Consumer Guide Album

Scott Walker: It's Raining Today: The Scott Walker Story (1967-1970) [Razor & Tie, 1996]
Nothing I'd read about this L.A. wannabe turned moody Brit teenthrob--going back to Nik Cohn's Rock From the Beginning, which pegged him as "top-heavy and maudlin" in 1968--prepared me for how purely godawful he'd be. We're talking Anthony Newley without the voice muscles, "MacArthur Park" as light-programme boilerplate, a male Vera Lynn for late bloomers who found Paul McCartney too r&b. Go ahead, believe Nick Cave, Oasis, Foetus, and, I cannot tell a lie, compiler Marshall Crenshaw. But I'm warning you--when I gave him the benefit of the doubt, all I got was this lousy review. C-