"Heroes" (1977)
Second in the “Berlin Trilogy” and the only one of the three to be actually recorded in Berlin, about five hundred yards from the Berlin Wall, this album yielded Bowie one of his most famous and iconic and successful singles in the title track. It also featured the first contributions of King Crimson's Robert Fripp, and continued Bowie's exploration of Krautrock and ambient sounds and textures.
We kick off on what would become the first single, but be far eclipsed by the second, and “Beauty and the Beast” seems to me something of a predecessor to later tracks like “Scary Monsters” and “Fashion”, with a thumping beat and a sense of bouncy melody, the vocal somewhat harsh and almost metallic at times. Fripp's guitar growls and squeals here, lending the song a very rocky aspect, and it's far more uptempo than the previous album from the outset. High-pitched almost screaming backing vocals contrast nicely with Bowie's lower register, and though the song is a shade repetitive it's a good opener. Guitar also drives “Joe and the Lion”, reminding me more of elements from
Aladdin Sane and
Ziggy Stardust. Bowie's vocal is a little more tortured here, kind of howling at times, more sort of odd backing vocals and a fine solo, and we're into the standout on the album, the title track and the one everyone has heard at one time or another. I really don't think I need to describe “Heroes”, so I won't. It's one of my alltime favourite Bowie songs, and if you don't know it, then get out from under that rock and go listen to it: you'll be doing yourself a massive favour.
“Sons of the Silent Age” has a vaguely Arabic flavour to it, opening for once on horns and not guitars, and reminds me a little of “Drive in Saturday”, a slow song that seems for once to capture Bowie's cockney London accent at the start, before he ascends into a “grander”, more classic Bowie vocal for the chorus, backed this time by a more Beach Boys style vocal. There's certainly a few smatterings of progressive rock in this too, and a kind of look back to the likes of Sinatra and Bennett in the almost lounge-like singing. By contrast, “Blackout” is an uptempo rocker, again guitar-centric, recalling the best of Mick Ronson, with a pretty anarchic vocal by Bowie, the lyric spat out in rapid-fire mode for much of the song. There's a real edge of funk to it, quite a danceable tune I would expect, though I wouldn't class it as one of my favourites on the album. A thick, pulsing bass introduces “V2-Schneider” with a great horn section and some echoing guitar, very much continuing the uptempo mood from the previous song. Seems to be an instru – oh no wait: he's singing the title, but that appears to be the only vocal on it, so essentially, yeah, an instrumental and it leads into the dark bassy piano of the ominous “Sense of Doubt”, definitely recalling the darker, later moments on
Low, particularly “Warzsawa”, and again an instrumental, so that generally speaking the two albums seem to have followed the same pattern, that is, bouncy (mostly) uptempo rockers on side one, and darker, more atmospheric instrumentals forming the bulk of the second side.
Another instrumental then, but as different to “Sense of Doubt” as it is possible to be, and segeuing directly into that, “Moss Garden” features a koto, a Japanese string instrument that sounds to me something like a cross between a sitar and a mandolin, and is very pastoral and relaxed, with obviously a very oriental feel, almost giving you the image of sitting in a garden (duh!) listening to the birds and the grass and just drinking it all in. There's also an ethereal high synth line floating above everything with some wind effects thrown in too, and this track then fades in to the last of the three instrumentals, “Neuköln”, which is perhaps the most ambient of the three pieces, almost expressionism really, with a dark synth line and squealing sax throughout the track, a deep sense of loneliness and melancholy pervading the whole thing. We end then on “The Secret Life of Arabia”, where we again hear the vocals of Bowie, a mid-tempo song with some good backing vocal work. It's a decent song, but I tend to agree with David Buckley, one of Bowie's biographers, when he says the last, haunting, droning notes on Bowie's sax that end “Neuköln ” should really be the final sound on the album, and this sounds slightly out of place in a way. It also fades out in a rather unsatisfying way.
Track Listing
Beauty and the Beast
Joe the Lion
“Heroes”
Sons of the Silent Age
Blackout
V2-Schneider
Sense of Doubt
Moss Garden
Neuköln
The Secret Life of Arabia
Like I said, basically a continuation of
Low – possible even to dub this
Low part II – but no weaker for that. The addition of Fripp works well, and Bowie is certainly at this point getting to grips with the saxophone parts. The album (or at least, the second side) drips with the shadow of the oppression of the Berlin Wall, and you can only imagine what it must have been like recording in the lurking presence of that massive, dominating symbol of the Cold War at its worst. It would probably have been a mistake to try to make this a more upbeat album than
Low, so generally speaking Bowie doesn't try, but continues the themes explored in the first of the Berlin Trilogy.
Rating:8.9/10