"Heroes"

"Heroes" is David Bowie's second album recorded in Berlin with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti, and the centerpiece of what became his Berlin Trilogy. Recorded at Hansa studios in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, it finds Bowie in confident, focused form: the songs are warmer and fuller than its predecessor's, with Robert Fripp's jagged guitar giving the electronic textures a muscular, human foundation. The title track — a slow-building anthem of defiant love under political oppression — is routinely described in the highest terms, and its famous climax, with Bowie's voice straining toward a desperate, near-shattering scream, is widely regarded as one of the great recorded vocal performances in rock. Critics were nearly unanimous that this was Bowie's strongest work of the era, and multiple music publications named it album of the year on release.

The album follows its predecessor's structure: a side of relatively conventional rock songs, then a mostly instrumental side of ambient mood pieces evoking the city's cold, divided atmosphere. That second half is where opinion diverges. Some find the ambient stretches essential to the album's texture — a meditative descent into the anxiety beneath the anthems — while others find them less absorbing, the record's one stretch where the momentum flags. Even admirers occasionally concede that "Heroes" is a touch more theatrical and less spontaneous than its predecessor, an album to admire for its craft as much as to love for its inspiration.

What no one disputes is the title track's stature, and its long shadow has only grown over the decades: repeatedly cited among the greatest songs ever recorded, it turned the album's influence on the generations of musicians after it — from post-punk to electronic rock — into a commonplace of music history. The disagreements among critics concern the album's edges: whether the instrumental side coheres or wanders, whether this or the preceding album is the stronger work. These are arguments between devotees of two masterpieces, not quarrels about a flawed record.