or philosophy class, but when you're just being a circumscribed ass about some "definition" that flies in the face of how everyone else uses that phrase, the end result is not that you look smarter (even if your little choir agrees with you and sings back your praises). The end result is merely that you look like a stuffy ass. So get over it: He's a composer, not a singer-songwriter.

    6 Jun 10:41pm Reply
  • exSpectacularrr

    This dispute over singer / songwriters and composers is indeed blindingly fucking stupid...but to contribute to the numbskullery, whether you like it or not, the fact is that words and phrases generally convey more than just the explicit dictionary definition -- i.e., a word has connotations that go beyond its denotations. And the fact is, whether you like it or not, "singer songwriter" does imply for most people some kind of lame acoustic quasi-folksy Elliot Smith type music. Whereas, again, whether you like it or not "composer" tends to imply someone with a more rarefied, formal, even esoteric approach to music. You can point to all the dictionary definitions that you want, but if your goal is to communicate rather than to be a prig, you're more likely to convey to your mom what Scott Walker does presently by saying "he's an avante garde composer" than by saying "he's a singer songwriter by some cockamamie lawyer's reading of the dictionary that nobody but you subscribes to."

    6 Jun 8:03pm Reply
  • viniortolano

    @firefly2811 2avantgarde4you? there are lots of harder stuff out there. you only listen to pop music so it is definetly not your cup of tea

    31 May 1:41am Reply
  • nineteenineteen

    I really like SCOTT. Whose name should probably always be in capitals. Thanks.

    27 May 3:27am Reply
  • Nakkinak

    what the fuck are you discussing

    25 May 9:21pm Reply
  • firefly2811

    first four solo albums are good and even great. after that the later albums tilt, drift, bish bosh are unlistenable to my ears.

    23 May 6:26pm Reply
  • Pk_Henry

    vv That was - in a more succinct way - what a wrote here on the 6th of may. :)

    23 May 3:25am Reply
  • viniortolano

    people missused the term so much that now the definition of it became "a guy who plays his own songs on a acustic guitar". that's why i laugh when i see this tag used only for folk stuff. the guy below is right though

    18 May 5:10pm Reply
  • jazzthieve

    Jeez such a silly discussion: "Singer" a person who sings, "Songwriter"= a person who writes songs, thus "Singer-Songwriter"= a singer who writes his own songs. Not realy sure what an acoustic guitar has to with it. A person who sings and writes his songs using a piano is not a singer-songwriter? A "composer", a person who creates (composes) music. Thus a singer-songwriter can be perfectly considered a composer because he composes a song. For some stupid reason people get it their head that a singer-songwriter must use an acoustic guitar and a composer is someone more oriented toward instrumental or classical music.

    17 May 2:21am Reply
  • viniortolano

    i bet you got that information on wikipedia didn't you, silly goose?

    16 May 2:28am Reply
  • viniortolano

    singer-songwriter = a guy who make songs based on an acustic guitar? thats some knowledge right here!

    16 May 2:25am Reply
  • Pk_Henry

    The definition you give of a composer is artificial and disputable. A composer can be anyone who creates music, a composer can - and usually is - a songwriter. What you are implying is that a "composer" is someone who composes "art" contrasting with others that simply do music. A composer of sonatas isn't more musician than someone who writes rock, both are musicians in the same sense, the difficulty of writing a music isn't only sustained by the category you attribute to his creator. Of course some arrangements of Scott Walker, for instance, are made not to be played live but that isn't a specific characteristic of all those who can be inscribed as "composers", on the contrary, most composers want their compositions to be "played live". Actually, the main reason Scott Walker doesn't play his songs live may be the fact he refuses to do it. Many of his composition could be played live, as most of John Cage were.

    13 May 10:47pm Reply
  • Pk_Henry

    No. A composer doesn't write "songs" by any traditional definition of the word. He usually sends an e-mail to Zeus and then waits he launches a lighting bolt directly to his head with the exact platonic form of the already made composition.

    13 May 10:27pm Reply
  • sunheadbowed

    You clearly have zero concept of what the definition of 'singer-songwriter' is if you believe an avant-garde composer is one. A composer doesn't even write 'songs' by any traditional definition of the word. I'd love to hear you cover Iannis Xenakis on an acoustic guitar. Or even 'SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)'.

    13 May 9:59pm Reply
  • Pk_Henry

    VV It's an acquired taste. It is different to talk about Scott's singing in the 60's and 70's and to talk about his singing now. In late 60's his voice was much similar of Sinatra's in many ways, at least for me, he sings now with a completely different metric and style.

    13 May 5:42am Reply
  • KasparovDeepBlu

    V you can cure it with feels

    9 May 1:54am Reply
  • Bequeathed

    I'm trying to get into Walker, but I have some problems with his voice... I admit I don't like it much. Anyone else has/had the same problem? Is it curable.

    7 May 11:20pm Reply
  • Pk_Henry

    @sunheadbowed: Uh...he isn't? Doesn't "avant-garde composers" write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies? The exact definition of singer-songwriter.

    6 May 1:36am Reply
  • Otomo72

    http://revolutionblues.wordpress.com/

    3 May 6:02pm Reply
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