Who’s Cooler Than Scott Walker?

About three or four years ago, someone tried to introduce me to the music of Scott Walker, but I wasn’t having it. To me he seemed like a hip cat, but nothing I heard from him jived with my sensibilities, whatever those were.

Then, just the other night, I watched the documentary (or “rockumentary” – God I hate that term), “Scott Walker: 30th Century Man” on Netflix. Since then, I’ve been hooked on his music.

Walker is an American singer-songwriter, though he achieved his greatest fame in Great Britain. He started out in a bubblegum Righteous Brothers knock-off outfit called The Walker Brothers, none of whom were actually named Walker or related.

While with the group, Walker evolved as an artist. He took over lead vocal duties, and immediately his smooth baritone – which was unlike the majority of voices on the radio – struck a chord with British audiences. The Walker Brothers quickly went from also-rans to a media fascination.

When Scott struck out on his own and started releasing solo material, it shattered creative expectations. From the ashes of a teen pop sensation emerged a singer-songwriter who simultaneously embodied the whole of the decade while also sounding like nobody else on the radio. He crooned with a smooth philharmonic orchestra, but his delivery and lyrics were haunted. Not haunting, but haunted; as if the man himself was trying to tell you something but couldn’t quite find the words.

In 1969 he released “Scott 4,” his first solo album consisting entirely of original material. Listening to it now, you hear him fully realized as an artist. To that end he decided to release it under his birth name, Noel Scott Engel.

A confused audience didn’t even know Scott Walker had a new album out, and it flopped. Later re-issues were released under the Scott Walker pseudonym.

Unfortunately, he didn’t return to the form of Scott Walker the solo recording artist, but rather fled to the safety and confines of Scott Walker, bubblegum pop machine. He released several albums consisting largely of standards and pop song covers.

The albums sold well enough to make rent but failed to resonate with critics. Creatively speaking, Walker was lost. He even refers to these as his “lost years” and to this day he will not allow those albums to be re-issued.

Ironically, it was a reunion with his former bandmates in 1975 that led to his re-emergence as an artist. Their third and final album of the 1970s, “Nite Flights,” featured songs that would foreshadow his later – and I do mean later – efforts.

Since then, Walker has released an album once every ten years. Each one is even more adventurous and out there than the last, combining his flawless baritone with dischords, challenging arrangements, and meat.

Yes, meat.

Me? I’m a Philistine, I suppose, because I’ve yet to fall in love with the latter three albums of his career. I’m a Scott 1-4 kind of guy, and in particular I absolutely adore his Jacques Brel covers. His more devoted fans would scoff, I suppose, as they deem them worthy of appreciation but not to be held up as the standard bearer of his genius.

I disagree. I find that Walker’s translations of Brel’s torch songs bring with them a cool that doesn’t betray the emotional depth and resonance of the material. They carry weight, but don’t hit you over the head with dramatics, which is a precarious balance rarely achieved in pop music.

I’m in love with those strings, those horns, and that baritone voice that sounds like it’s come back from the dead to tell us all that life, even at its most troublesome, is an experience worthy of deeper examination and most importantly appreciation.

Below: Scott Walker singing Jacques Brel’s “Jackie” on television.

After the cut: the trailer for “Scott Walker: 30th Century Man,” as well as other performances.

The trailer for the documentary.

With The Walker Brothers, performing “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”

Performing “When Joanna Loved Me” on The Dusty Springfield Show;