Industrial Heroes

Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations

When Bowie originally recorder ‘Heroes’, it was in German.  Being the marketing non-guru that he was at the time, he nevertheless made an English version.  The English version is all over the net.  Indeed, it’s all over my blog as it’s one of my favorites.  In fact, it might be my favorite.  What you don’t hear much is the original German version.  I’d heard it a time or two.  I loved the English version so basically forgot ‘Helden’ even existed.  So, imagine my pleasant surprise when I read a blog post today about some Germans ( and Fins ) remaking ‘Helden’:

Sounds kinda crazy huh? An industrial metal version of a Bowie song? Now, for the most part, I hate industrial metal. It’s right up there with rap in terms of musical quality. However, I enjoyed this version a lot more than the sanitized version The Wallflowers did. Probably one of my favorite remakes of ‘Heroes’ is by Magnetic Fields. It’s a very industrial sound. Not the metal kind tho. In fact, if you listen closely to Bowie’s 1977 version, it has a modern industrial sound to it. The entire album at that time was too harsh for me. But one song stood out and used that harshness to effect. That sound probably wasn’t a Bowie creation, but Bowie was the first to use it that I was aware of at the time. Nowadays, it’s everywhere. ‘Heroes’ to say the least has morphed a hundred different ways since 1977. Now, thanks to Apocalyptica with an assist by Till Lindemann of Rammstein, it seems to have morphed back to what it was meant to be in 1977, a German industrial rock song. I also appreciate how they adhered to the melodies of ‘Heroes’, which industrial bands are usually not wont to do. They kept those melodies intact, but did it in a purely industrial fashion. I’m no fan of either of these groups, but I do appreciate what they did with one of my all time anthems. If just just for one day.

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Permalink | August 28th, 2008

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    • 4 Squawks to “Industrial Heroes”

    1. J R Marnie Squawked:
      August 28th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

      Hey, thanks for the mention, much appreciated!!

      And thanks also for the info on helden; I never knew the german version came first, cheers!

    2. Strangely Perfect Squawked:
      August 30th, 2008 at 6:43 am

      Thanks for the info, and the prompt! I now spent all morning going through all the “Heroes” versions I could find.
      You are spot on about this Till/Apocalyptica one. It’s great - in fact I had to play it several times; a German Industrial Rock song - I never though of it like that but it’s about right, I guess. I certainly never knew Bowie did it in German first. Saying that, V2-Schneider, the B-side, is one of my all-time favourite Bowie tracks. You don’t see it much though, although I stuck a link on my site to the single version on YouTube ….

    3. Moonage Squawked:
      September 11th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

      Well, you have to consider that in 1977, there was no “German Industrial Sound”. That started evolving a little later. But, the sound of ‘Heroes’ does kind of fit into that sound. My point therefore was that Till/Apocalyptica doing ‘Heroes’ isn’t far removed at all from what they traditionally do. Till/Apocalyptica doing Changes would be a stretch I doubt they’d even want to try. Doing ‘Heroes’, not at all. It’s a perfect fit. Obviously.

    4. Moonage Squawked:
      September 12th, 2008 at 7:37 am

      Hey guys, be sure to check out the video thevisitor submitted. Puts a little background to the song.

    Squawk like a pink monkey bird!