David Bowie - Low (1977)

Ask someone what 1977 represents in music and the answer is invariably the explosion of Punk. Punk Rock’s primary policy was to bulldoze the Establishment into touch yet David Bowie was always aloofly separated from the Establishment despite his stratospheric success. Whilst Punk was gobbing away in London, Bowie had set up shop in Berlin with Brian Eno to begin work on a set of albums which would come to be known as his ‘Berlin trilogy’.

However, this was no holiday. After spending the first half of the seventies in a vacuum of cocaine, Bowie’s move was a type of rehab: shutting himself off in a bleak and fractured Berlin wrought with social and political tension, he was rid of the slimy hangers-on, the yes men and (the majority of) his drug dealers which had been following him for the previous five or so years as his star rose and rose.

Low was the first album of this new musical path. The album could easily be viewed as an apt metaphor for Berlin itself; an album split into two distinct halves – the decadent and the bruised.
If Bowie was experiencing a new clarity of mind then it is obvious from the off. Opener Speed of Life (one of four instrumentals on the album) strides forward triumphantly with the determined optimism of someone who thinks the only way from here is up. The perky Breaking Glass follows with its strolling funk, showing that Bowie had lost none of his precision showmanship.

The album’s first single Sound and Vision continues the upbeat mood with its rubber drums before Be My Wife (verging on self-pity) and Always Crashing in the Same Car (a sombre admission of clumsiness, both physical and emotional) ease the listener into the album’s more textured landscapes.

The tracks co-written with Brian Eno have the ubiquitous producer’s mark stamped all over them. Warszawa is a grand gesture complete with primal howls whilst Art Decade is unsettling and haunting; both songs perfect for a German Art-House flick never released in a cinema (not one near you anyway).

The album has something of a futile, limp ending. Weeping Wall comes and goes without kicking up any fuss whatsoever whilst Subterraneans meekly rounds things off (although it does feature some cool smoky sax).

Bowie’s glam disciples were thrown off track with his previous effort Station to Station, yet these were the same fans who felt bemused at his foray into ersatz-Soul. Low heralded a new era of experimentation and furthered artistic restlessness and the album shows an artist unafraid to confront demons and forge new musical expression. It alienated fans even further but by this point Bowie had more than earned his right to do what he damn-well pleased. (8/10)