Bowie, David: Low (CD)

The first of Bowie's legendary Berlin trilogy and the one that broke the most ground. It also caused so much consternation in the NME offices that they ran two reviews, one praising it to the skies, the other bewildered by Bowie's move towards the chilly electronic sounds that bore the influence of krautrock, particularly that of Kraftwerk and Neu! Collaborating with Brian Eno and produced by the genius Tony Visconti, Low is an album of two distinct halves.

Side one (in old money) is full of quirky oddball pop vignettes, the highlight being the incredible 'Sound and Vision', a hit for Bowie in 1977. Side two was the side which upset some people, four long icy instrumentals evoking the spirit of the city of Berlin, split into two halves by the wall, and the mood of the eastern bloc in general (see 'Warszawa'). Now, of course, these tracks are seen as a blueprint for much that was to come over the following decade, and even furter, but at the time, it so so surprising and so groundbreaking that many didn't know what to make of it.

1. Speed Of Life
2. Breaking Glass
3. What In The World
4. Sound And Vision
5. Always Crashing In The Same Car
6. Be My Wife
7. A New Career In A New Town
8. Warszawa
9. Art Decade
10. Weeping Wall
11. Subterraneans