"Heroes" (David Bowie album)

Recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in what was then West Berlin, "Heroes" reflected the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city. Co-producer Tony Visconti considered it "one of my last great adventures in making albums. The studio was about 500 yards [460 metres] from the Berlin Wall. Red Guards would look into our control-room window with powerful binoculars."[9] Earlier in 1977, Kraftwerk had name-checked Bowie on the title track of Trans-Europe Express, and he again paid tribute to his Krautrock influences: the title is a nod to the track "Hero" on the album Neu! '75 by the German band Neu! – whose guitarist Michael Rother had originally been approached to play on the album[10] – while "V-2 Schneider" is inspired by and named after Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider.[11] Despite the German influences, the album was recorded with Bowie's British and American collaborators, with no input from German musicians other than backing vocalist Antonia Maass.

Masayoshi Sukita's cover photo was inspired by German artist Erich Heckel's Roquairol.[12] Bowie said that the quotation marks in the title "indicate a dimension of irony about the word 'heroes' or about the whole concept of heroism".[13]

Brian Eno instigated Robert Fripp's involvement. "I got a phone call when I was living in New York in July 1977," the guitarist recalled. "It was Brian Eno. He said that he and David were recording in Berlin and passed me over. David said, 'Would you be interested in playing some hairy rock 'n' roll guitar?' I said, 'Well, I haven't really played for three years – but, if you're prepared to take a risk, so will I.' Shortly afterwards, a first-class ticket on Lufthansa arrived."[14] Upon arriving at the studio, and suffering from jet lag, Fripp recorded a guitar part for "Beauty and the Beast": this first take was used in the song's final mix.

Although "Heroes" continued Bowie's work in electronic[3] and ambient music styles[4] and included a number of dark and atmospheric instrumentals such as "Sense of Doubt" and "Neuköln", it was regarded as a highly passionate and positive artistic statement,[9][11] particularly after the often melancholy Low.[15] The lyrics for "Joe the Lion", written and recorded at the microphone "in less than an hour" according to Visconti, typified the improvisational nature of the recording.[16]

Eno employed his Oblique Strategies cards during the recording of the album. Stories suggest they were used during the recording of instrumentals such as "Sense of Doubt".[17]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[18]
Blender	[19]
Chicago Tribune	[20]
Christgau's Record Guide	B+[21]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[22]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[23]
NME	8/10[24]
Pitchfork	10/10[25]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[26]
Select	5/5[27]

RCA Records marketed "Heroes" with the slogan "There's Old Wave. There's New Wave. And there's David Bowie ..."[11] It enjoyed a positive critical reception on release in late 1977,[6] Melody Maker and NME both naming it "Album of the Year".[28][29] It reached No. 3 in the UK and stayed in the charts for 26 weeks, but was less successful in the US where it peaked at No. 35. The album was released in Germany with the title track renamed ""Heroes"/"Helden"" and partly in German. An early instance of the album's enduring influence is John Lennon's comment in 1980 that, when making his album Double Fantasy, his ambition was to "do something as good as "Heroes"."[6][28] Rolling Stone highlighted Eno's contribution, contending that after Bowie's "auteurist exploitation" of the former on Low, "Heroes" "prompts a much more enthusiastic reading of the collaboration, which here takes the form of a union of Bowie's dramatic instincts and Eno's unshakable sonic serenity".[30]

Several songs from the album were played live on Bowie's Isolar II Tour in 1978, released on the live album Stage the same year, and again from a different venue in 2018 with Welcome to the Blackout. Philip Glass adapted a classical suite, "Heroes" Symphony, from this album as a companion to his earlier Low Symphony. The title track has been covered by numerous artists, for example as an encore by subsequent incarnations of King Crimson, and Billy Mackenzie sang "The Secret Life of Arabia" in 1982 for the B.E.F. LP Music of Quality and Distinction. Several tracks were used in the film Christiane F. Bowie performed as himself in the film.

The cover of Bowie's 2013 album, The Next Day, is an altered and obscured version of the "Heroes" cover. This version has "Heroes" crossed out and Bowie's face obscured by an opaque white box reading "The Next Day".

• David Bowie – vocals, keyboards, guitars, saxophone, koto, tambourine,[37] backing vocals, producer
• Brian Eno – synthesizers, keyboards, guitar treatments
• Robert Fripp – lead guitar
• Carlos Alomar – rhythm guitar
• George Murray – bass guitar
• Dennis Davis – drums, percussion
• Tony Visconti – percussion,[37] backing vocals, producer
• Antonia Maass – backing vocals
• Colin Thurston – engineer