"Heroes" (2017

I didn't listen much to Bowie after young Americans and have just started playing later material this is a very good album and it is better on vinyl

Was a perfect gift

Was missing 2 of the ' Berlin Trilogy ' albums on vinyl, and the reissues seemed a good buy for the money. Definitely not dissapointed!. Both Heroes and Low were reproduced with all the fanzines and original inners which was a very welcome detail. The vinyl itself was well pressed and quiet sounding, which is not always the case with modern pressings. The music and songs speak for themselves and are fabulous.

Ok, so no great revelations, I'll just state some of the obvious. "Heroes" is a fantastic, iconic and groundbreaking album consisting of art rock, experimental rock, electronic and ambient, with other icons (apart from Bowie) including: Robert Fripp on lead guitar (now national treasure), Carlos Alomar on rhythm guitar, Eno experimenting with synthesizers, keyboards and guitar treatments (Bowie also played keyboards, guitars and saxophone etc), and long-term producer Tony Visconti (1969, many of those 70s albums, including the trilogy, 1980, then back again for the last few albums). The ambient instrumentals on this range from jaunty, to icy, moody and doom-laden, then calm and meditation, and finally despair. And even if you were never that fond of this Bowie album it would still be essential just to have the full length version of "Heroes" in all its synth anthemic glory, and historically. I just wish the 2017 Remaster on the CD could have been better.

The best of his Berlin era worth buying for the full length version of "Heroes" in itself. Recognise some criticism for the heavily Enofication ambient instrumentals on side 2 but I enjoy them. Albeit not his greatest album stilk superb. Vinyl is a good pressing and comes with all the original inserts including a card to join his 1977 fanclub at $5 annually! Iconic cover photo.

THIS album changed EVERYTHING. It was such a risk to devote an entire side of this album to instrumentals. But it works. A visionary. Bowie will be played forever.

I originally had this fantastic David Bowie album on cassette tape played many times on car journeys using my first personal stereo. My brother had the album on vinyl which we would listen to along with his Low album and Lodger albums most weekends. The artwork on my brothers original heroes album is far more sharp and the clearer than the remastered album artwork. Since I bought this album I have played it many many times and never tire of hearing it.

This review is about the pressing and packaging, we all know the album is brilliant. 180gm vinyl perfect,totally flat, zero surface noise. Sleeve perfect also.

Um dos meus favoritos. Disco incrível! Capa é antológica! Indispensável.

Absolute classic from Bowie with Eno and Fripp.

1977 entstand in den Hansa-Studios in West-Berlin ein Album, welches die Stimmung der geteilten Stadt wie kein anderes einfängt. Während "Low" noch von der Faszination der elektronischen Musik geprägt war, zeichnet sich "Heroes" durch den Eindruck der geteilten Stadt aus, den Bowie inzwischen gewinnen konnte. Das Album ist düsterer als sein Vorgänger, es enthält zwar auch wieder Instrumentaltracks, aber auch wieder einige normale mit Gesang. Es mag ein wenig Interpretation sein, aber ich spüre in den Songs die Präsenz und Atmosphäre jener Zeit, obgleich ich nie dabei war, denke ich dass man den Eindruck spüren kann wenn man ein wenig Ahnung von dieser Zeit hat. Die Tracks : 1 - Beauty and the Beast 2 - Joe the Lion 3 - "Heroes" (der ikonischste Song von Bowie, angelehnt an ein Liebespaar was sich immer an der Mauer trifft, existiert auch in einer auf Deutsch gesungenen Version) 4 - Sons of the Silent Age 5 - Blackout 6 - V-2 Schneider (Tribut an Florian Schneider von Kraftwerk, eine der Inspirationen für Bowie zu "Low") 7 - Sense of Doubt (Dieser und die beiden folgenden Tracks spielen ohne Unterbrechung und gehen ineinander über) 8 - Moss Garden 9 - Neuköl(l)n (offensichtlich benannt nach dem Berliner Stadtteil, wenngleich falsch geschrieben) 10 - The Secret Life of Arabia Der düstere Rocksound mit den elektronischen Elementen im Spiegel der Zeit mit den Bildern West-Berlins machen dieses Album für mich zu einem Unikat, ein einmaliges Zeitdokument was vor allem künstlerisch bedeutsam ist, aber eben auch im historischen Kontext. Also etwas mehr als nur ein Rockalbum :)

I purchased this copy of the remastered "Heroes" CD for one reason: to replace/supplant the defective one in the New Career box set. I know, I know, some people said to contact Warner/Parlophone for a free replacement disc with the correction (the lead vocals drop in volume for a few seconds at around 2:50 into the track - I had to listen with earbuds/headphones to hear it, but like seeing the arrow in the Fed Ex logo, once you know it's there, it's ALWAYS there). The thing is everyone is saying to do so, but NOBODY TELLS YOU EXACTLY HOW TO CONTACT THE MANUFACTURER!!!! So now I've got my own replacement disc (and if I want to I can exchange the corrected copy for the defective one - LOL!) Concerning the album itself, as the second in the so-called Berlin Trilogy (Low being 1st and Lodger being the 3rd), it's effectively the transitional album from the more experimental Low (with its fantastic visual pun in the cover photo- again, once you get it, you'll never look at the album title again and say "what a stupid title!"). However, the six songs on "Heroes" are actually structured SONGS, not snatches of melodies with some words thrown into rhyme - I was going to say not stream-of-consciousness, but a lot of Bowie's lyrics read like stream-of-consciousness - must be that cut-up method... Lodger would complete the trilogy by eliminating the instrumentals altogether, though keeping the experimentation. It is also why I called it the "so-called" Berlin trilogy: after spending time touring with Iggy and then touring in '78 for Low and Heroes (captured on the live Stage album), Bowie and band decamped to Montreux, Switzerland to record Lodger. Some songs and ideas may have been left over from the Berlin sessions, but other than the presence of Eno and Bowie's backing band, it was produced in an entirely different setting, though stll Middle European.. Scary Monsters would find Bowie and band in New York City (again a completely different vibe and energy). The album opens with a thundering blast of alternative rock in the form of "Beauty and the Beast" with some of Bowie's best vocals to date (soon to be surpassed on the timeless title track though), and some of his funniest lyrics after the somber mood of Low. After another shorter rocker "Joe The Lion," Bowie's masterpiece begins. Bowie had always thought "Changes" or "Ziggy Stardust" would be the songs he'd be most remember for, but this was before "Heroes," and, until Kurt Cobain, dusted it off from relative obscurity, "The Man Who Sold The World." But "Heroes" with its purposeful quotation marks, as if the song's narrator doesn't really believe he and his girlfriend are real heroes, as they carry out a clandestine affair beside the Berlin Wall. Over a down-walking bass line with synth washes and sweeping Robert Fripp guitar noodling, Bowie starts things off simple: "I, I will be king, and you, you'll be my queen, for nothing can drive them away, we can beat them just for one day, we can be "heroes." just for one day." As the song progresses, his voice seems to grow stronger. Producer Tony Visconti in the liner notes for the box set, said he set up a series of sequential microphones for Bowie to sing into. One sat the standard 10-12 inches from his mouth, as Bowie's natural voice grew louder it triggered a second microphone about 10 feet away that was picking up and amplifying the vocals, until it reached a third that got triggered as Bowie's voice almost overpowers the backing track. It's no wonder that people got mad about the volume drop on the initial pressing of the box set CD's. It's an amazing song, and still has the power to send shivers up and down the listener's spine. Bowie introduced into his live set during the Stage Tour and the song stayed up in the set-list through the last tour (The Reality Tour). He also memorably performed it at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, when he shocked the audience, the members of Queen who were backing him, and, by his own admission, dropping to one knee and reciting the Lord's Prayer. Ten years later, the song would take on a new meaning when he performed it at the Concert for New York City after 9/11 before a crowd of policemen, firefighters and other first responders. I remember watching it on HBO when it was first broadcast. Bowie opened the concert with only two songs: an arty take of Paul Simon's "America" played on what looked like a Casio keyboard, and..."Heroes" with the officers in the front row choking back tears. Two songs and while Bon Jovi, Mellencamp, McCartney, and the Who followed, Bowie stole the show and brought down the house. Getting back to the album at hand, "Sons of the Silent Age" seems to be a little bit of filler, though it boasts one of Bowie's loveliest melody lines in the chorus, and the original A-side closes out with another rocker "Blackout" which may have been inspired by the NYC blackouts that summer, or Bowie's own blackout during his period of drug abuse that he allegedly came to Berlin to overcome. Who knows? Some people don't like the instrumentals but "V-2 Schneider" (Bowie's nod/wink to Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider) still rocks. "Sense of Doubt" is the most depressing thing I've ever heard on a record (and some wag in A&R at RCA decided to use it as the B-side to "Beauty And The Beast" - as Charles Shaar Murray once wrote, bet that went over well when selected on the bar/pool hall/arcade's jukebox. "Moss Garden" is a Japanese-styled tone poem and "Neukoln" invokes the neighborhood of Turkish immigrants in Cologne, Germany where Bowie and Iggy shared a flat. And just when you think there should be another instrumental, the band kicks into a slightly Middle-Eastern dance-floor groove for "The Secret Life of Arabia" which may have had its beginnings during "Low" as the lyrics don't seem to have the coherent style as the first 5 songs. The mood and groove itself predates "Rock The Casbah" by five years (hmm, maybe that's even more of coincidence...) so it's obvious that Topper Headon was listening to Bowie...

Olvídate de Ziggy y disfruta con el segundo volumen de la trilogía de Berlín. Sin duda Bowie supo transmitir la atmósfera de la ciudad y del muro en la canción homónima. Una delicia de principio a fin.