Project 1001: Scott 2 by Scott Walker

This project leads to another gem of a discovery

May 22, 2025

Today’s selection is by Scott Walker who is an artist I had never heard of before. That’s probably because he never charted as a solo act in the U.S. But he is quite well-known in the U.K. and his second solo album, Scott 2, topped the U.K. album chart.1

Ohio-born, Walker’s real name was Scott Engel. He formed a pop trio with two other American artists called The Walker Brothers even though none of them were related. They scored several hits in England including two number ones and a couple singles found the U.S. top twenty. But they were not particularly well-known on their native side of the Atlantic.

After a few years the Walker Brothers went their separate ways and Scott Walker enjoyed great success as a solo act. In addition to the chart-topping subject of today’s piece, he released three other U.K. top ten albums. His appeal to the British public began to wane with his fourth album. As he evolved toward more experimental work, his commercial appeal faded. He stayed out of the public eye for the most part after that but contributed to soundtracks and collaborated with other artists from time to time well into the 21st century and released several works of his own. He died in 2019.2

If readers would like a detailed biography, there is an extensive Wikipedia entry for him.

Scott influenced many subsequent acts with his unique musical, emotional, and intellectual rigor. Many major English pop and rock groups indebted to Walker including at the very least Julian Cope (covered recently), Boy George, Soft Cell, Talk Talk, Morrissey (I wrote about Strangeways, Here We Come by The Smiths), Blur (also covered recently), Pulp, the Divine Comedy, and Radiohead (here’s my look at Ok Computer). Looks like I too am indebted to Mr. Engel! Other artists who can trace some of their musical DNA to Scott Walker include David Bowie (covered here, here, and here), Annie Lennox, Kate Bush (covered here), Robyn, Lady Gaga, and SOPHIE.3

The music on this album can be considered lush, bombastic pop music. Scott sounds a lot like a classic crooner in the vein of Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. And he has a lovely voice that displays power and tenderness, joy and contempt. His vocal style has been portrayed as having “flawless vocal technique, as well as oceans full of emotion.”4 But he sings about things I doubt either of those legends would touch with a barge pole. The album opener “Jackie” (a Jacques Brel song - one of several Brel songs covered on this album. If you are as unfamiliar with Brel, a major star in his native Belgium and France, as I was, here is his Wikipedia entry: Jacques Brel), for example, has the lyrics "authentic queers and phony virgins" and “stupid ass” while referencing opium a couple of times. That was enough to get the song banned by the BBC.5

With “Next”, another Brul cover, Scott sings about gonorrhea in the midst of war and includes this stark description of the horrors of it:

That voice that stinks of whiskey
Of corpses and of mud
It is the voice of nations
It is the thick voice of blood
Next, next

One of the four Walker compositions "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg" dances in some dark places while telling the story of a family man who seems desperately unhappy and searching to somehow calm his anxieties.

Stars dance at my feet
Leave it all behind me
Screaming kids on my knee
And the telly swallowing me
And the neighbor shouting next door
And the subway trembling the roller-skate floor

Fairly bleak stuff set to a soaring chorus of horns somewhat belying the unhappy material. The album is peppered with themes like this. It’s that contrast I find interesting and exhilarating. Deep, thoughtful ideas contained within a pop sensibility. I can imagine this was something new to listeners in the 1960s.

My rating:

Scott Powell reviewed Walker’s first five solo albums for Pitchfork calling him “a cult artist, more obscure than he ever was in the late 1960s but also more intensely beloved.” Powell wrote about Brel’s influence, “Walker's choice of covers essentially falls into two camps: Easygoing heartbreak music and songs by the Belgian writer Jacques Brel. The latter's impact on Walker can't be understated: Walker covered him nine times on his first three albums, and some of the most elegant expressions of Walker's romantic but poisoned worldview are his.” Using as an example "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg", Powell made this observation:

Walker puts you in the uncomfortable position of wondering whether to laugh in the first place, or to just lean back and allow these characters a glory that eludes them in their own lives.6

Richie Unterberger wrote about the importance of Brel to Scott in his review of Scott 2 and also praised some of Scott’s original material:

And his own songwriting efforts hold their own in this esteemed company. "The Girls From the Streets" and "Plastic Palace People" show an uncommonly ambitious lyricist cloaked behind the over-the-top, schmaltzy orchestral arrangements, one more interested in examining the seamy underside of glamour and romance than celebrating its glitter.7

Walker’s music is somewhat polarizing according to Andrew Walser writing for Pop Matters. He calls Walker “the niche taste to end all niche tastes”. Walser mentions several artists who admire Walker including Brian Eno and Robert Plant and then states, “Yet many others find Walker inexcusable, contemptible, and downright bad.”

Referencing our album of the day, Walser argues:

For those who decide to enter Walker World, Scott 2 is a first-rate album with 12 tracks that grow out of Walker’s peculiar musical background and lead in the direction of a still more peculiar future. Scott 2 provides a concise introduction to three aspects of Walker’s artistic personality: let’s call them the Composer, the Interpreter, and the Schlockmeister.

Walser makes this assertion:

Scott Walker is a funhouse version of David Bowie. He carved out his own space in music, one almost stubbornly unfashionable but also indispensable in the way one-of-a-kind things often are.8

I encourage readers to read Walser’s entire piece for lots of detailed analysis.

In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Wil Fulford-Jones wrote:

Ravishing orchestral arrangements drew the public to Scott, his 1967 solo debut, although those who listened closely to the jumble of covers and originals found a headily introspective record. Scott 2 continued the theme with a similar mix of material, to greater effect. The straighter covers, among them a bleak reading of Bacharach and David’s “Windows of the World,” kept Walker Brothers fans happy, but the real gems like elsewhere: in the trio of Jacques Brel songs, led by galloping opener “Jackie,” and the quartet of pieces written by Walker himself. The singer’s decision to credit his songs to “S Engel,” his real surname, lent credence to the suspicion that cuts like the haunting “Plastic Palace People” were autobiographical.9

Enjoy and listen without prejudice.
“And just remember, different people have peculiar tastes”
~ Lou Reed

Cheers!

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Charts

• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: n/a
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: n/a

Released on March 1, 1968. Here’s what else was happening:

Pop Culture

• Number one song: “Love Is Blue (L'amour Est Bleu)” by Paul Mauriat And His Orchestra10
• Number one album: Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles11
• Number one movie: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner by Stanley Kramer12
• Most watched TV programs: The Andy Griffith Show, The Lucy Show, Gomer Pyle USMC, Gunsmoke, Family Affair13
• NYT bestseller, fiction: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron14
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: Between Parent and Child by Haim G. Ginott15

Some other albums released that month

• We're Only in It for the Money by The Mothers of Invention

• The United States of America by The United States of America

• Birthday by The Association

• Dionne Warwick in Valley of the Dolls by Dionne Warwick

• Reflections by Diana Ross & The Supremes

• Song to a Seagull by Joni Mitchell

• The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter by The Incredible String Band

• I Can't Stand Myself When You Touch Me by James Brown

• A Portrait of Ray by Ray Charles

• The Further Adventures of Charles Westover by Del Shannon16

Sport

• Mar 2 19-year-old American Peggy Fleming wins her 3rd consecutive World Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Geneva, Switzerland; announces her retirement and turns professional.
• Mar 3 Jean Béliveau (Montreal) becomes 2nd NHLer to score 1,000 pts.
• Mar 4 Italian boxer Nino Benvenuti regains the world middleweight title with a 15-round points decision over American champion Emile Griffith at Madison Square Garden, NY, in the last of a famous trilogy of fights.
• Mar 4 Joe Frazier takes his record to 20-0 and captures vacant world heavyweight boxing title; stops Buster Mathis in 11th round TKO at Madison Square Garden, NYC.17

Notable Births

• Mar 2 Daniel Craig, English actor (James Bond films), born in Chester, England.
• Mar 4 Patsy Kensit, English actress (Lethal Weapon 2, Hanover St), born in London, England.
• Mar 9 Johnny Kelly, American drummer (Type O Negative), born in Brooklyn, New York.18

Historical Events

• 02 Mar Soviet Submarine K-129 Sinks: Tragedy struck when the Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129, a Golf II-class vessel, sank in the North Pacific Ocean approximately 90 nautical miles southwest of Hawaii, resulting in the loss of all 98 crew members.
• 03 Mar Embassy Bombings in The Hague: On March 3, 1968, diplomatic tensions escalated as the embassies of Greece, Portugal, and Spain were bombed in The Hague, Netherlands, marking a significant act of political violence during a turbulent period in European history.
• 04 Mar Martin Luther King Jr. Announces Poor People's Campaign: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. publicly announces plans for the Poor People's Campaign, a major initiative aimed at addressing economic justice and poverty across racial lines in the United States.19

Notable Deaths

• Mar 10 Helen Walker, American actress (Brewster's Millions, Lucky Jordan), dies of cancer at 47.
• Mar 16 June Collyer, American actress (Before Midnight, Charley's Aunt), dies at 61.
• Mar 20 Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish film director (Passion of Jeanne d'Arc), dies at 79.20