David Bowie - Berlin Trilogy David Bowie, stage name David Robert Jones (London, January 8, 1947 – New York, January 10, 2016), was a British singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer. Sometimes referred to as the "rock chameleon" for his ability to constantly renew his image, he was a major figure in popular music for five decades. Considered one of the most innovative and still influential popular musicians of all time, particularly for his work in the 1970s and 1980s, he is also distinguished by his distinctive vocals and the intellectual depth of his work. In the summer of 1974, David Bowie developed a cocaine addiction. Over the next two years, his addiction worsened, affecting his physical and mental state: "I was in serious public, emotional, and social decline. I think I was on my way to becoming another victim of rock music. In fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have survived the '70s if I'd kept doing what I was doing. But I was lucky enough to know, somewhere deep inside, I was really killing myself, and I needed to do something drastic to get rid of it." The Berlin Trilogy consists of three studio albums by David Bowie: Low, "Heroes" (both 1977), and Lodger (1979). Bowie began referring to the three albums as a Berlin-centric trilogy during the promotion of Lodger, although "Heroes" was the only album recorded entirely in the city. Low was recorded primarily in France, while Lodger was recorded in Switzerland and New York City. While considered artistically significant, the trilogy proved less successful commercially. Bowie would later call the trilogy's music his "DNA." The albums in the trilogy received mixed reviews upon release, but have garnered widespread acclaim over time and proved highly influential. While Low exerted a major influence on post-punk, inspiring artists such as Joy Division and Gary Numan, elements of Lodger have been identified as precursors to a growing interest in world music. The first album in the trilogy, Low, was initially recorded at the Château, with sessions completed at the Hansa in Berlin. By this point, Bowie was fully prepared to move to Berlin, but he had already booked another month of studio time at the Château, so recording began there. Bowie and Visconti co-produced the album, with contributions from Eno. Visconti, who was absent from the recording of Station to Station due to conflicting schedules, was brought back to co-produce after the mixing of The Idiot. Despite being widely perceived as a co-producer, Eno was not. Visconti commented: "Brian is a great musician and was very important to the creation [of the Berlin Trilogy]. But he was not the producer." Low's music delves into electronic ambient, art rock, and experimental rock. Low's tracks emphasize tone and atmosphere rather than guitar-driven rock. German bands such as Tangerine Dream, Neu!, and Kraftwerk influence the music. Side A consists primarily of short, straightforward fragments of avant-garde songs; side B comprises longer, mostly instrumental tracks. In 1977, Bowie said that side A was about himself and his "prevailing moods" at the time, while side B was about his musical observations while living in Berlin. Low features a unique drum sound created by Visconti using an Eventide H910 harmonizer. When Bowie asked what it did, Visconti replied, "It moves the fabric of time." Visconti connected the machine to Davis's snare drum and played the results through headphones so he could hear the resulting sound. The H910 Harmonizer was used for the voice of R2-D2 in Star Wars. Bowie's label, RCA Records, was shocked after hearing Low. Fearing that the album would perform poorly commercially, RCA postponed its original planned release date of November 1976, releasing it in January 1977. Upon release, it received little to no promotion from RCA, or from Bowie. Bowie felt it was his "least commercial" record and, instead of promoting it, opted to tour as Iggy Pop's keyboardist. Despite the lack of promotion, Low was a commercial success. The success of the single "Sound and Vision" helped Bowie persuade RCA to release The Idiot, which they did in March 1977. "Heroes" As the second release in the Berlin Trilogy, "Heroes" (1977) expands on the material found on Low. Like its predecessor, it delves deeper into art rock and experimental rock, while continuing Bowie's work in the electronic ambient genre. The songs again emphasize tone and atmosphere rather than guitar-driven rock. However, they have been described as more positive in both tone and atmosphere than the songs on Low. Visconti would describe the album as "a very positive version of Low." It follows the same structure as its predecessor, with side A featuring more conventional tracks and side B featuring primarily instrumental tracks. "Heroes" was the only part of the Berlin Trilogy recorded entirely in Berlin. Most of the Low personnel returned for the recording, with the addition of Bowie on piano and guitarist Robert Fripp, formerly of King Crimson, whom Bowie recruited at Eno's suggestion. Upon arriving at the studio, Fripp recorded lead guitar parts for tracks he had never heard before. He received little guidance from Bowie, who hadn't yet written lyrics or melodies. Fripp completed his guitar parts in three days. Bowie was in a much healthier frame of mind during these sessions than he had been during Low's. He and Visconti traveled frequently through Berlin. Eno played a larger role on "Heroes" than on "Low." He is credited as a co-writer on four of the ten songs, leading biographer Thomas Jerome Seabrook to call this album his "truest" collaboration. Eno acted as Bowie's "assistant director," giving feedback to the musicians and suggesting new and unusual ways to approach the tracks. One way was to use Eno's Oblique Strategies cards. The cards, physically, take the form of a deck of cards, each offering a challenging constraint designed to help artists (particularly musicians) break through creative block by encouraging lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is a way of solving problems using an indirect and creative approach through reasoning that is not immediately obvious. Synonymous with thinking outside the box, it involves ideas that might not be arrived at using traditional step-by-step logic alone. "Heroes" was released in October 1977 in the wake of the punk movement. RCA marketed the album with the slogan: "There's Old Wave. There's New Wave. And there's David Bowie…". Like Low, "Heroes" was a commercial success—more so in the UK than in the US. Bowie promoted "Heroes" extensively, conducting numerous interviews and appearing on several television shows, including Marc, Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas, and Top of the Pops. Isolar II After releasing "Heroes," Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar II world tour, bringing music from the first two albums of the Berlin Trilogy to nearly a million people during 70 shows in 12 countries. By this time, he had broken his drug addiction; biographer David Buckley writes that Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour in five years where he probably wasn't anesthetized with large amounts of cocaine before going onstage. ... Without the oblivion that drugs brought, he was now in a healthy enough mental state to want to make friends." He performed tracks from Low and "Heroes" on the tour. Recordings from the tour were included on the live album Stage, released later that year. During this time, he also played the lead role in David Hemmings' film Just a Gigolo (1978), set in pre-World War II Berlin. Lodger It was around the time of Lodger (1979) that Bowie began framing his previous two albums as the beginning of a Berlin-centric trilogy, concluding with Lodger, largely as a marketing tactic to support the unusual new album. Compared to its two predecessors, Lodger abandons the electronic and ambient styles and the song/instrument divide that defined both previous works in favor of more conventional song structures. Instead, Lodger showcases a variety of musical styles, including new wave, Middle Eastern music, reggae, and krautrock. Some of its musical textures, particularly on "African Night Flight," were cited by The Quietus as a harbinger of the popularity of world music. The Quietus is a British online music and pop culture magazine. Lodger was recorded at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, with additional recordings at the Record Plant in New York City. Many of the same musicians from the previous albums returned for the Lodger sessions; A new addition was future King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew. The sessions saw a greater emphasis on Eno's Oblique Strategies: "Boys Keep Swinging" involved the band members swapping instruments, "Move On" used the chords from Bowie's 1972 composition "All the Young Dudes" played backward, and "Red Money" borrowed backing tracks from The Idiot's "Sister Midnight." The lyrics were interpreted as encompassing two main themes—travel on side A and critiques of Western civilization on side B. Biographer Nicholas Pegg writes of the travel theme on side A that the songs revive a "perennial motif" prevalent throughout the Berlin Trilogy, highlighting the line "I've lived all over the world, I've left everywhere" from Low's "Be My Wife," noting that the journey is metaphorical and geographical. Lodger was released in May 1979, almost two years after "Heroes." Buckley notes that music videos and artists influenced by the music of Bowie's previous Berlin Trilogy releases, such as Gary Numan, were becoming popular. Although Lodger performed well commercially, Gary Numan outperformed Bowie commercially throughout the year. According to Buckley, Numan's fame indirectly led Bowie to adopt a more pop-oriented direction for his next studio album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980), his first release after the Berlin Trilogy. Alex