David Bowie

Bowie fled from fame, cocaine induced madness and America to make the first of his celebrated Berlin albums. The fragmented lyrics, detached vocals and the big, spare drum sounds first heard here later became the signature style of the 1980s. Half instrumental, the album's highlight is "Sound and Vision," which luxuriates in the heavenly sphere inhabited by music, not man.

"I blew my nose one day and half my brains came out." With these gentle words, David
Bowie said farewell to L.A., where he'd spent much of the mid-Seventies buried up to his
clavicle in white powder, and fled back to Europe for some personal detox - not to
mention some of the most amazing music of his amazing career. Low, released in January
1977, was a new beginning for Bowie, kicking off what is forever revered as his "... More >

I find side one's seven "fragments"--since the two that clock in at less than 2:45 are 1:42 and 2:20, the term must refer to structures rather than length--almost as powerful as the "overlong" tracks on Station to Station. "Such a wonderful person/But you got problems" is definitely a love lyric for our time. But most of the movie music on side two is so far from hypnotic that I figure Bowie, rather than Eno, must deserve credit for it. I mean, is Eno really completely fascinated by banality? (Grade - B+)