a guy who was no singer. But I think his time has been and gone, and this just sounds weary. Then again, maybe the ponderous heavy riff will be absorbed on the radio, and the monotonous feel may just be hypnotic enough to drag people into buying it. I hope not." The magazine placed it at number six in their list of the year's best singles. Retrospective appraisal Heroes has greatly grown in stature in the decades following its release. Pegg and O'Leary note that it was not until Bowie's performance of the song at Live Aid in 1985 did it become recognised as a classic. Buckley describes this rendition as "the best version of 'Heroes' [Bowie] had ever sung". Reviewing the song for AllMusic, Ned Raggett described it as arguably Bowie's finest song and a "true classic", writing that with Eno, Fripp and Visconti, Bowie crafted an anthem embellished with German influences while still using the "dramatic power" of rock and roll. Analysing his vocal, he wrote: "Starting with an almost conversational tone, by the end of the song he's turning in a performance that could almost be called operatic, yet still achingly, passionately human." Pitchfork Ryan Dombal described Heroes as "an immortal track all about fleeting wonders", while Ultimate Classic Rock Allison Rapp found that over time, the track become "one of rock's most-loved anthems of hope". In a list ranking every Bowie single from worst to best, the same publication placed it at number one. In Consequence of Sound, Lior Phillips stated that the track "expertly captures the hopeless reality that nothing lasts and that we all must die — and also the inherent beauty in the fact that we all live and love in our time despite that fact". Moby has said that Heroes is one of his favourite songs ever written, finding it "inevitable" that his music would be influenced by the song, while Depeche Mode's lead singer Dave Gahan was hired into the band when founder Vince Clarke heard him singing it at a jam session. Like critics, Bowie's biographers praise Heroes as a classic and one of Bowie's best tracks, with author Paul Trynka calling it "his simplest, most affecting and most memorable song". Buckley acknowledges it as Bowie's "most universally admired song" and in 2015, wrote that the song "is perhaps pop's definitive statement of the potential triumph of the human spirit