David Bowie's transitional masterpiece arrived shrouded in cocaine psychosis and spiritual dread, the Thin White Duke emerging from Los Angeles studios with a sound caught between American plastic soul and the European chill to come. The ten-minute title track builds from austere minimalism into rhythmic propulsion, while Golden Years became an unlikely hit amid the album's glacial funk experiments.

Cherokee Studios captured Bowie at his most controlled and unhinged, Carlos Alomar's guitar and Roy Bittan's borrowed piano anchoring songs that pointed directly toward Berlin's frozen horizons.