Scott 4 was the last of the quartet of eponymous solo albums that Scott Walker released in an extraordinarily fecund four-year burst at the end of the 1960s. It was the only one of the four written entirely by Walker, is pretty well universally acknowledged as the pick of the four and was the last thing heard from Walker before he disappeared from the radar screens, to resurface only intermittently and unpredictably ever since.

Scott 4 was full of the determinedly epic, string-laden ballads that had characterised Walker's previous solo work, but this was here he abandoned any pretence at restraint and, more importantly, any fear of mockery. The sleeve contained a quote from Albert Camus ("A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover through the detours of art those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened," which isn't something you can imagine being espoused by Robbie Williams), and the first lines heard on the record are: "Anybody seen a knight pass this way? / I saw him playing chess with Death yesterday." Another certifiable classic from Walker, and certainly a record no self-consciously consumptive young man who wonders why girls don't understand him should be without. --Andrew Mueller