Low is arguably Bowie’s greatest and most daring achievement. The Thin White Duke had just dropped Station to Station in 76’, which is, in comparison to this record, an amazing, but relatively straightforward, rock masterpiece. Take out the epic krautrock title track are what exactly is the listener left with on Station to Station? The remaining album is something that comes off as very American, despite the fact that Bowie himself is English. To be fair, this isn’t exactly the biggest surprise as it was recorded in Los Angeles, with a band that was majority American. Of the five songs not named “Station to Station”, two of them in particular are clearly groovy and more importantly, a bit soulful. “Stay” and “Golden Years” sport rhythms that make the fact that Bowie, an English rock star, was the first white man on Soul Train (despite his awkward Soul Train performance) significantly less surprising. Overall, the title track aside, Station to Station was a very warm, and arguably, American record, which is what makes the entire aesthetic of Low all the more surprising and intriguing, even when analyzing it decades after the fact.
One could say that this record works as the antithesis to records like Station to Station. After Station to Station, a warm, energetic, American, cocaine fueled masterpiece, something like Low was always destined to have it’s detractors. The album’s initial reception was mixed, which, taking into account Bowie’s catalogue at that point makes perfect sense. This is probably because Low is a cold, at times desolate, but most importantly, distinctly European, half instrumental based album. Parts of it may even be able to work quite well as a soundtrack to one of those old Sci-Fi flicks that were always accompanied by “cold” electronics inspired instrumentation. This album lacks all of that “groove” and “soul” that may have driven so many people’s enjoyment of Station to Station. From a marketing standpoint, doing something like this is bat-shit crazy, but often geniuses have the nerve to do something bat-shit crazy and succeed at it. Bowie on this record and Miles Davis’ transition to the spacey and sparse jazz-fusion with In a Silent Way, have to be two of the best examples of these type of artistic, but not necessarily commercial (the majority of the world doesn’t remember Bowie for “Art Decade”, that’s for sure), bat-shit crazy successes in modern music.
This change, being an extremely well documented story due to Bowie’s fame, starts with the man himself and ends with what and whom the man surrounded himself with. Bowie moved to from Los Angeles to Europe where he would record the “Berlin Trilogy”, of which Low is the first record. The foundation of the trilogy was a trio: Bowie, then recovering from his cocaine addiction, Brian Eno, whose synthesizers and ambient leaning influence can be found all over this album (especially the B-side), and long-time producer Tony Visconti, whose work with a harmonizer produced one of the defining sounds of the unique A-Side of this project, those off kilter, brilliantly weird (and retrospectively, video-game like) drum sounds found on the first track, “Speed of Life”.
In terms of the man himself, not the instruments or machines, the singing style appropriately changed with the atmosphere of what he was surrounded by. Bowie penned lyrics that were much less straightforward and at times, sporadic and random (“What in the World”), while giving a vocal performance that often comes off as relatively staccato – sharp, detached - (“Baby – I’ve Been – Breaking – Glass in your room again”) in comparison to the some of the smooth singing that can be found on some of the choruses in Station to Station (“Golden Years”, “Stay”, “Word on A Wing”). Speaking of sung choruses, the majority of Low does away with this idea completely, with only three of the eleven songs containing anything that could count as a chorus by Station to Station standards (“Sound and Vision”, “Always Crashing in the Same Car”, “Be My Wife”).
Low is a masterpiece that holds the unique feature of being one of the only albums that one could break directly in half and then be holding two of the best, yet extremely different, EPs of all time. The A-Side, kicked off by the instrumental “Speed of Life”, is the off-kilter rock side with unconventionally short track lengths, whereas the B-Side is the Eno side, with spacey, eerie and gorgeous synthesizer centric instrumental tracks. It’s nearly impossible to pick favorite songs here, as each side could be morphed into two radically different albums. It really depends on what mood the listener is in. The A-Side, the more extroverted and loud side, which was ironically more inspired by what was going in inside Bowie’s mind and body or the B-Side, the introvert, which finds its artistic base in Bowie’s surroundings at the time, the “Weeping [Berlin] Wall” being the most obvious example. The A-Side is brilliant, featuring the futuristic and clunky sounding warped drums on “Speed of Life” and the dark synth-filled atmosphere of “Always Crashing In The Same Car”. “Sound and Vision” is another stand out, purely based on how catchy those guitars are. The B-side is arguably even stronger, with standout “Art Decade” having a very hypnotic quality to it in its repetition and “Warszawa”, being beautiful beyond words.
The stark difference between both sides of this LP was an extremely effective formula that would be repeated on “Heroes”. “Speed of Life” to “Be My Wife” (1-6) could serve as the first EP, "High", in reference to the cocaine of course. Whereas “Warszawa” to “Subterraneans” (8-11) would be the second EP, "Low", in reference to the post-addiction, European-based life. The unique position of "A New Career A New Town”, which serves as a perfect transitioning point from the two different styles of this album, warrants special treatment. Since Bowie wrote this album after his move to Europe, it is pretty obvious what “A New Career In A New Town”, represents: change, a new life-style, no cocaine etc. Unlike the instrumentals located on the B-side, this song is not dark; in fact it comes off as quite enthusiastic, appropriately looking forward to what is to come – Bowie’s “honeymoon” period with Europe. In regards to the two EPs, the most appropriate way to deal with “A New Career A New Town” would be to chop this it in half and put each respective side on the first and second EP. The song is so perfectly placed that it would be odd to remove it from either EP, but at the same time just as odd to have the whole thing on the first or the second.
In terms of 70s albums, Low is in the top tier. Listening to this record years later makes it clear that Bowie, and of course Eno, are a big effect on some “art-pop” bands. The cold, detached and sci-fi-like atmosphere that can be found at times here, especially on the B-side, is definitely something that bands like Broadcast and Stereolab were profoundly influenced by. The same can be said for the quirky pop of “Sound and Vision”. In a way, the A-Side could arguably be summed up in what the aforementioned bands often try to do and generally succeed at: making the odd, catchy – or vice-versa. Low is one of those rare, otherworldly albums - it's an album that's weird in all the best ways.
