13. Scott WalkerScott 4
My mum loves Des O’Connor and she used to play him while cleaning our flat, so in desperation I bought her a Walker Brothers best of as an alternative! Many years later, through Graham Coxon, I heard a compilation of his solo work and then got those late 60s albums. It’s really hard for me to choose between them as I see them as one big album, but at a push I’ll go with Scott 4. ‘The Old Man’s Back Again’ is just exceptional. He’s very interesting, he does what he wants and he’s up there with the best vocally, and then there’s the songwriting. I used go on about Scott Walker all the time and I still have people coming up to me saying that they got into him by reading an interview with people like me or Jarvis Cocker and Alison Goldfrapp. I’m glad of that ’cause I don’t know what would’ve happened to him if people in the 90s hadn’t made him a bit of a cause. Now if you can sit through a Scott Walker album you probably deserve a medal, but I’d love to hear him sing something like Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘The Killing Moon’. Imagine that.
