The Berlin Trilogy: Pop with Purpose

Sorry to all (both) of you about the updating delay. My computer was in a coma, indifferent to my cries for it to come back. I considered dousing my computer in gasoline, mixed with my own tears and watch it go up, like a hobo's burning barrel but everything's fine now. Regardless, I still want to talk about David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy, because I think they are fantastic albums and worthy of your attention and admiration.

David Bowie has influenced more musicians in his day than any other artist, rising from glam rock oddity to pop icon. Following his glam rock years, Bowie turned to German minimalist synth pop groups like Kraftwerk for inspiration and recorded what later became known as the "Berlin Trilogy" between 1977-1979. Despite the name for this period, only Heroes was recorded entirely in Berlin, but the trilogy, recorded a mere 500 yards from the Berlin Wall, embodies the zeitgeist of Cold War era Europe.

To create these albums, David Bowie invited musicians such as keyboardist Brian Eno, who is commonly mistaken to be the albums' producer, and guitarists Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew, both would work together in King Crimson. The albums themselves are all short as LPs go, with Low at 38 minutes, Heroes at 40 minutes, and Lodger clocking in at a paltry 35 minutes. In this case, brevity is indeed the soul of wit. Though succinct, these albums are massive in terms of depth and influence.

Low-

Much of the music of Low are the result of rejected compositions Bowie wrote for the film The Man Who Fell To Earth. Although the composer liked Bowie's contributions, he thought they were unsuitable for for the film. Bowie decided to concentrate on a follow-up to his previous album Station to Station. Bowie, reducing his cocaine use from his previous Station to Station recording sessions, was moody and despondent. Many think that the title Low alludes to Bowie's dour mood during Low's recording sessions.

Both Low and Heroes have unusual song organization for pop albums. Side A of the original LPs contained the straightforward, often terse, pop singles while side B was more experimental and mostly instrumental. Eno contributed much of side B, but his direct involvement is most easily heard in A New Career in a New Town. For Low, the opener is Speed of Life, beginning a series of lively, but tepid pop songs. These songs are all great; guitarist Ricky Gardiner absolutely rips through Breaking Glass and What in the World, and the band blazes through these tracks with a punk-like disregard of whether you're listening or not. One fascinating aspect of these songs, bearing titles like Breaking Glass and Always Crashing the Same Car, is how they capture mortal sensations of high-speed urgency. While the tempos are upbeat, Bowie expresses difficult feelings such as isolation and loneliness in Sound and Vision (Blue Blue, Electric Blue/ that's the color of my room where I will live/ Pale blinds drawn all day/ Nothing to do/Nothing to say). In some songs like What in the World, ambivalence is the strongest emotion Bowie can feel when trying to lure out his love who isolates herself in her room. "You're just a little girl with grey eyes/never mind/I'm in the mood for your love" is all he can muster, hinting that he can very easily fall out of the mood.

Speaking of mood, Warzawa, inspired by Bowie walking around Berlin's defunct factories, is the most depressing track that Low has to offer. Lugubrious and beautiful, it is a sad track that is deeply necessary, and worthwhile to hear. From there leads to the nebulous and neutral Art Decade, followed by the trickle and buzz of Weeping Wall. While all the songs on the second side of Low are ambient, strange, and beautiful, the closer Subterraneans best exemplifies the feel of Side B. With heavy Joy Division-like synth and wailing sax, it's one hell of a way to end an album. David Bowie cited this album as his most personal work to date, saying "cut me, and I bleed Low." This album is a masterpiece, and before the end of the same year, Bowie would create another.

Heroes-

Heroes is probably my favorite David Bowie. At least, it has my favorite song of his, the album's title track. It's arranged very similar to Low, with pop songs leading the charge, and atmospheric instrumentals towards the end. Heroes essentially takes Low's framework and makes it lighter and more vibrant, but retains Low's progressive sound. This is achieved with Brian Eno at the synthesizers, but Bowie invited another guest to play for Heroes. One of the greatest living guitarists, King Crimson's frontman Robert Fripp, arrived from America to record all his guitar parts in only a day.

The seismic groove and bombast of V-2 Schneider as an introduction to side B is the polar opposite of Low's somber Warzawa, ending with thundering guitar strokes instead of wailing vocals. Only Sense of Doubt and Neukoln add any significant degree of gloom to Heroes, though Sons of the Silent Age (note on the video: David Bowie actually controls women) is pretty acidic. (Sons of the silent age/ don't walk, they just glide in and out of life/ they never die, they just go to sleep one day). Moss Garden is a beautiful, ambiant song featuring Bowie playing the koto (a Japanese stringed instrument sort of like a harp) with light sounds of rockets only slightly pervading a fragile zen bubble. The album's closer, The Secret Life of Arabia, breaks the silence in the fashion of the album's opening tracks.

As I said, the song Heroes is my favorite song on this album. Even after following excellent fanfare and charge of Joe the Lion and Beauty and the Beast, this stands out. This song, about two lovers divided by the Berlin Wall, is definitely political, but it's told with such innocence and naivete, that it's never overindulgent or preachy. It simply says that loving when told not to is heroic. And what could be more affecting or determined than I can remember/ Standing by the Wall/ and the guns, shot above our heads/ And we kissed, as though nothing can fall?

Lodger-

The final installation of the Berlin Trilogy is probably Bowie's "weirdest" of the three. Released in 1979, Lodger also featured Brian Eno, but also includes guitarist Adrian Belew in lieu of Robert Fripp. Belew has quite a resume, playing for Talking Heads, King Crimson, and Frank Zappa among others. The Secret Life of Arabia, the closer on Heroes, drifts from Europe, signaling the band's shift towards world music. Another deviation from the other two albums is the lack of instrumental tracks.

The more exotic sounds of Lodger accompany Bowie's lyrics, much of which express the intense desire to escape and travel. "Sick of you/Sick of me/ Lust for the free life/Quashed and maimed/Like a valuable loved one/ Left unmaimed" spouts Bowie frantically claustrophobic African Night Flight. This desire is echoed plainly in Bowie's odes to travel in Move On and Red Sails.

The rest of the album are songs that criticize society. Boys keep singing is a sardonic celebration of boyhood, while Repetition rolls the clock forward, revealing a grimacing portrait of domestic abuse. Dj, a song with an overbearing resemblence to Talking Heads, critiques the arrogance of DJs. The album ends with Red Money, which I presume is about, well, blood money, basically.

So there you have it, three of my favorite pop albums. David Bowie would never make albums as good as these, but when you're David Bowie, you don't really need to. This is one hell of a legacy he left with these three albums, and I hope you like them.

Next Topic: Kazuo Koike's Lone Wolf and Cub and Alan Moore's The Saga of the Swamp Thing.

Later.