David Bowie | Space Oddity | The Man Who Sold the World | Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars | Aladdin Sane | Pin Ups | Diamond Dogs | Young Americans
Station to Station | Low | "Heroes" | Lodger | Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) | Let's Dance | Tonight | Never Let Me Down
Tin Machine | Black Tie White Noise | The Buddha of Suburbia | Outside | Earthling | 'hours...' | Heathen | Reality | 'hours...'
The Next Day | ★ | Changesonebowie
- Accent Depundent: "Joe the Lion" features the repeated line "Joe the Lion, made of iron," the rhyming scheme of which doesn't work for dialects that stress the "R" in "iron."
- Creator Recovery: While Station to Station was heavily influenced by Bowie's cocaine addiction and Low by the detox process and his collapsing marriage, "Heroes" was rooted strongly in a renewed sense of enthusiasm after finally sobering up. The result shows in the album's more eclectic approach, comparatively boisterous sound, and themes of self-discovery.
- Referenced by...:
- Philip Glass's Symphony No.4 ("Heroes") was named after this album, down to the individual movements which were all named after, and based on the tracks "'Heroes'", "Abdulmajid", "Sense of Doubt", "Sons of the Silent Age", "Neuköln" and "V-2 Schneider". Earlier he also composed his Symphony No.1 (Low) after Bowie's Low, and would later compose his Symphony No.12 (Lodger) in 2018 after Bowie's 1979 follow-up to "Heroes".
- The cover of Bowie's album The Next Day is an altered facsimile of the "Heroes" cover.
- The Title Track is used in the finale of Regular Show. Series creator J.G. Quintel was a fan of David Bowie himself.
- What Could Have Been: Bowie's first choice for the album's guitarist was Michael Rother from Neu!. Rother agreed to the idea when approached, but for one reason or another was pulled from the project shortly before production began; sources vary as to whether Bowie changed his mind at the last minute or if Rother himself made the choice to leave. Regardless, Brian Eno chose to instead recruit former King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp to play "some hairy rock 'n' roll guitar" on "Heroes".
- Working Title: The album was produced under the title The Sons of Silent Ages.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Most of the album was put together through improvisation. Among other examples, the lyrics for "Joe the Lion" were written and recorded in less than an hour, the guitar sound on "Beauty and the Beast" was done in a single take, and Eno's Oblique Strategies cards were a driving force behind much of the album. Producer Tony Visconti actually kept a tape recorder constantly running in the studio so that nobody's new ideas ended up forgotten.
