Berlin Trilogy
The trilogy originated following Bowie's move from Los Angeles to Europe with American singer Iggy Pop to rid themselves of worsening drug addiction.
King Crimson guitarists Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew contributed lead guitar to "Heroes" and Lodger, respectively.
The albums of the trilogy received mixed reviews on release but garnered massive acclaim over time and have proven highly influential.
While Low provided a major influence on the post-punk genre, inspiring artists like Joy Division and Gary Numan, elements of Lodger have been identified as a precursor to an increased interest in world music.
"[7] Although he enjoyed commercial success during this period, particularly with the singles "Fame" and "Golden Years", he was ready to rid himself of the drug culture of Los Angeles and get sober.
In his persona as the Thin White Duke, he made statements about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany that some interpreted as expressing sympathy for or even promoting fascism.
[24] After moving to Switzerland, Bowie booked studio time later in the summer at the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville, France, where he made plans to write and produce an album for his old friend, singer Iggy Pop.
[17] Pop, who was also suffering from drug addiction, was ready to get sober and accepted Bowie's invitation to accompany him on the Isolar tour, and then move to Europe with him.
[43] Château owner and The Idiot bassist Laurent Thibault opined that, "[Bowie] didn't want people to think he'd been inspired by Iggy's album, when in fact it was all the same thing.
"[38] Although reviewers consider The Idiot good in its own right,[29][44] Pop's fans have criticised the album as unrepresentative of his repertoire and as evidence of his being "co-opted" by Bowie for his own ends.
[49][50][51] At this point, Bowie was fully ready to move to Berlin but had already booked another month of studio time at the Château, so recording began there.
He is credited as co-author on four of the ten songs, leading biographer Thomas Jerome Seabrook to call this album the "truer" collaboration.
Eno acted as "assistant director" for Bowie, giving feedback to the musicians and suggesting new and unusual ways to approach the tracks.
[92] Bowie promoted "Heroes" extensively, conducting numerous interviews and performing on various television programmes, including Marc, Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas,[93] and Top of the Pops.
[82] After releasing "Heroes", Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar II world tour, bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to almost a million people during 70 concerts in 12 countries.
By now he had broken his drug addiction; biographer David Buckley writes Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had probably not anaesthetised himself with copious quantities of cocaine before taking the stage. ...
[99] Compared to its two predecessors, Lodger abandons the electronic and ambient styles and the song/instrumental split that defined the two earlier works, in favour of more conventional song structures.
[105][107] Biographer Nicholas Pegg writes of side one's theme of travel, that the songs revive a "perennial motif" prevailing throughout the Berlin Trilogy, highlighting the line, "I've lived all over the world, I've left every place" from the Low track "Be My Wife",[108] pointing out the journey is both metaphorical and geographical.
[112][113] According to Buckley, Numan's fame led indirectly to Bowie taking a more pop-oriented direction for his next studio album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980), his first release after the Berlin Trilogy.
[61][124] The Quietus argues that Bowie created the blueprint "reinvention" album with Low, a record from an artist at the peak of their popularity that confounded the listening public's expectations.
[126] Although "Heroes" was the best-received work of the Berlin Trilogy on release, in subsequent decades critical and public opinion has typically shifted in favour of Low as the more ground-breaking record owing to its daring experimental achievements.
[132] He found the albums to be the reason Bowie is "so profoundly revered", further describing them as "uncompromising and untethered artistic expressions with no commercial considerations limiting...scope".
He concluded by praising these albums' abilities to take the listener into new worlds, "offer[ing] full immersion into another universe of sound and vision".
[134] When reviewing Bowie's 1995 album Outside, Barry Walters of Spin compared its sound to that of the Berlin Trilogy, which he considered forerunners in the development of industrial rock, synth-pop and "ambient trance".
[135] In Stylus Magazine, Alfred Soto also noted the influence of the trilogy, alongside Bowie's earlier Diamond Dogs (1974), on gothic rock, stating that the "sepulchral baritone" of the records "rumbled beneath the desiccated landscapes created by The Mission U.K., Fields of the Nephilim, Sisters of Mercy and, most famously, Bauhaus.
[137][138] Stylus Magazine regards Low as a crucial influence on the post-rock genre, which would come to prominence among underground musicians nearly two decades after the album's release.
[139] Commentators have cited Joy Division, an English post-punk band formed in the months between the releases of Low and The Idiot,[140] as having been influenced by both albums.
[123] Commentators would later recognise an array of artists who were influenced by Low, including the Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Arcade Fire, Gary Numan, Devo, Ultravox, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Magazine, Gang of Four and Wire.
[141][145][146][111] Robert Smith of the Cure and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails have also acknowledged Low's influence on their respective records Seventeen Seconds (1980) and The Downward Spiral (1994).
"[161] On his decision to create a symphony based on the record, Glass said: "In the question of Bowie and Eno's original Low LP, to me there was no doubt that both talent and quality were evident there ... My generation was sick to death of academics telling us what was good and what wasn't.
