David Bowie barely lost any time in following up Low with the same core creative team, all while he was assisting on Iggy Pop’s own new standouts in The Idiot and Lust for Life and helping him tour them. “Heroes” as an album is now almost overshadowed by its title track, as majestic a sorrowful anthem for ‘regular people’ as has ever been written, with Robert Fripp’s guest guitar the final touch. But highlights abound on the album, from the energetic openers “Beauty and the Beast” and “Joe the Lion” to another clutch of reflective, subtle instrumentals as on Low.

It’s funny how an album that must have sounded like an unreal, almost unattainable future at the time gave us a deathless standard. Funnier still that the original hasn’t been bested, or that the Side 2 instrumentals still sound like a better tomorrow than the one we got. Remnant funk from his Thin White Duke phase meshes perfectly with the Eno/Visconti-steeped ambient and kosmische immersion that feels like glam’s best qualities done up in matte black.