Bowie's interest in the growing German music scene and his drug addiction prompted him to move to Berlin to dry out and rejuvenate his career anew. Sharing an apartment in Schöneberg with his friend Iggy Pop, he produced three more of his own classic albums, as well as aiding Pop in his career. With Bowie as a co-writer and musician, Pop completed his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. More unusually, the star Bowie joined Pop's touring band in the spring, simply playing keyboard and singing backing vocals. The group performed in the UK, Europe, and the US from March to April.
David Bowie, Best of 1974/1979As for Bowie's music, the brittle sound of Station to Station was a precursor to that found on Low, the first of three recorded in collaboration with Brian Eno. Heavily influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and others, the new songs were relatively simple, repetitive and stripped, a clear and typically perverse reaction to punk rock, with the second side almost wholly instrumental. (By way of tribute, proto-punk Nick Lowe recorded an EP entitled "Bowi".) The album provided him with a surprise #3 hit in the UK when the BBC picked up the first single, "Sound and Vision", as its 'coming attractions' theme music. Low was renowned for having been far ahead of its time and fascinates to this day, many calling it Bowie's best album. It was produced in 1976 and released in early 1977.
The next record, "Heroes", was similar in sound to Low, though slightly more accessible. The mood of these records fit the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city that provided its inspiration. The title track remains one of Bowie's best known, a classic story about two lovers who met at the Berlin Wall. Also in 1977, Bowie appeared on the ITV music show Marc, hosted by his close friend and fellow glam pioneer Marc Bolan, with whom he had regularly socialised and jammed since before either became famous. He turned out to be the show's final guest, as Bolan was killed in a car crash shortly afterwards. Bowie was one of many superstars who attended the funeral.
For Christmas 1977, Bowie joined Bing Crosby, of whom he was an ardent admirer, in a recording studio to do a version of Little Drummer Boy, with new lyrics added. The two had originally met on Crosby's Christmas television special two years earlier (on the recommendation of his children - Crosby had not heard of Bowie) and performed the song. One month after the record was completed, Crosby died. The song was a worldwide festive hit. Bowie later teasingly remarked, that he was afraid of visiting anybody, because "everyone I met dropped dead a month later", referring to the deaths of Bolan and Crosby.
There was a brief world tour in 1978 which featured the music of both Low and "Heroes". A live album of this tour was released, known as Stage. Songs from both "Heroes" and Low were later converted to symphonies by minimalist composer Phillip Glass. 1978 was also the year that featured Bowie releasing a narration recording of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, which to this day is regarded as one of the best recordings of the work.
Lodger (1979) was the final of Bowie's so-called "Berlin Trilogy" (this moniker has been debated as only "Heroes" was entirely recorded in Berlin, the collaboration with Brian Eno being the undisputed link amongst the three albums). Lodger featured the singles "Boys Keep Swinging", "DJ" and "Look Back in Anger", and it did not contain any instrumentals. However, the album is renowned for being quite a contorted mix of New Wave and world music, and pieces such as "African Night Flight" and "Yassassin" were surprising detours even by Bowie's standards. This was Bowie's last album with Eno until 1995's 1. Outside.
In 1980, Bowie did an about-face, integrating the lessons learnt on Low, "Heroes" and Lodger whilst expanding upon them with breakthrough success. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) included the #1 hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer, and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The imagery Bowie used in the song's music video gave international exposure to the underground New Romantic movement and, with many of the followers of this phase being devotees, Bowie visited the London club "Blitz" - the main New Romantic hangout - to recruit several of the regulars to act in the video, renowned as being one of the most innovative of all time. Scary Monsters clung to the principles that Bowie had learned in the Berlin era, however it was very fresh considering the brutal transformation Bowie had gone through during the experience. Bowie had divorced his wife Angie, gone through withdrawal from the drugs of the "Thin White Duke" era, and his conception of how music should be written had totally changed. The album had a very hard rock sound with many innovations, and it laid much of the foundation for rock music in the 1980s.