Walls of Sound
The idealisation of style is very popular amongst those who make popular music. Which is why
I will start by exploring the aesthetics of electronic music in an attempt to theorise and
understand why the presence of what seems like a wall of sound throughout the Berlin Trilogy
successfully mirrors the social and political climate of Berlin during the 1970’s.
The most definitive feature of electronic music is that it appears detached as it is not seen as a
traditional form of composition. However, I would argue that it is also seemingly human due to
the regular beat used to apply some form of lucid structure to the songs on albums such as Low
that is similar to that of a heartbeat. Metaphorically speaking, the innovative sounds of
electronica that dominate the Berlin Trilogy can be read as the new beating heart of Bowie’s
creative reinvention during his time in Berlin.
Bowie, along with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti, redefined his own musical expression by
developing a mechanical sounding, lo-fi soundscape in order to reflect the number of
interchanging contexts of the bleak, industrialized landscape that he was now surrounded by.
Phillip Tagg explores the theme of redefining musical expression in his essay on the analysis of
popular music theory. He says that we should “assume music to be that form of interhuman
communication in individually experienceable affective states and processes are conceived and
transmitted as humanly organised non-verbal sound structures to those capable of decoding