Classic Album Sundays: David Bowie – Heroes
22.09.19Founded by radio host, music producer, label owner and journalist, Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy, Classic Album Sundays allows listeners to fully immerse themselves into an album by exploring its context, the making of and a full replay of the album on vinyl. This month’s album is David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’.
Although it was the second instalment of David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, “Heroes” was in fact the only album to be written and recorded entirely within the city. The multi-instrumentalist Bowie was joined by many of the same musicians who had worked on his previous album, Low, including guitarist Carlos Alomar, drummer Dennis Davis, and bassist George Murray, and a similar rhythmic-rock spark ignites the group once again. Brian Eno took a place behind the keyboard, setting up his unique brand of studio know-how and synth-science in contrast to the more traditional interplay of the rhythm section.
After leading many trends of the early ‘70s, “Heroes” found Bowie in a more open and responsive mode. He had submerged himself in the nocturnal culture of Berlin, with its subterranean drinking dens and gaudy drag clubs, taking plenty of inspiration from what he saw and who he spoke to. As Alomar recalled: “I would say that his mental stimulation was at an all-time high at that point. There was a lot of clarity to David, in that he was back to being a literary person, very interested in the politics of the day, knowing the news, which I found amazing because he never cared about that. Obviously, there were other things on his mind than doing his record.”
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