--- In audities@yahoogroups.com, "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@...> 
wrote:
>
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Smith" <markmsmith@...>
> > 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.


I actually like TILT quite a bit. I'm still more of a "SCOTT 1-4 + 
Til the Band" guy. I totally understand and agree with the line Mark 
mentioned "10 or 0, who can tell". Very funny and true.

I like some of the abstractness of TILT. A man singing in absolute 
pain "about" nylons with holes in them (if my memory serves). But I 
do understand and appreciate Stewart's point regarding DRIFT. 

What surprised me about TILT was that at first play it was totally, 
laugh out loud, unlistenable to me. Gradually, I grew to like it a 
lot but it was very mood dependent for when I put it on. I sort of 
needed to be in a disturbed trance to fully "enjoy" it.  Sure not 
everyone sees the value in that state of mind. :)

Anyway, what really surprised me is I was recently listening to 
Walker's box set which includes a few tracks off TILT. When a few 
songs from TILT played, I thought.."these can't be from TILT, the 
songs are not THAT weird". Well, they were from TILT and I now wonder 
about the power of repeated listening of something so dense that it 
becomes "listenable".  Or I simply wonder and fear for my sanity. 
:)

Steve D