1001 Albums Summary

Scott Walker's Scott 4 is a pretty decent late 60s album. It’s definitely from that era, from the instrumentals to the soft way he sings. Standouts that I personally enjoyed the most are the somber The Seventh Seal, which tells a story of a knight trying to save a girl falsely accused of witchcraft by playing a chess game with the grim reaper. I also quite enjoyed Angels of Ashes. I love fallen angel stories, and Christian religious imagery in general, and this album has a lot of that. Boy Child, another somber song about a boy finding his way. It reminds me a lot of Phantom of The Opera’s Learn to be Lonely, which explores the Phantom’s loneliness and the fact he needed to be lonely to survive. I also enjoyed both Duchess and Rhymes of Goodbye, both very melancholy songs. Most of this album is very somber, and I like it that way. Overall though, a lot of the lyrics sound off and out of place. Maybe it’s just a 60s thing, but the beat of the instrumentals was off in some places and I felt like a lot of the time he was just ad libbing to fill space. I do love the jab at Stalin in The Old Man’s Back Again. Nice to see jabs at dictators. So bonus points for that. I judge albums a lot on how good they would be on my character playlists, which is probably just a me thing, but on that scale, I did find a lot of them I could fit onto those. Boy Child is going directly on Phantoms playlist, that’s for sure. Generally, this is a pretty solid listen, and I would recommend it. If you like somber 60s music, then this one is for you.