Low (David Bowie album)

In the summer of 1974, David Bowie developed a cocaine addiction.[2] Over the next two years, his addiction increasingly worsened, affecting both his physical and mental state. He recorded both Young Americans and Station to Station, as well as filmed The Man Who Fell to Earth, while under the influence of the drug.[3] His intake escalated to the point where decades later, he recalled almost nothing of the recording of Station to Station,[4] saying "I know it was in L.A. because I've read it was."[5] Bowie also became a controversial figure at the time, primarily due to comments he made while in his persona the Thin White Duke, in which he made statements about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany that some interpreted as expressing sympathy for or even promoting fascism.[6] He blamed his erratic behaviour during this period on his addictions and precarious mental state.[7] He later explained: "It was a dangerous period for me. I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity."[8]

Although Bowie had garnered commercial success between 1975 and 1976 with the singles "Fame" and "Golden Years", he was eager to escape the drug culture of Los Angeles, moving to Switzerland in the second half of 1976 with his wife Angela after the completion of the 1976 Isolar tour.[9][10] Around the same time, Bowie's friend and singer Iggy Pop had also developed a drug addiction and wanted to get sober. The two moved to the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville, France,[11] the same place Bowie recorded his 1973 album Pin Ups.[12] Here, the two recorded Pop's debut solo album The Idiot in the summer of 1976.[11][13] Later that year, the two decided to move to Berlin, Germany in a further attempt to kick their drug habits and escape the spotlight:[9][12]

For many years Berlin had appealed to me as a sort of sanctuary-like situation. It was one of the few cities where I could move around in virtual anonymity. I was going broke; it was cheap to live. For some reason, Berliners just didn't care. Well, not about an English rock singer, anyway.[14]

While living in Los Angeles, Bowie became interested in the German music scene, including the acts Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Neu!, whose Krautrock influence was present on Station to Station, particularly the title track.[15] Before moving to the apartment on Hauptstraße, Pop and Bowie stayed with Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream and his family at their home in Schöneberg. Froese also helped Bowie with his recovery and introduced him to the Berlin underground scene. Bowie named Froese's solo album Epsilon in Malaysian Pale as a big influence and a soundtrack to his life in Berlin.[16] During the months of his recovery, he also became interested in ex-Roxy Music keyboardist and conceptualist Brian Eno, who, in 1975, released two albums in the ambient genre: Another Green World and Discreet Music. Another Green World in particular would become a huge influence on the sound Bowie aimed to create for what would become known as the "Berlin Trilogy".[17] Bowie met with Eno in 1976[18][19] and soon after beginning collaborations with Eno, producer Tony Visconti, and Pop.[20] Shortly before arriving in Berlin to work with Bowie, Eno had recorded with German band Harmonia, who would also serve as a major influence in the recording of Low.[21]

The genesis of Low lies in both the foundations laid by Station to Station and in the music he recorded for the soundtrack to The Man Who Fell to Earth. When Bowie presented his material for the film to Nicolas Roeg, the director decided that it would not be suitable. Roeg preferred a more folksy sound, although John Phillips (the chosen composer for the soundtrack) described Bowie's contributions as "haunting and beautiful".[22] One of these pieces was "Subterraneans",[23] the backing track of which was recorded in December 1975 at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles,[24][25] where Station to Station was recorded.[26] Six months after Bowie's proposal was rejected, Bowie sent Roeg a copy of Low with a note stating "This is what I wanted to do for the soundtrack. It would have been a wonderful score."[12]

Low marked the first of three collaborations with musician Brian Eno (pictured in 2015).

The album was co-produced by Bowie and Visconti, with contributions from Eno.[27] Visconti, who was absent for the recording of Station to Station due to conflicting schedules,[28] was brought back to co-produce after mixing The Idiot.[29] Bowie would stress Visconti's importance as co-producer in 2000: "Over the years not enough credit has gone to Tony Visconti on those particular albums. The actual sound and texture, the feel of everything from the drums to the way that my voice is recorded, is Tony Visconti." Despite being widely perceived as a co-producer, Eno was not, with Visconti saying: "Brian is a great musician, and was very integral to the making of those three albums [Low, "Heroes" and Lodger]. But he was not the producer."[29] As a recovering cocaine addict, Bowie's songwriting on Low dealt with difficult issues: "There's oodles of pain in the Low album. That was my first attempt to kick cocaine, so that was an awful lot of pain. And I moved to Berlin to do it. I moved out of the coke centre of the world [i.e. Los Angeles] into the smack centre of the world. Thankfully, I didn't have a feeling for smack, so it wasn't a threat".[30]

Although Low is considered the first of Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy", the majority of it was recorded at the Château d'Hérouville.[12] Because Pop's The Idiot was recorded before Low, The Idiot has been referred to as the unofficial beginning of Bowie's Berlin period,[31] as its music featured a sound reminiscent of the "Berlin Trilogy".[32][33] Under the working title New Music: Night and Day,[18] the sessions for Low officially began on 1 September 1976. Returning from the Station to Station sessions was guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray and percussionist Dennis Davis. Along with Eno, new members included Roy Young, the former keyboardist for the Rebel Rousers and Ricky Gardiner, former guitarist of Beggars Opera.[12] A guest during the Château sessions was Visconti's then-wife Mary Hopkin, who was asked to contribute backing vocals to "Sound and Vision";[34] she was credited as Mary Visconti.[12]

The sessions at the Château d'Hérouville were problematic. Bowie was dealing with legal issues after firing his manager Michael Lippman as well as personal conflicts with his then-wife Angela. The initial recordings made were almost scrapped when Bowie suggested they be treated as demos, only to be convinced otherwise by Visconti. Despite problems encountered during recording, Visconti recalled that he, Bowie and Eno were working "at their peak" during the sessions.[35] According to biographer Paul Trynka, Eno was responsible for Bowie's motivation throughout the sessions.[36] The recording process itself was different than Bowie's previous albums. The backing tracks were recorded first, followed by overdubs, with lyrics and vocals written and recorded last. Bowie heavily favoured this "three-phase" process, which he would use for the rest of his career.[35] According to Trynka, Eno arrived late in the sessions, after all of the backing tracks for side one were "essentially" finished. Upon his arrival, he and Bowie sat down with the musicians and informed them of the next stage in the recording process.[37] According to Young, they played them tapes of The Man Who Fell to Earth soundtrack and said they planned something similar. Young further stated that some of the musicians, including him, were not fond of the idea as it was out of their experiences. Bowie was adamant that RCA would feel the same way, stating: "We don't know if this will ever be released, but I have to do this."[37]

At the end of September, the sessions moved to the Hansa Studio by the Wall in West Berlin. Here, the final tracks, "Weeping Wall" and "Art Decade", were completed, as well as vocal overdubs to the Château recordings.[38] The sessions lasted until 18 November.[39] The sessions ended with more personal conflicts between Bowie and Angela, which ultimately led to their divorce in 1980.[38]

At the forefront of Low's sound was Visconti's recent acquisition: an Eventide H910 Harmonizer. When Bowie asked what it did, Visconti replied, "it fucks with the fabric of time."[40]

Low features Bowie's first explorations of electronic[41][42] and ambient music.[10] It was also categorised as art rock and experimental rock by Ultimate Classic Rock and Consequence of Sound, respectively.[42][43] Along with its successor "Heroes", the songs on Low emphasise tone and atmosphere rather than guitar-based rock.[10] The music itself is influenced by German bands such as Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Neu!,[16][18][12] which Bowie had previously showcased an influence of on Station to Station, particularly its title track.[44] In 2004, Bjorn Randolph of Stylus Magazine said that "had the album been released twenty years later, it would have been called 'post-rock'".[45]

Side one primarily consists of short, direct avant-pop song-fragments;[46] side two comprises longer, mostly instrumental tracks.[42] In 1977, Bowie stated that side one was about himself and his "prevailing moods" at the time while side two was about his musical observations living in Berlin.[47] Regarding the mostly song/instrumental split, Visconti stated: We felt that getting six or seven songs with Bowie singing, with choruses and verses, still make for a good album...then making the second side instrumental gave a perfect yin-yang balance."[36] Chris O'Leary writes that the instrumental pieces all share a theme: "a tour of an imaginary Eastern Europe by the isolate, paranoiac character of Low's manic side."[48] Some of the songs, including "Speed of Life" and "A New Career in a New Town", were originally going to have lyrics, until Bowie decided to keep them as instrumentals.[49] The instrumentals feature contributions from Eno, who used his portable EMS AKS synthesiser.[50] Visconti recalled, "It had no keyboard, just a joystick, and he came up with wonderful sounds you can hear all over the album that weren't produced by conventional instruments."[51]

Low is noted for its unique drum sound, described by biographer David Buckley as "brutal" and "mechanistic". Played by Davis,[52] it was created by Visconti using an Eventide H910 Harmonizer.[51] When asked by Bowie about what it did, Visconti replied, "it fucks with the fabric of time."[40] Visconti rigged the machine to Davis's snare drum and fed the results through his headphones so he could hear the final sound.[52] Speaking to Buckley, Visconti further said: "I heard that it could change the pitch of a sound without changing the speed. My brain nearly exploded when I found what I could do with drums. By lowering the pitch of a live drum, then feeding it back, I got a sort of infinite dropping of [the] pitch, ever renewing itself." The sound, particularly evident on "Speed of Life", "Breaking Glass" and "Sound and Vision", is described by Buckley as "revolutionary" and "stunning".[51] On the album's release, Visconti received phone calls from other producers asking how he had made this unique sound, but would not give up the information, instead asking each producer how they thought it had been done.[53] Trynka writes that Davis's "spirit and energy" propel the album's first side "ever onward."[52] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone has called it "one of rock's all-time most imitated drum sounds."[54]

Side one

"Speed of Life", is described by author Peter Doggett as a perfect opener, in the sense that it brings the audience into "a subject too profound for words".[55] It features a rapid fade-in that Pegg believes makes for a "bizarre" opener, writing, "[it's as if] the listener has just arrived within earshot of something that's already started."[56] "Breaking Glass" is a song-fragment,[57] featuring six lines of lyrics, with two of them commanding the listener to "listen" and "see".[58] Eno said of the song, "the feeling around was that we'd edit together...and turn it into a more normal structure" before Alomar vetoed the idea and recommended to leave it as is. Credited to Bowie, Murray and Davis, Alomar recalled that this was because the song was mainly composed by the trio.[51] O'Leary writes that "What in the World" was created towards the beginning of the sessions and was possibly slated for inclusion on Pop's The Idiot, likewise featuring backing vocals from Pop.[59][60] The song is one of the only tracks on the album to combine art rock with more straightforward pop. According to Pegg, it features a "wall of synthesiser bleeps against a barrage of guitar sound [and] distorted percussion effects."[61] In the lyrics, the narrator describes a little girl that's stuck in her room.[62]

"Sound and Vision" contains backing vocals from Visconti's then-wife Mary Hopkin (pictured in 1970).

"Sound and Vision" contains wordless backing vocals from Visconti's then-wife Mary Hopkin, which she recorded before there were lyrics, a title or melody. Bowie's vocals take a full 1 minute and 45 seconds to appear,[63] which was done at Eno's insistence to "confound listener expectations".[64] Described by Bowie as his "ultimate retreat song",[64] the lyrics reflect his mental state following his long period of drug addiction.[65] They provide a stark contrast to the music itself, which is more joyous and upbeat.[64] Buckley writes that out of every song, it is the closest to a conventional pop song.[63] The lyrics of "Always Crashing in the Same Car" reference an incident in which, while living in Los Angeles, Bowie kept ramming his car into that of a drug dealer's who was ripping him off.[66] On a broader context, the lyrics are a metaphor for making the same mistake over and over again, as well as Bowie's obsessive need to travel and change his lifestyle.[67] O'Leary calls it "the depression in the middle of the "manic" side.[68]

Bowie said of the lyrics to "Be My Wife": "It was genuinely anguished, I think".[69] They reflect Bowie's feelings of loneliness, inability to settle, and plea for human connections.[70][71] Multiple biographers have alluded them to be about Bowie's failing marriage at the time.[72] Musically, the track is led by a "barrelling bar-room piano", played by Roy Young.[71] "A New Career in a New Town" is, similar to what its title suggests, an instrumental that acts as a musical transition. It begins as an electronic piece, before moving into a more rock-style tune enhanced by a harmonica solo from Bowie. The solo is described by Doggett and O'Leary as reminiscient of blues music.[73][74] Recorded in France,[75] its title also reflects Bowie's upcoming move to Berlin.[74]

The cover artwork is a side profile of Bowie, in character as Thomas Jerome Newton from The Man Who Fell to Earth, wearing a duffel coat against an orange backdrop. Buckley writes that it was meant to be a visual pun meaning 'low profile'; many people did not understand the joke until Bowie pointed it out in a later interview.[90] Visconti contended that the title was partly a reference to Bowie's "low" moods during the album's writing and recording.[91]

Bowie's previous two albums, Young Americans and Station to Station, were massive commercial successes.[92] As a result, RCA Records were eager to earn another best-seller from the artist. However, upon hearing Low, the label were shocked at what they were presented.[93] Fearing poor commercial performance, RCA wrote Bowie a letter rejecting the album and urging him to make an album more like Young Americans. Bowie kept the rejection letter on his wall at home.[94] RCA eventually released Low on 14 January 1977, with the catalogue number PL 12030.[12][90] The album received little to no promotion from both RCA and Bowie himself, who felt it was his "least commercial" record up to that point and instead opted to tour as Iggy Pop's keyboardist.[90][38] Despite having no promotion, Low was a commercial success, peaking at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart and number 11 on the US Billboard Pop Albums chart.[90]

"Sound and Vision" was released as a single on 14 February 1977, with the catalogue number PB 0905 and the instrumental "A New Career in a New Town" as the B-side.[95] It reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart,[96] his highest charting new single in the UK since "Sorrow" in 1973.[90][97] However, it favoured worse in the US, peaking only at number 69 on the Billboard 200 and signalled Bowie's commercial downturn in the US until 1983.[98] Although Bowie did not promote it himself, Nicholas Pegg writes that the single was an "instant turntable favourite" and was bolstered by its use by the BBC for television commercials.[98] The single's UK success confused RCA executives. The label were intimidated by Bowie, who persuaded the label to release Iggy Pop's The Idiot, which saw release on 21 March 1977.[99]

"Be My Wife" was released as the second single on 17 June 1977, with the catalogue number PB 1017 and the instrumental "Speed of Life" as the B-side.[95] It became Bowie's first single to fail to chart since his pre-Ziggy days. Despite this, it was promoted with a music video – his first since 1973.[71] An extended version of "Breaking Glass" was released as a single in Australia and New Zealand in 1978. The single edit was created by splicing in a repeated verse of the original album recording. This rare version was made available in digital and CD formats for the first time in 2017, on Re:Call 3, part of the A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982) compilation.[57]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[46]
Blender	[100]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[101]
NME	9/10[102]
Pitchfork	10/10[103]
Q	[104]
Rolling Stone	[54]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[105]
Spin	[106]
The Village Voice	B+[107]

Critical reaction to Low at the time of its release was divided.[38] Rolling Stone magazine's John Milward stated that "Bowie lacks the self-assured humour to pull off his avant-garde aspirations" and found the album's second side weaker than its first, stating: "Side one, where Bowie works within more conventional rock trappings, is superior to side two's experiments simply because a band forces discipline into Bowie's writing and performance."[108] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau found side one's seven "fragments" to be "almost as powerful as the 'overlong' tracks on Station to Station", but described "the movie music on side two" as banal[107] (though he later revised his opinion on the second side after the release of "Heroes", writing that Low "now seems quite pop, slick and to the point even when the point is background noise").[109] Christgau included it at number 26 on his "dean's list" of the year's best albums for the 1977 Pazz & Jop critics poll.[110] Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn shared a similar sentiment and stated: "For 12 minutes, this is Bowie's most striking and satisfying album since Ziggy. But the remaining 26 minutes, including all of Side 2, deal with a spacy art rock style that is simply beyond mass pop sensibilities for it to build much enthusiasm."[111]

By contrast, NME found Low "stunningly beautiful [...] the sound of Sinatra reproduced by Martian computers".[112] Billboard called the album's second side "the most adventurous and a stark contrast to the few distorted hard rock cuts on side one" and wrote that Low "emphasizes Bowie's serious writing efforts which only time can tell will appeal to the people who have watched him go through various musical phases".[113] John Rockwell of The New York Times wrote that "There are hardly any vocals, and what there are mostly mindless doggerel heard from afar. And the instrumentals are strange and spacey. Nevertheless, the whole thing strikes this listener as remarkably, alluringly beautiful."[114] Rockwell described its sound as "a strange crossbreed of Roxy Music, Eno's own solo albums, Talking Heads and an Indonesian gamelan. Yet it still is recognizably a David Bowie album", and concluded that "once Mr. Bowie's fans overcome their initial shock at his latest change in direction, they may realise that he's made one of the finest disks of his career".[114] Writing for Sounds magazine, Tim Lott gave unanimous praise to the record, calling it "the most difficult piece of music Bowie has ever put his name to". He concluded his review by stating it might be both Bowie and Eno's best work and "a mechanical classic."[99]

Retrospectively, Low has received critical acclaim and is regarded as one of Bowie's best works. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic writes that with the album, Bowie "confirmed his place at rock's cutting edge". Considering it "dense [and] challenging", Erlewine concludes "the record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll."[46] Dele Fadele of NME concurred, writing that the record was a "futuristic touchstone that still stands."[102] In 2001, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote that he felt Low contained some of the artist's best work. He writes, "[The album] flows together into a lyrical, hallucinatory, miraculously beautiful whole, the music of an overstimulated mind in an exhausted body, as rock's prettiest sex vampire sashays through some serious emotional wreckage."[54] Sheffield concluded by noting the timelessness of the record and called it one of his "most intense and influential" records.[54] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Sheffield describes it as "the music of an overstimulated mind in an exhausted body", showcasing Bowie as he "sashays through some serious emotional wreckage".[115] Susie Goldring of BBC Music praised the album, calling it "ambitious" and complimenting Bowie's artistic growth, having turned 30 on its release.[116] Following Bowie's death, Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock listed Low as Bowie's greatest album, writing: "'Low' is more than songs and sounds. The creative partnership behind the record forged a feeling, a mood, a place. Like very few of the best albums ever recorded, 'Low' contains a universe you can inhabit, for 40 minutes at a time. It's Bowie's masterpiece."[117]

Low has been acclaimed for its originality and is considered ahead of its time.[53] It has been cited as influential on the post-punk genre.[118] Goldring writes: "Without Low, we'd have no Joy Division, no Human League, no Cabaret Voltaire, and I bet, no Arcade Fire. The legacy of Low lives on."[116] Spitz also acknowledges the influence of the album on post-punk, naming Joy Division, Magazine, Gang of Four and Wire, as bands that were influenced by Low's "odd anti-aggression and unapologetic, almost metaphorical use of synthesised music."[119] Music journalist Simon Reynolds similarly stated: "I think it's Low's inhibition and repression that Joy Division and others responded to. The fact that the music, while guitar-based and harsh and aggressive, never rocks out. It's imploded aggression."[120] Writer Colin Larkin further recognised Gary Numan, Ultravox and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark as artists that were influenced by Low.[121] It has also been regarded by music analysts as being a crucial influence on the post-rock genre, which would come to prominence among underground musicians nearly two decades after the album's release.[45] Doggett writes that like Station to Station before it, Low established Bowie as an artist who was "impossible to second-guess". He found Bowie's five-year progression from Hunky Dory to Low daring and courageous.[122]

While Bowie's biographers have acknowledged the influence the album had on Joy Division, the band themselves have acknowledged its influence; their original name was "Warsaw", a reference to the Low track "Warszawa".[123] Upon learning that the title of the album was Low, English singer-songwriter Nick Lowe "retaliated" by naming his 1977 EP Bowi. Lowe decided that as Bowie had made an album with his name, but without the final e, he would reciprocate by making a record with Bowie's name, also lacking the final e.[124] In 1985, Robert Smith of the Cure cited it as one of his five favorite albums. Smith listened to the record frequently when making the Cure's 1980 album Seventeen Seconds.[125] In 1994, musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails cited Low as a key inspiration for The Downward Spiral (1994), naming Low's "songwriting, mood and structures" as influences.[126]

In 1992, American composer and pianist Philip Glass composed a classical suite based on the album, titled "Low" Symphony. It was Glass's first symphony and consisted of three movements each based on Low tracks: "Subterraneans", "Some Are" and "Warszawa". It was recorded by the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra at Glass's Looking Glass Studios in New York and released in 1993 through his Point Music label.[127] Speaking about the album, Glass stated: "They were doing what few other people were trying to do – which was to create an art within the realm of popular music. I listened to it constantly."[119] On his decision to create a symphony based on the record, Glass stated: "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."[127] For the symphony, Glass used both original themes and themes from three of the record's instrumentals. The "Low" Symphony acknowledges Eno's contributions on the original record, and as such, portraits of Bowie, Eno and Glass appear on the album cover. Bowie was flattered by the symphony and gave unanimous praise to it, as does Pegg.[127] Glass would later follow-up the "Low" Symphony with classical adaptations of the subsequent "Berlin" records: "Heroes" in 1997 and Lodger in 2019.[128][129]

All lyrics are written by David Bowie; all music is composed by Bowie, except where noted.

Personnel per the album's liner notes and biographer Nicholas Pegg.[12][141] Track numbers noted in parenthesis below are based on the CD track numbering of the 1991 reissue.

• David Bowie – vocals (2–6, 8, 10–12, 14), saxophones (4, 11), guitar (6, 9–11), pump bass (6), harmonica (7), vibraphone (9–10), xylophone (10), pre-arranged percussion (10), keyboards: ARP synthesiser (1, 10–11), Chamberlin: Credited on the album sleeve notes as "tape horn and brass" (1), "synthetic strings" (1, 4, 9–10), "tape cellos" (5) and "tape sax section" (7), piano (7, 9–11), "instruments" (13)
• Brian Eno – keyboards: Minimoog (2, 8–9), ARP (3, 11), EMS Synthi AKS (listed as "E.M.I.") (3, 5), piano (7–9, 11), Chamberlin (8–9), other synthesisers, vocals (4, 14), guitar treatments (5), synthetics (7), "instruments" (12–13)
• Carlos Alomar – rhythm guitars (1, 3–7, 14), lead guitar (1, 2)
• Dennis Davis – percussion (1–7, 14)
• George Murray – bass (1–7, 11, 14)
• Ricky Gardiner – rhythm guitar (2), lead guitar (3–7, 14)
• Roy Young – pianos (1, 3–7, 14), Farfisa organ (3, 5)

Additional musicians

• Iggy Pop – backing vocals (3)
• Mary Visconti – backing vocals (4, 14)
• Eduard Meyer – cellos (9)
• Peter and Paul – pianos and ARP (11) (a.k.a. J. Peter Robinson and Paul Buckmaster who had worked with Bowie on The Man Who Fell to Earth soundtrack)[142]

• Berlin Trilogy

• Low at Discogs (list of releases)