1001 Albums Summary

Scott 2 is such a paradox, isn’t it? On one hand, it’s Scott Walker at peak Scott Walker—baritone croon so dramatic it could part storm clouds, lush orchestrations dripping with grandeur, and lyrics that seem to swing wildly between torch song sincerity and absurdity. On the other, it never quite lands. It’s as if he’s standing on the edge of brilliance, staring at it, but refusing to take the final step. The album opens with Jackie, a Jacques Brel cover about a seafaring gigolo that somehow involves ass-slapping and drug smuggling—already telling you this isn’t Sinatra territory. Then there’s Plastic Palace People, this long, strange, floating piece that feels like it should collapse under its own weight but doesn’t. And Black Sheep Boy is the rare Walker moment that nails intimacy without losing the theatrical veil. Sure, Hazlewood had the gravitas, Bowie perfected the art-pop croon, and Morrison weaponized darkness with more menace. But Walker’s appeal is that he lived in the in-between. Too weird for pop, too pop for the avant-garde. That tension is exactly why Scott 2 still pulls you back in—it’s endlessly interesting because it never gives you the satisfaction of being fully good or fully bad. And let’s be real: only Scott Walker could sing about “naked derrières” with a full orchestra behind him and make it sound like high art. I don’t know if I like it, but I get a kick out of listening to it.

Spent the evening with Strangeways, Here We Come, The Smiths’ grand exit, released in 1987 just as the band imploded. It’s dark, dramatic, and strangely elegant. An album that proved they had one more classic in them before Morrissey and Marr finally went their separate ways. Even without the baggage that followed, this record feels like a goodbye, with Johnny Marr’s guitar work shimmering one last time before slamming the door shut. At its core is “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me,” the band’s late-career masterpiece. It opens with the sound of miners on strike, setting a bleak stage, before unfurling into one of the most devastating ballads of the decade. Morrissey’s voice is full of bitter yearning, but it’s Marr’s orchestral sweep and layered guitar textures that make it timeless. It’s the kind of song that makes you sit still and feel the weight of being human—proof that The Smiths weren’t just a great band, they were the band for alienation. Of course, revisiting The Smiths now means confronting Morrissey’s post-Smiths spiral into nationalism, narcissism, and outright bigotry. That’s the hard truth: the voice that once gave solace to outsiders now often reads like a parody of reactionary outrage. But here’s the dilemma—Strangeways is still brilliant, because Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce were brilliant. Maybe the only way forward is to hold both truths at once: acknowledging Morrissey’s downfall while preserving the power of the music they made together. After all, “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” doesn’t belong to him anymore. It belongs to anyone who’s ever needed it.

Pink Floyd’s The Wall is one of those rare double albums where almost every track matters. A full-on rock opera about isolation, paranoia, and self-destruction, it’s big, theatrical, and somehow both claustrophobic and massive. The songs themselves are ridiculous in their range. “Mother” is tender and suffocating at once. “Goodbye Blue Sky” turns a lullaby into a nightmare. “Young Lust” gives you the sleaze and swagger before dropping you into the emptiness of “Hey You.” “Comfortably Numb” is one of the greatest things they ever did—arguably one of the greatest things anyone ever did. And “In the Flesh” and “Run Like Hell” are pure menace, the sound of power tipping over into something darker. But here’s the rub—Roger Waters, the architect of this grand vision, has since turned into… well, let’s just say not the kind of person you want to spend two and a half hours at dinner with. Like Morrissey and The Smiths, that makes returning to The Wall complicated. The saving grace is that it’s not just Waters. Gilmour’s guitar still cuts like a razor, Wright’s keys give it atmosphere, and Mason anchors it all. They pull it back from being just Waters’ indulgence and make it timeless Pink Floyd. In the end, The Wall survives not just as Waters’ concept, but as Pink Floyd’s collective masterpiece—a strange, sprawling monument that still towers, even if its creator casts a long shadow. When you make it to those final notes, you really felt like you've gone through something. How rare is that. How great is that.