 |  | Ich, ich bin dann König ... |  |
This 2nd synth album follows the pattern of Low, the first one in the Eno trilogy, in its mix of short pop/rock songs plus moody instrumentals and semi-instrumentals. Somehow it lacks the trenchant edge of Low although the title track is truly spectacular in its powerful imagery and stirring melody - his voice sounds as human as on Word On A Wing (from Station to Station) over the wailing drone of the synths as it paints a scenario of lovers meeting beneath the Berlin wall. Truly breathtaking, this song was also released as a single in German and French versions in the 1970s. The melancholy Sons of the Silent Age has a spacey feel, beautiful lyrics and a ghostly chorus, while Blackout is harsh and discordant. I love the sax and the driving beat of V2 Schneider and Bowie's voice intoning the title. Moss Garden is a delicate instrumental, a sound I recognized later in some pieces by e.g. Autechre and Cabaret Voltaire, but the sung Secret Life Of Arabia drags a bit. Owing to it's spectacular title track, Heroes remains my favorite of Bowie's trilogy of 70s synth albums.
August 15, 2008 | | Good album, but it's not "Low" | |
Although I've had this record for over half my life, it's never sat totally comfortably with me. I've always much preferred its predecessor "Low," and with recent listens, I've finally realized why. As "Heroes" is known as the 2nd installment in Bowie's Eno-aided, forward-looking "Berlin Trilogy," and as it repeats the split pop/mood conceptual structure of "Low," (with full blown pop on side 1, and side 2 given over to lush, moody instrumentals) it's impossible to discuss it without comparing/contrasting it with "Low."
When it came to creating "Heroes," it sounds to me like Bowie had one serious classic on his hands (the epic masterpiece of the title track), but little else. So, he quickly churned out a bunch of mediocre, unsatisfactory pop songs to round out the album's pop half. And to me, the poppier material sounds detached, unfocused, messy, and rushed. Whereas "Low's" pop songs sound extremely well-crafted and thoughtfully arranged, "Hereos'" pop songs sound like bloated filler. Plagued by cluttered arrangements and oddly distant sound, the songs themselves just seem like generic ditties knocked out in a hurry. An exception to this is "The Secret Life of Arabia" with its coolly funky, art-disco vibe, which is actually tacked onto the end of the album's instrumental half.
And of course, the song "Heroes" really is a quite a feat. Texturally rich, futuristic, and atmospherically mesmerizing (w/ help from guitarist Robert Fripp), it's a beautiful and harrowing tale of two lovers separated by the Berlin Wall. No wonder Bowie felt the need to concoct an entire album around it, however iffy the rest of the material might be.
While I really like the concept of saving the 2nd half for instrumental mood pieces, and while said instrumentals on "Heroes" are quite good, they still don't quite possess the emotionally stirring and sweeping melodic beauty of "Low's" instrumentals. Whereas "Low's" instrumentals convey a sense of motion, "Heroes'" instrumentals seem stagnant and detached by comparison. Don't get me wrong, they're still chillingly beautiful and texturally lush; they just don't reach for the kind of riveting emotional impact achieved on "Low," ie., they never quite get off the ground.
Overall, "Heroes" has a fair amount going for it. Although arguably one of Bowie's better albums, to these ears it's not one of his very best. To me "Heroes" will always be like "Low's" funky little kid sibling.
May 30, 2008As I delved deeper and deeper into Bowie's back catalogue I found this excellent album. I have never been a big fan of David Bowie which is admittedly a great singer, Though one of rock's most influential figure
the quality sound is perfect I recommend this CD .
April 15, 2008| | | A masterpiece, though you may not see it at first | |
This really fits in with the same formula as Low, but if you ask me it's better. Half of it is made up of off-kilter, synth-heavy, oddly produced, avant-garde, unabashedly inaccessible songs, and the other half a collection of moody, ambient instrumentals. The pop songs are all notable, including the fabulously catchy "Beauty and the Beast"; the convoluted cabaret-rocker "Joe the Lion"; and the title track, Bowie's greatest and most famous song. Everything about it is just so perfect - the beautifully over-the-top, near-symphonic synthesizers; the chugging guitar part; the vocals; the lyrics; the melody; and especially the emotional weight of the song. It's his only "heart-on-sleeve" tune, and it achieves that goal perfectly. I don't care how many DJ's have decided to play it to death, and I definitely don't care that it's six minutes long. Anyway, I also like the dense space-rocker "Sons of the Silent Age" - Bowie's sax part is one of his best. And while the pure schizophrenia of "Blackout" would fail if it was anyone else's songs, schizophrenia is just part of Bowie's routine, and it works perfectly for him. Then it's onto the almost entirely instrumental second side, where Bowie abandons any pretense of being commercial. "V-2 Schneider" is awesome, riding a beautiful synth riff along the same line as that from the title song and adding a great sax part, presumably played by Bowie himself. "Sense of Doubt", with its menacing piano motif, is pretty cool too. It's true that it's not a significant progression from Low, but what it, and the sound collage in general, does is perfects the formula set by Low. And while it's true "Sense of Doubt" is pretty much just piano motif and accompanying churchy synthesizer part, I like both of those themes so much it doesn't matter to me. Flowing right into it is a beautiful slab of Eastern mysticism, "Moss Garden". And Bowie plays a brilliant sax on "Neukoln". The weakest song on the record - and by "weakest", I mean in the sense that "I'd rather have steak than ribs" - is the funky "Secret Life of Arabia", and even that's good fun, although it's totally anticlimactic coming after the instrumental suite. This isn't an easy album to digest, though. The first few times I heard this record, it left me cold outside of the first three songs. But now that I've given it several months to make its mark, it's my favorite Bowie record.
February 1, 2008This one is boring and absolutely overrated... you can hear Bowie's best work in "The Man who Sold the World", "Hunky Dory" and "Ziggy Stardust"... even in "Aladdin Sane", but not here... (Don't believe in those who say that "Heroes" and "Low" are Bowie's wonderful masterpieces only because of Brian Eno... don't get fooled!)...
January 23, 2008More reviews at Amazon.com ...
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