Review Summary: "Heroes" is a pioneer in the heavy usage of excellent synthesizer work, but the albums structure can often leave the listener confused in terms of the album tone.
As a man of many faces David Jones, or by any of his other names, David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack, or The Thin White Duke, the man has been around long enough to see many changes, not only in himself, but the changes in the world around him. Bowie has always been a man of creative expression through his numerous hits decade after decade, but some may argue that his music between 1977 and 1979 was his most expressive. In these few years, Bowie released a series of albums that are known now as The Berlin Trilogy. The first of this trilogy was
Low, a huge step in Bowie’s career. While the album was not musically extravagant, the dramatic change in sound paved the road for not only the rest of The Berlin Trilogy, but also a completely new revolution of music. This sound change incorporated more synthesizers in the music, accompanied by various other instruments other than the typical rock n’ roll guitar. This sound was greatly built upon in the second album of the trilogy,
”Heroes”, easily the highest point in music quality of the other two albums,
Low and
Lodger.
True to name of the trilogy
“Heroes” is so obviously influence by Germany and more specifically Berlin. This connection stands out most in the title track,
”Heroes”. A six minute mini-epic about two lovers who meet at opposite sides of the Berlin wall. The song is notorious for its powerful and emotional lyrics,”I can remember/Standing/By the wall/And the guns/Shot above our heads/And we kissed.” Musically, the song begins with a slow dream-like guitar/synthesizer duo. The guitar echoes in the background, giving the feeling of standing alone in a large empty space, a feeling of epic stature. The six minutes goes by quickly unfortunately, and ends on a loud, almost yelling Bowie singing the dramatic chorus as the song climaxes, then swiftly falls again the song drifts off into silence.
Departing from complete Berlin influence music, the most “rock” type song on the album is the opener,
Beauty and the Beast. This song is believed to be about Bowie’s cocaine addiction while he lived in Los Angeles for a year. “You can’t say no to the beauty and the beast/Something in the night/Something in the day/Nothing is wrong but darling/Something’s in the way/There’s slaughter in the air/Protest on the wind/Someone else inside me,” in context the metaphor works quite well, but as a casual listen its barely even noticeable.
Beauty and the Beast blends Bowie’s glam-rock and his new found style perfectly, allowing for a fan of his glam years an easy introduction to his new style. A perfect blend such as this was not present on the first of the Trilogy so
Low was a very hard transition for many, but
”Heroes” comes along just in time and paves the road making for a nice and pleasant glide.
The first half the album is all relatively similar to that of
Beauty and the Beast and
”Heroes”, as it is just straight up rock with synthesizers. It is the next half of the album that Bowie takes his biggest and epic step as an art-rock musician. On side two of the album four out of five of the songs are instrumental only, (although one of those four features a brief distorted speaking of the title.)
The first of this artist departure is
V-2 Schneider, the name which references the V-2 missile developed by Nazi Germany towards the end of World War II. The song begins with an upbeat rhythm featuring a heavy bass and, of course, the synthesizer. A few seconds in Bowie jumps in with his classic saxophone, but this is different than his normal sax work as it is completely off beat, but the messy work was completely intentional. Being only three minutes long the song goes off quick leaving all sense of beat music in the dust as it quickly enters the next instrumental,
Sense of Doubt. Bowie is not one to do instrumental tracks commonly because of his always so enchanting singing voice that flows so well with his music. If he did do many instrumentals it could only be hoped that they contained the same powerful emotion that is packed in
Sense of Doubt. No guitar is used; just heavy and dark piano and synthesizers, plus brief mysterious sounds that sound like muffled laughter of children. This is Bowie at his darkest but most elegant.
The next instrumental
Moss Garden, ties closely to
Sense of Doubt. As one ends it leads slowly into the next until
Moss Garden completely changes the whole swing of the album. For this Bowie picks up a classic Japanese instrument, a koto, this completely erases the Nazi Germany vibe and instead places the listener in a Japanese landscape. The song begins with the sound of a rocket taking flight (perhaps referencing
V-2 Schneider). Then the koto kicks in giving a more laid back, but still slightly tense feeling of emotion similar to that of the more modern Icelandic singer Bjork’s instrumentation to her music. With yet another instrument change, the albums last instrumental track
Neuköln takes hold of orchestral strings and a little bass influence, providing for a final hearty swing in album style leading into the albums last song,
The Secret Life of Arabia, the only non-instrumental track of side two of
”Heroes”.
The Secret Life of Arabia, while an excellent song, it feels unbearably out of place, instead of a synthesizer based mellow song it is more like a song that would be on Bowie’s glam album
Diamond Dogs. Bowie’s voice is displayed in an epic building manor, perhaps because of its absence on the past four tracks. Overall
The Secret Life of Arabia provides a fun upbeat song as a closer, but a big fat sucker punch to the listener in context of the album, because of the previous dark and depressing tones of the album.
”Heroes” is an album that expresses strong musical ability and expression, it contains many elements and various sounds, but at certain point the listener can be left in a daze due to the dramatic swiftness of the albums progression. It goes from rock to mellow, and from dank to upbeat very quickly. Regardless though
”Heroes” is an album that set the bar extremely high for modern musicians that take advantage of the synthesizer.
