Low

I've again deferred to my cat named Bowie on this review. When I told him that Low was today's album, he legged it from room to room around our apartment, bouncing off every wall and surface like he was off his tits on catnip. When he finally came down off his Low induced high, he told me "this is Big Dave's finest hour". So there's your review.

"All hail the Berlin trilogy!" I think they should be called Low, parts 1, 2 and 3. This is music that only sold because of his name. I wonder how many praise these albums because they don't want to admit that they wasted their money. I've learned a frightening word since I started listening to 1001 albums: AMBIENT. It is code for plain boring, weird boring, or monotonous pretentious twaddle. This album is just boring because I've heard it before. Back in the day it was weird boring. I assume Lodger is also in the list. I hope not. Yesterday I had Paranoid, more of that ilk, thank you.

6/6 First half is avant-garde, second is alien civilization. Standout Tracks: Speed of Life, Sound and Vision, Warszawa, Art Decade, Weeping Wall, Subterraneans

Bowie! It's hard to dislike anything Bowie has done, honestly. He was so alien and ahead of his time that there's always something new and strange to learn when listening to his albums. This was one that I hadn't spent any time with in the past so I hit the wikipedia article for context which was helpful. It's electronic and pop and undeliably Bowie. Is it dated? Yes. But it also feels like it's a decade younger than it actually is. While the rest of the world was making disco pop, Bowie was making electro bangers and synthetic, cinematic dreamscapes.

I am a massive, massive Bowie fan, and I think even amongst his pretty great catalogue that the Berlin trilogy is quite near the top. Bowie and Eno. What a dream team. Every one of these songs slaps, but Sound and Vision and Be My Wife are the big standouts. Perfection. We didn't deserve Bowie.

I love Bowie but for me this was too dramatic and artsy with too many random sounds and instruments. It's risky, I just didn't like it that much.

This album woke up at 5:45 pm to a house party happening downstairs, and quickly got sick of it, deciding to bar hop and scuttle around town. Never finding what it was looking for, it finally decided to walk the city streets alone through the night, stuck in its own head, until passing out in an alley behind a dingy jazz club. 10/10.

Takes the listener to a new world. Neat.

Okay. Often good, never all that great. The second half is mostly instrumental, concept album kind of thing. Interesting. I wouldn’t go back for it.

Anything Eno touches is electronic gold, and this collaboration with Bowie is one of his best works I've seen. I admit it hardly even feels like a Bowie album. It's a series of avant-garde pop rock tracks that knows how to control the unusual noises it's dealing it. The first side is absolutely perfect and if the whole album were like it I would have no doubt awarded the full score. But I'm mixed about the 2nd side. I've tried looking at what people had to say about it. Some say people only now started to appreciate it while others say it feels dated now... Ok? To me, it's a series of carefully crafted melancholic ambient pieces that are long enough for appreciation with enough variation to prevent us from growing tired of them. They apparently reflect geographic locations like Warsaw and West Berlin. They're excellent pieces that bring a calming feeling to the album, but how should I rate this album? Does it detract from the perfect score I should give? Well it's different and amazing as well but doesn't fit with the other side yet doesn't distract from it either. Maybe I'm hesitant because I already awarded 2 5-stars in the past couple days, and an avant album seems like the perfect excuse for me to break that. But I admit this is a perfect album that I commend Bowie and Eno on. In the end, they deserve the perfect score of this random listener.

When initially listening to Low, you get the sense of it being very David Bowieesque. It seems to have influence from free form jazz in the way that the instrumentation is arranged. The production definitely is the center of each song, as the lyrics are sometimes drowned out by the repetition of the production. There are long pauses in the spoken word, so this album almost becomes an instrumental album. At just 39 minutes in runtime it is an easy listen, an album you throw on a turntable as background music.

Split between a side of jittery experimental rock and a side of avant-garde/ambient music, Low is probably Bowie’s most drastic reinvention of his art. Brian Eno joins Bowie on Low and deserves much credit for shaping this album’s sound and style. Recorded in Berlin, the influence of Eno’s ambient work and the German experimental rock scene of the time is fully evident on Low. The A side of the record is more typical of Bowie’s sound at the time: the plastic soul of Station to Station became even more synthetic and angular, with percolating analog synths driving the songs. Think of it as a precursor to Eno’s work producing the Talking Heads a few years later. On the B-Side, Bowie and Eno delve deep into the experimental side of the pool, producing four moody avant-garde soundscapes influenced by Cluster, Kraftwerk, Steve Reich’s minimalism, World music and Brian Eno’s own ambient experiments. Few, if any, of Bowie’s megastar contemporaries were even attempting music like this in the late 70’s. Low and the ensuing two records Bowie recorded with Eno in Berlin are ground-breaking achievements, which successfully introduced the avant-garde and experimental into popular music. For both Bowie and Eno, Low is a high water mark.

The feeling of exited trepidation I feel before refreshing the page each day to reveal my next musical journey was very much dampened on this occasion when I discovered a David Bowie lp. Not being a huge fan I was still interested to hear what is supposedly one of his best pieces of work. If this is considered one of his best albums then it kinda confirms my long held opinion of Bowie’s music...blandish and boring’ish. David Bowie was universally acknowledged for sounding different, looking different and pushing boundaries in general yet I still find his songs fatiguing and uninspiring. Quit frankly the last three tracks on this album all sounded like instrumental lullabies aiming to set you off to sleep...which was a hazard in itself as I was driving at the time. It’s no coincidence that the only Bowie material I own is a Greatest Hits on vinyl. After listening to this album, that’s not going to change any time soon. 1 Star!

Had a great time listening to remastered versions of Bowie’s classics plus some new ones that I’d not heard before. It has a psychedelic electro soul which puts me in mind of “war of the worlds musical”. Blooming brilliant

5.0 + I've listened to this album many times over the years. My first listen left me utterly confused. However, being a huge fan of Bowie's more pop-oriented music, I hung in and with subsequent listens that confusion turned to distaste, to understanding, and finally to absolute reverence. My journey to love this album in turn has made me appreciate experimental music and the artists that successfully struggle to present truly original sounds to my ears. I'm grateful for this album, for the supernova forces behind Bowie and Eno that briefly collided, as well as for my being able to finally appreciate the fruits of that collision.

It's hard to imagine what modern music would sound like without this album. Bowie and Brian Eno create an album with a satisfying rock front half, and a ethereal, dreamlike, and somewhat menacing back half. The experimental and ambient elements here are crucial to the development of post-punk. I remember when I first heard Blackstar, I thought that it was coming out of nowhere because I had not explored this period of Bowie. This album has given much such a deeper appreciation of this artist and of the history of music in general.

Bowie introduces some electronic sounds! I'm a Bowie fan but have never listened to this one, so this was a treat. I enjoyed the exploration of new sounds, and you can definitely see the influence this had on subsequent artists. The second side was particularly interesting and unexpected. My top pick is 'Sound and Vision', but I also really liked 'Be My Wife' and 'A New Career in a New Town'.

A little shook I gotta come on here and defend Low! Not sure I have the credentials to do so. But this album is groundbreaking! One of the world's biggest rock stars assuredly planting is feet at the edge of the genre's avant garde. This album is so dense with collage. Such an unusual and introspective use of rock and roll; exploring all the ways it might collide with electronic, kraut, ambient, and so on. I can honestly say I've never heard an album from before or after Low that sounds quite like it. Even Heroes, which is, I think, his best album, and was released the same year (!!!), finds Bowie taking his experiments in a tonally different direction. I think it's stunning and inspiring to hear someone who had just released their first "greatest hits" album whipping around and doing something like this. The influence this album had on New Wave, Post-Punk, Indie, and everything after Rock's golden age is evident and essential. Hard to imagine many of our most beloved rock groups up to and including Radiohead existing as they do without Bowie's experimental period and without this album. All that, AND the first half of this album totally bops! "Sound and Vision" is one Bowie's best pop songs!

I’ve always wondered what impression this album made to the Bowie fans at the time it was released. At the time it was only 5 years but 8 albums between this and Ziggy Stardust. Bowie had already reinvented himself a few times since then, but this still had to be a shock to listeners after Station to Station. The songs on side one seem more like ideas than songs. The crazy thing though, is that they work as songs as well and flow seamlessly into each other. As soon as one song is over, the listener is left wanting a little more but then they get hooked into the next song which then starts the cycle all over again until “A New Career in a New Town” brings the listener out of out. Side two , all of which reflects impressions of various locations musically, opens with what is Bowie’s most ambitious track at the time. “Warszawa” is both bleak and beautiful. The track is meant to capture his impressions of a previous visit of his to Warsaw. The final track, “Subterraneans”, is the oldest on the album. It was previously recorded shortly after Station to Station and like the track that came before reflects the mood in Germany surrounding the separation of the country during the cold war. Although this is not my favorite Bowie album it is up there and truly worthy of the 5 star rating.

Busy day, brief review - this is great!

First half is marvellous, second half is sublime. Alongside the classic Kraftwerk run, this is one of the strongest statements of and for post-war European culture, pop or otherwise.

I really liked this. Atmospheric and cool. I would not have listened to this before. Glad I did.

My favorite of the "Berlin Trilogy" albums. -- At least I think. I need to relisten to Lodger The instrumental tracks are sublime. Especially Warszawa.

Bowie will always be great. I think this was my first time listening to this one though. It's quite haunting.

4.5 Kind of a weird coincidence that we went from having two instrumental albums to the closest Bowie’s ever come to writing one, but what better way to send off the trio of like-minded works than with the beginning of Bowie’s own famous musical trilogy. Obviously I’m using “like-minded” loosely here, as this is miles ahead of Barry Adamson and Zappa in every way imaginable - I mean, come on, it’s David Bowie. As someone who just claimed not to be the biggest fan of instrumental music in my review prior, this album is an exemplification of how to do it and make it compelling. I mean, right off the bat you’re greeted with probably the sexiest blast of jazz to ever open an album - you know, the kind of thing only Bowie could pull off. It’s such a captivating, groovy, and inviting way to kick things off, and it transitions into a series of slightly more conventional tunes from there that I really think are among Bowie’s best. I absolutely love the synthesizer on Breaking Glass, the clanging piano on Be My Wife, and the simple, catchy charm of Sound and Vision - these are seriously all tracks that I think need more love within the larger Bowie catalog. The back half is where you get into the meat of the instrumental work, and while I can see how it could lose some people, I really find Bowie’s take on it to be some of the most atmospheric I’ve heard. There’s an incredible ambience established immediately as Warszawa kicks in, and it really doesn’t let up until the album concludes. Supposedly the songs were inspired by Bowie’s time in Berlin, but for me, they’ve always given off this sense of “final level” in a video game (which, to be fair, Berlin was in a sense at a time) They’re all great, but to date, I honestly think Warszawa is my most-listened to instrumental track ever. David Bowie is a legend among musicians and men for a lot of reasons, but I think one of the biggest reasons was his ability to consistently innovate and reinvent himself, and I think this album, denoting the beginning of his next musical chapter, may represent that spirit the best. The Thin White Duke and Ziggy were out - David was back and changing the game again. Bonus points for why Bowie is the man: Instead of promoting this album, he chose to support his friend Iggy Pop on tour as his keyboardist.

Szerintem olyan közepesen jó volt. Semmi földet indító nem volt benne, de hallgatható.

Mostly ambient and experimental music. Interestingly odd.

Some moments of genius

Can't believe I'd never heard Be My Wife before... it sounds so 80s. The ambient sections I find a bit tedious. Didn't hate it but I probably won't revisit the second half of the record. 3 overall, but a 5 for sound and vision

# Playlist track - Sound and Vision # Notes - Never heard this album before, even though "sound and vision" is one of my favorite Bowie tracks, ever. - Album starts out pretty great. Excellent opening. Fun, energetic, but it something does sideways halfway around. A set of weird experimental tracks takes over and they just feel out of place.

Points for trying something different, but never really came together.

Wow, what a yawner! Amazing he ever became a star.

Idk it felt like half the album was missing. Good beats otherwise

favorite Bowie

One of the best David Bowie albums of all time. And that means it is perfect.

Not my favourite Bowie but still amazing.

Favorite - Sound and Vision

Loved it. Very spacey and more instrumentals than I thought

Netflix n chill vibe

Innovative and avantgarde in the best possible way: a genius doing it.

This is great. It’s like if Bon Iver wrote 22, a million in 1977.

Even by David Bowie's standards this is Low.

Probably my favorite Bowie album. The last half of this album makes feel like I’m in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Love David Bowie and the sounds this album creates.

An amazing album. I just love the way he moves from his expected (great) pop songs into instrument soundscapes.

Like two different superb albums. Krautrock meeting kraut electronica. The Berlin masterpiece!

Capolavoro. Due lati completamente diversi, il primo di canzoni più tradizionali (senza una vera hit), la seconda più atmosferica. Il secondo miglior Bowie.

Holy Eno, Batman. Tommy likey

Stone cold classic.

What can one even say that hasn't been said? An eternal classic

Bowie plus Eno. Really hear it on Breaking Glass. I am really feeling this sonic landscape. Warszawa and the second side where this album really stretches out its legs. Need to re-spin it.

eerie?

Very much enjoyed this

Not what I expected but I love it

Love the instrumental stuff

Stunning. One of his best.

Another Bowie album and it's (obviously) great. It's very much an album of two sides. Side one is the poppy stuff that everyone knows like "Sound and Vision"; side two is longer, more pensive and mostly instrumental pieces.

Bowie at his most peculiar

Super super good.

I love

This is tomorrow calling, wishing you were here. Fabulous, defiant, uplifting, the sound of a man reinventing himself. The side of instrumentals is brave and rich.

I love it

I haven't listened to the rest of the Berlin trilogy yet, but I really like it's first album, Low. The influence from the Krautrock artists was a perfect fit for Bowie's evolving style as he transitioned away from the fascist cocaine monster called the Thin White Duke. The mythology around Bowie and his personas could only really be meaningful if he backed it up with his music, which he does in spades here. Working with Brian Eno and hanging out with Iggy Pop brought a feel to this album that's hard to describe. Just like Kid A, it seems to come out of no where and go back there after we are allowed to enjoy it. The first half of this album is super cool, the second half is why its one of my favorite Bowie albums 5/5

I mean....it's Bowie

I don't care what y'all say, this is Bowie's best, and one of the greatest albums ever created.

that was a really, really cool album I’ve listened to a few Bowie albums but I guess this one slipped past me it had such cool instrumentals and production overall 10/10, I look forward to hearing more Bowie

amazing of course

Some great tracks on this album, Bowie shifting styles again. Synths and whispered vocal throughout, guitars a little less to the fore. Top tracks: Sound and Vision, Warszawa, always crashing in the same car

Hi- Speed of Life, What in the World, Sound and Vision, Be My Wife, Weeping Wall, Subterraneans The first act opens up with rapid-fire ditties that we've all come to know and love from Bowie, with some fresh experiments in electronic sounds. What in the World starts off with what should be an annoying bleeping that somehow just works and wouldn't be the same without it. Be My Wife is filled with hard-hitting honky-tonk piano hits and driving beats. The second act (right after you'd normally flip over the record or cassette) features more atmospheric, electronic tapestries; Weeping Wall features marimbas that provide the backing for a moody exploration. Subterraneans is a thickly-layered scored like you'd experience on the big screen, complimented by that classic Bowie baritone sax to remind you what you're dealing with here. Fantastic album, just amazing, you're stupid if you don't love it.

I had high expectations going in and was a little apprehensive that the album might not deliver. But my concern was redundant, the album is fantastic. It’s such a full sounding album, with so many surprises and melodic ear worms. Its pretty experimental in parts but it really showcases Bowie as an artist first and foremost. The second half of the album isn’t as punchy as the first; the pace slows down a bit during the instrumental sound scapes. But they’re gorgeous to listen to, it doesn’t matter that the album isn’t packed with pop hits, it doesn’t need to be, the beautiful art rock is such a pleasant listen. 5/5 - Loved it.

This album's A-side is perfect, from "Speed of Life" from "A New Career in a New Town", being "Sound and Vision" one of the greatest songs of all time. The B-side is also great, of course, but it's very different from anything else Bowie did or would do, since you can feel Brian Eno's presence everywhere. It's near perfection.

Hi- Speed of Life, What in the World, Sound and Vision, Be My Wife, Weeping Wall, Subterraneans The first act opens up with rapid-fire ditties that we've all come to know and love from Bowie, with some fresh experiments in electronic sounds. What in the World starts off with what should be an annoying bleeping that somehow just works and wouldn't be the same without it. Be My Wife is filled with hard-hitting honky-tonk piano hits and driving beats. The second act (right after you'd normally flip over the record or cassette) features more atmospheric, electronic tapestries; Weeping Wall features marimbas that provide the backing for a moody exploration. Subterraneans is a thickly-layered scored like you'd experience on the big screen, complimented by that classic Bowie baritone sax to remind you what you're dealing with here. Fantastic album, just amazing, you're stupid if you don't love it.

Favourite from Berlin trilogy

I already know that I absolutely LOVE this album. It is one of my favorites.

1,001 albums... Back in the seventies, the gormless DJ-cum-presenter (who was far more interested in his - it was always a he back then - own fame than the art he pretended to like - that *we* liked) would bid his faux-cheery farewells towards the end of Top of the Pops then the credits would roll as one final song was played but then faded out way before its proper end. One week, when I was still to be a teenager, it was the turn of one of the most extraordinary things I'd ever heard. \"What is this shit?\" I might have wondered, had I not just been told by Bates or Travis or whoever it was that week, just like Charles Shaar Murray famously did - though he in disgust and disappointment rather than the breathless awe I felt. Don't you wonder sometimes? I had a bit of a problem with David Bowie at the time - he looked completely different every time I set eyes on him. It used to really confuse me. Just before Low was released (around the time RCA were refusing to release it, so dismayed by it were they), he'd had his first UK number one with a song he'd recorded and released seven years earlier. In the video he didn't seem to be the same impossibly exotic and otherworldly being as on the covers of his albums. He was quite gawky and ordinary, in fact. Like everyone else but in my own little way, I didn't know who David Bowie was. And neither did he in 1976. Famously, he couldn't even really remember recording the stately Station to Station a few months earlier and so decamped to Europe in a bid to get off the Bolivian marching powder with his mate, Jim. Between them they somehow managed to channel their shared withdrawal psychosis to produce four seminal albums in less than twelve months, each with a slightly different flavour. Of the four, Low, with its artful split personality, its shattered fragments of paranoia-infused recovery and redemption and its icy dislocation, is the greatest. So ahead of its time that even the NME didn't get it - a brutally honest document of Britain's greatest star struggling to straighten himself out before he turned thirty. (Decades later, my Polish wife would hear me playing Low and instantly recognise a fragment of a Silesian folk song that Magpie Dave had nicked from a record he'd bought in Wilsonplatz as he journeyed by train through Warsaw. It amuses me that calling his track \"Warszawa\" was a bit like sampling a colliery brass band and calling it \"London.\")

One of the best from one of the best

Low ist eins der besten Bowie Alben mit Abstand, ich mags auch mehr als Heroes. Ultra gut einfach

A bloody perfect album. Love it so much. Atmospheric but with some absolute bangers too

Excellent album. For me it's the best one from the Berlin trilogy for sure and I might even go as far to say it might be Bowie's best overall. For me Low and Ziggy are Bowie's peak and depending in the mood I might say that one is better than the other.

Incredible

Probably my favourite era and album of Bowie.

This one is pretty easy. Top 3 Bowie albuma, pogotovo što se u ovaj album upleo Ivanov najdraži artista (Brian Eno) i viola - odličan album. Dakle Honky Dory, Ziggy Stardust i Low (ovaj album) su mi topčine od albuma.

Arguably my favorite Bowie album

This a cacophony of electronic beauty the instrumentals are what absolutely puts this album on a different level it feels like a resurgence for Bowie and is one of my favourite albums from him. I love the Berlin trilogy!

this is cool, like cooler than cool. 11/10

Stop, Bowie! I can only handle so many amazing albums from one artist! Still waiting for that Bowie album that I don't like, but I don't think it'll ever come. 'Low' is one of Bowie's best works, which is saying a lot. Wasn't familiar with this album before I got it on vinyl a few months ago, and it shocked me when I listened to it. Bowie experimenting with different sounds and styles might be the best Bowie you'll find, and he certainly does a lot of experimenting with this album. I thought the orchestral section would be a turn-off, but the otherworldly sounds, classic Bowie, kept me enraptured. Came for the catchy hits, stayed for the overarching magnificence.

Now that I've had some time, I reflect on "Heroes" and think about how much I love side two, and how I wish it sounded like that throughout. And then I listened to this, and it was like my prayer was answered, which is silly considering this was the predecessor to that album. I love the instrumental artsy direction, and enjoy the lack of classic pop rock Bowie vocals.

Understated brilliance.

A stunning, innovative, compelling and unique record, full of atmosphere and character. Bowie’s artistry is firing on all cylinders, pursuing his own vision, daring us to catch up to him.

Amazing album, always like Bowie but never listened to an entire album. Loved it.

Essential vinyl to take me to the island when everything explodes

No comment needed. 5 stars.

A bit like early Pink Floyd, but not as weird. Track eight is outstanding.

Done

Very cool record. I dig this album more every time I listen. Bowie’s band had one of my favorite rhythm sections and their playing is so different on this record. The drum sounds are so crazy on Breaking glass (sounds almost like they are doubled with electric drums). Also love the guitars on What in the World. Favorite tunes are Sound and vision, Breaking glass, and What in the world, new career in a new location. This album has a really beautiful balance of electric sounds and acoustic instruments. I love all the textures .Two of my favorite instrumental moments are the harmonica solo on new career and sax on Subterraneans (both played by Bowie). Least favorite song is Be my Wife. This album helps me appreciate Bowie as a composer and multi- instrumentalist. They definitely made something that sounds totally unique.

Bowie casually making post-rock before post-rock was even a thing, chad.

It's the centerpiece of Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy". Of course, it's an essential listen, even though it's also a very peculiar album, side one and side two being very different things--pop songs and crooner's ballads mixed with some sort of krautrock funk for the first, and dark or meditative ambient pieces--most of them totally instrumental--created with the incredible Brian Eno for the second. Obviously I will give 5 stars for this one. Yet the fact that this album is often considered by certain subsets of fans as being Bowie's best has always sounded a little weird to me. Very close to the overall sound of the "Berlin Trilogy", I've always found *Station To Station* superior to any of those three LPs--and before that, *Ziggy Stardust*, *Hunky Dory*, and *The Man Who Sold The World* (and maybe even *Aladdin Sane*) will always be rated higher for me. At least if you go to detailed decimals. But I'm probably only nitpicking here. Don't pay too much attention to the ramblings of a relatively *recent* Bowie fan. Because there are all sorts of fans of his work out there, in keeping with this artist's amazing ability to shapeshift from one persona to the next. That's what's great about loving such a legendary artist. Number of albums left to review: 775 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 117 (including this one) Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 55 Albums from the list I will certainly *not* include in mine (many others are more important): 53

One of the greatest albums ever made.

My absolute favorite period for Bowie. Love this and its sister album "Heroes." They go hand in hand. "Heroes" is certainly a standout track, but as an album I probably prefer "Low" on the whole. I feel "Low" has a wider range of moods, and while "Heroes" is more refined, I kind of like how "Low" has more of a playful experimentation to it - still figuring out the formula. Speaking of the formula, I for one, really enjoy the A side = ever so slightly more conventional with lyrics, B side = off the deep end/largely instrumental approach. Best of both worlds if you ask me. All the playing on this is chef's kiss worthy. Bass, drums, guitars, synths, vox, harmonica, you name it. The production balances all these elements perfectly and feels very three dimensional and immersive. Man, if I could be a time travelling fly on the wall for the recording of any album, this just might be it. "Low" is that rare risky move album where he doubled down on experimentation to find a new direction and it paid off in dividends - we're still feeling its influence to this day.

One of Bowie's most famous albums and for good reason. Just killler from front to back.