----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Smith" <markmsmith@gmail.com>
> I was suspicious of the strong reviews thinking it would be like the 
> Scott
> Walker record. I don't believe that most of the reviewers had any 
> context in
> which to judge it, but it's *Scott Walker* and he hasn't released a 
> record
> in years so therefore we'll give it top marks.I did see a review of 
> his
> earlier album Tilt where it was given '10 or 0, who can tell'. At 
> least that
> was being honest. I wonder how many of those reviewers who gave it 
> full
> marks are still listening to it or are including it in their best of 
> year
> lists?

I'm pretty sure it's going to be on mine: I actually far prefer THE 
DRIFT to TILT, which is an album I frankly *still* have a hard time 
wrapping my mind around, all these years later.  But for some reason, 
THE DRIFT just automatically connected for me in a way I wasn't 
expecting: somehow, all of the freaky bits (the song with the rhythm 
section consisting of a guy punching a side of raw meat, the Donald 
Duck impersonation) made sense, likely because I had the sense that 
the songs were actually "about" something in a way that TILT wasn't. 
For such a supposedly insular, self-aborbed guy, an album that seems 
to be explicitly about the war and the rest of the current mess is 
just surprising.

For comparison's sake, other albums jockeying to make my list this 
year: the Trolleyvox, Beirut, Yo La Tengo, Be Your Own Pet, Khan 
Jamal, Barenaked Ladies, Shack, Nellie McKay, Shelley Short, Josh 
Rouse, Scritti Politti, Parks and Recreation, Emily Haines, the 
Pipettes, the Now People, the Decemberists, Beck, Sondre Lerche, 
Lambchop, Envelopes, Grandaddy, Camera Obscura and Au Revoir Simone.

Can you tell that it's been a really good year?

S