Berlin Trilogy UK top five. Bowie would later call the music of the trilogy his "DNA". "Consequence of Sound" characterized the trilogy as an "art rock trifecta", while "Rolling Stone" wrote that the Berlin Trilogy "stands as some of the most innovative music in the artist's influential canon". Following Bowie's Thin White Duke period and the commercial success of the singles "Fame" and "Golden Years" in 1976, he was eager to escape the drug culture of Los Angeles, where he had developed a cocaine addiction. He had also become embroiled in controversy regarding comments he made seemingly in favour of fascism. He
The Illuminatus! Trilogy the "what has gone before" introduction to "The Golden Apple" and the "Prologue" to "Leviathan". Some of the material in that foreword, such as the self-destruct mynah birds (taught to say "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty!"), appears nowhere else in the trilogy, likely a result of the 500 pages of cuts demanded by Dell. The omnibus edition gave a new lease of life to flagging sales, and became the most commonly available form of the trilogy from then on. The trilogy was translated and published in German, again both as separate volumes (the three covers of which formed a triptych) and an omnibus.