Scott Walker

blissblogger

Well-known member
criminy jickets

stumbled on this - the most recent Amazon review of that Wire-convened Scott Walker anthology No Regrets:

James J. ********
5.0 out of 5 stars The Implicitly White Genius of Scott Walker

February 17, 2014
Format: Hardcover

Even if my review at the Counter-Currents blog hasn't convinced you that Scott Walker is the ultimate White musician and worthy of your attention for that reason alone, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the mechanics of the post-war pop music industry or just some damned fine cultural writing. It’s really quite exciting to see such implicitly White music, both avant garde and MOR, receiving serious critical attention. White Nationalists should be heartened by it, and should encourage this unexpected entry point into the mainstream by purchasing multiple copies for family and friends!

^^^^^^

do i dare look at this Counter-Currents (alt-right and nu-fash publisher) review of No Regrets?

oh dear... references to the Judaic music industry, Walker as the model of an Aryan musician, and he seems particularly taken with Ian Penman's essay defending of the M.O.R. era early 70s ultrabland Scott
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Unfortunately there is a logistical reason why someone might think that about Walker as he's always taken pains with the 2nd career to erase R&B inflection and kind of make a sound that's lean and without groove. Which in itself is v. white and austere.

Now his motivations for doing so? Not quite the same as this guy's projecting...
 

Leo

Well-known member
one of those guys who I always respected but never listened to. I think I might have one greatest hits album but couldn't name one of his songs.
 

jenks

thread death
Him and Hollis so close together - both guys who making uncompromising music and absenting themselves from their audience and just allowing the albums to exist on their own.

"Try and hear your own way out."
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I've never really listened to the later stuff, so trying to get acquainted now. "Tilt" is a real trip so far. RIP.
 

luka

Well-known member
Not listened to the late stuff other than that ridiculous comic album with sun o. Gek opel makes him sound like a ham fisted jh prynne on this thread though so im curious now
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
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CrowleyHead said:
Everything about Scott Walker is often discussed in the extremity of his music taking you to the unknown, when in reality a lot of what he does concerns things that are actually very obscured by the nature of memory. Al Jolson was of course the early 20th century balladeer who’s best remembered now for his less than savory career highlight of minstrelsy. The other Al is Jones, father of one of Scott’s early influences Jack Jones, and grandfather of his frequent early comparison point Tom Jones (a comparison that would set young Scott Engel’s teeth on edge at the frequent suggestion). Al Jones was another black & white icon, who held in his repertoire a version of the record “Donkey Serenade”. In there the allusions to punching donkeys can either be skewed into the literal (imagine the guy who asks percussionists to punch slabs of meat for backing tracks to NOT thinking randomly punching an ass would be fun), the perverse metaphorical (likewise IMAGINE the kind of maniac who makes songs like that NOT thinking punching an ass would have some perverse glee, he is a Beckett fan after all) or the obscured referential. For all the tyrannical angles of sound he plays with, so much of Walker’s aesthetic leans not into a dark future but the frayed edges of a forgotten past to modern pop. After all, most of these avant-garde/experimental classical ideas he’s been so taken with are actually follow-ups on ideas from long before he’d even started to make music. It’s hard to determine the exact meaning behind his songs beyond an obsession with the grimness of situation, and finding a level of absurdity that bemuses him. I mean, the donkey brays are either startling or purely silly depending on when they hit you, and Walker’s repeatedly stated that his songs are meant to be full of jokes, as obscured and grotesque as they might be. This is a man who for whatever reason found pleasure as an adolescent singing ballads about children’s TV hosts getting pissed upon, soldiers contracting gonorrhea in assembly and drunken bums hitting on phone operators. Why wouldn’t he find comedy in such bizarre fascinations with unfamiliar trappings?

Me, two years ago about this song somewhere else.
 
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