Bowie, David: "Heroes" (CD)

Part two of the Berlin trilogy that started with Low and ended with Lodger, Heroes saw Bowie trying to kick his assorted drug addictions while simultaneously attempting to create the music of the future.

And so, on the one hand, Beauty and the Beast—which spawned the Human League's Love Action and not a whole load else, really. And on the other, the title-track—one of mankind's greatest achievements, a song so incredible it's permissible to know a technical fact pertaining to its recording, i.e., Bowie had eight microphones set up for the vocals, all at staggered distances along a hallway. That's why he sounds like he's bouncing his voice off mountains on the moon.

Like Low, Heroes is an album of two halves — the second side being taken up with the brooding instrumentals he and producer Brian Eno cooked up while the engineers were busy wiring up eight microphones in the hallway.

1. Beauty And The Beast 
2. Joe The Lion 
3. "Heroes" 
4. Sons Of The Silent Age 
5. Blackout 
6. V-2 Schneider 
7. Sense Of Doubt 
8. Moss Garden 
9. Neuköln 
10. The Secret Life Of Arabia