Heroes

As he settled in Berlin in the 1970’s with electronic keyboard titan Brian Eno,
they began there striking multi-layered cutting edge collaboration in 1977 with a
couple highly experimental albums that would become yet another high point in
his music career. Again repeating the artistic formula from Low’s half vocal- half
electronica avant-garde rock, Heroes serves up the strengthen sonic innovative
skills where Bowie and Eno explored during their collaboration from their stay in
Berlin. Beginning with the opening track Beauty And The Beast, the exhilarating
track set proceed with ambient force on other dazzling songs, like Joe The Lion,
V-2 Schneider, Black out, Sense Of Doubt, the lyrical instrumental classic Moss
Garden and The Secret Life Of Arabia, for whom the two rock titans handle with
high endurance and bold artistic action. What adds to the success of Heroes is
how the vocals boasts fuller hard rhythms and it’s well-conceive deeper layer of
sounds while Robert Fripp’s guitar solos provides a muscular foundation for the
electronic background, especially when it came to those relatively conventional
songs. Similarly, the instrumentals give a more vividly-paced feedback which is
well-detailed with a keen momentum, but ironically speaking it also showcase a
more explicit debt to German-synth pop and European experimental rock which
made this a winning benchmark in contemporary music. However, Parlophone
and EMI may want to include a bonus track from a 1991 CD re-issue that had a
bonus cut, Abdulmajiia, and the 19-minute EP international edition of Heroes.

The Heroes album was recorded in Berlin in 1977, above Low and below Lodger. With Bowie for the Low and Heroes sessions was his trusted producer Tony Visconti; along with Brian Eno, whose ambient music on Another Green World and Discreet Music Bowie admired. It was a time of turmoil for Bowie personally, perhaps his lowest ebb was around the time of the appropriately titled, Low. His marriage with Angie was breaking up, causing so much stress that he believed he was having a heart attack and went to the hospital. He was having trouble with his management, and was accusing everyone around him of only being interested in him for his money.

Iggy Pop was also part of Bowie's Berlin entourage, but Bowie was producing him, and that collaboration became The Idiot and Lust for Life. The bass and drums for Iggy's band were played by Hunt and Tony Sales, sons of TV pioneer Soupy Sales. The riff they laid down for Lust for Life was solid gold, and would later be used as the theme music for a cruise line commercial campaign, though sans any trace of Iggy's borderline obscene lyrics. The Sales Brothers would also later form the backbone of Bowie's least commercial outfit, Tin Machine. Bowie and Iggy were no doubt carousing like only they could. Iggy does recall, however, going into Berlin piano lounges and singing jazz standards like The Shadow of Your Smile. For a punk rocker, he always did have a golden baritone voice and would have made one hell of a crooner. In spite of--or perhaps because of--all the turmoil, it was a very productive time resulting in 4 great albums: 2 for Iggy and 2 for Bowie. China Girl from Iggy's The Idiot would later be covered by Bowie and become a hit, providing the Iggster with some much needed royalty checks in his autumn years.Read more ›

The album is as fine to me as it always has been, I am just getting my Bowie tapes to CDs.

From the Berlin sessions. David is once again re-inventing himself with Brian Eno and features Robert Fripp on "Heroes". Too bad that people these days don't understand or appreciate the heroism displayed by Berliners who endured the presence of The Wall, which was the physical presence of the Iron Curtain.

I have to admit that my favourite Bowie period spans the albums that start with "Hunky Dory" till "Aladdin Sane" although I liked "Station to Station" a great deal but truth be told up until "Scary Monsters ..." I thought he didn't really have any really bad album although if I had to pick my favourite of the Berlin Trilogy albums it would be "Low". This album though continues the same formula as "Low" with a combination of vocal tracks and instrumental soundscapes and while the iconic title track is a major highlight the album overall isn't Bowie's best work up to then although it's still miles better than anything he did after "Scary Monsters ...."

With regards this mini-lp replica sleeve (mlps) release though this is a pretty decent offering with very good sound quality and good enough mlps design and assembly containing as well a foldout containing all the lyrics in both English and Japanese. Thankfully this older release hasn't been compressed to the point of muddiness and I went out of my way to get this older release not trusting the newer releases which tend to be involved in the "loudness" wars these days.

Overall this is a decent mlps release and while this is no "Ziggy Stardust ..." it is still a strong Bowie outing being well mastered for good sound quality to boot.

Recommended!