David Bowie: Heathen [ISO / PARLOPHONE]

Why you'll love it

This remastered LP is pressed in Germany from the 2025 remaster of Heathen. The album reunited Bowie with Tony Visconti and went top 15 in 15 countries, with Pete Townshend on "Slow Burn" and Dave Grohl on "I've Been Waiting For You."

This edition

• Remastered
• Pressed in Germany
• Etched runouts
• Stereo mix

About the album

Heathen opens with "Sunday," a slow, hushed hymn of a song, and it sets the tone for one of David Bowie's most quietly gorgeous records. Made in the Catskills in upstate New York with Tony Visconti, his partner on so many classic albums from the 1970s, it sounds like an artist completely at ease with his own history.

"Slow Burn" has a stately swagger, "Everyone Says 'Hi'" is a warm, wistful pop song, and "5:15 The Angels Have Gone" builds from a whisper into something enormous. Bowie also picks three covers with impeccable taste: Pixies' "Cactus," Neil Young's "I've Been Waiting For You" and "I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship" by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy.

It was hailed as a return to form, and it grew out of the shelved Toy project, two of whose songs were remade for Heathen. The best part of four decades into his career, he still had the knack of writing songs that sound like you've known them forever, which must have been mildly irritating for everyone else in the business.

Also at Kops: more David Bowie on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On ISO / Parlophone (cat# DB0216-1), a reissue of the 2002 album.