Scott Walker's Tilt: Classic or Dud?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I'm fairly new here, and don't know how often this has been discussed, so bear with me...

I say classic.

Personally, I think Tilt is the best record Scott ever did. Totally admirable for its willful experimentation and matched by few other records for sheer creativity, yet loaded to the gills with great pop hooks. Plus, Scott's voice is still in fine form. It also seems pretty shrouded in mystery to me (much in the same way as Forever Changes), which makes it all the more enticing.

So, what do you think? Is it the masterpiece I make it out to be, or a horrendous, self-indulgent mess?

― Clay, Monday, 14 July 2003 03:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Insanely great. Actually the album I listen to the most from him. I have to say that every complaint about it being somehow tuneless or inapproachable makes no sense to me at all -- I have never found it anything less than compelling and beautiful through and through.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 14 July 2003 03:52 (twenty-two years ago)

scary and disorienting

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 14 July 2003 04:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Gets better every time I hear it

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 14 July 2003 04:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Scott Walker: Tilt
Scott Walker.
S&D: Scott Walker/Walker Bros.
OPO -- Scott Walker

classic, although some days i like "climate of hunter" as much.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 14 July 2003 04:08 (twenty-two years ago)

freaks me out more than Jandek's spoken word albums

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 14 July 2003 04:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, Tilt is one of the few albums I absolutely CANNOT listen to in the dark (along with The Black Rider, Bob Drake's The Skull Mailbox, and certain bits of the first Suicide album). The industrial part that comes out of nowhere on "The Cockfighter" makes me jump every time.

― Clay, Monday, 14 July 2003 04:10 (twenty-two years ago)

An utter, complete DUD. A tired rerun of Climate of Hunter, itself fairly thin. Neither are without their moments, but the best of those hark back to the string sodden balladry of the first four solo albums, of which they're more deriative than you might think at first.

― Jamie Conway (Jamie Conway), Monday, 14 July 2003 04:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Dudes, compared to the glory of Scott 4...I dunno. I can't say Dud..but man, it's no Scott 4.

Damo_Suzuki himself turned me onto Scott Walker.

― ben welsh (benwelsh), Monday, 14 July 2003 04:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i hope i never hear this ever again

― duane, Monday, 14 July 2003 04:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh I don't mind hearing about Damo Suzuki turning people on at all. Did you see his wang, Ben?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 14 July 2003 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Scott 4 is my favorite. I like Tilt a lot but cannot agree that it's "loaded to the gills with pop hooks".

― Sean (Sean), Monday, 14 July 2003 05:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Some other kind of hook then?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 14 July 2003 06:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Contender for the most sonorous record ever made?

It concentrates solely on the sustenance of its (none too various) moods - I can hear maybe one or two hooks, but no more.

Like the Mark Hollis solo album it comes across as being so hermetic, so involved with its own monastic discipline, that it sounds like a new code for "music" - not unlistenable, but rather scarcely, intermittently, listenable. It's only when something that might be interpreted as "a hook" turns up that you can breathe out.

― Neil Willett (Neil Willett), Monday, 14 July 2003 06:06 (twenty-two years ago)

this record is so totally shit that some people think it's genius.

― your null fame (yournullfame), Monday, 14 July 2003 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

This record is so totally genius that some people think it's shit.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 14 July 2003 09:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I have nothing to add to this thread.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Monday, 14 July 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.