David Bowie “Pin Ups” released 45 years ago today, October 19th, 1973. Pin Ups was Bowie’s 7th studio LP and is filled with a collection of covers by bands playing the London scene between 1964-67. The album entered the UK album chart at #3 and then hit #1; in the US it went to #23. Bowie released one single from Pin Ups: “Sorrow” (originally recorded by The McCoys in ‘65 but Bowie was inspired by the more popular version by The Merseys which went to #4 in ‘66) which went to #3 in the UK. My favorite tracks on Pin Ups are the Bo Diddly-esque “Rosayln” and “Don’t Bring Me Down” (originally performed by The Pretty Things in ‘64), “Here Comes the Night” (by Bert Berns and popularized by Them in ‘65), the rockin’ rhythm-and-blues “Everything’s Alright” (The Mojos, ‘64), the two The Who tracks “I Can’t Explain” (‘64) and “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” (‘65), the glammed-up version of “Friday on My Mind” (the Easybeats, who are Australian, ‘66) and the garage-rocker “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” (The Kinks, ‘65).  I’m not crazy about “See Emily Play,” which is an early Pink Floyd song that is a bit too atonal and cacophony-crazed for my tastes.

According to Allmusic, Pin Ups was confusing to a lot of Bowie fans (especially Americans who had little exposure to most of the tracks covered on the album) but “Pin Ups was an artistic statement, of sorts, with some thought behind it, rather than just a quick album of oldies covers to buy some time, as it was often dismissed as being. In the broader context of Bowie’s career, Pin Ups was more than an anomaly – it marked the swan song for the Spiders from Mars and something of an interlude between the first and second phases of his international career; the next, beginning with Diamond Dogs, would be a break from his glam rock phase, going off in new directions. It’s not a bad bridge between the two, and it has endured across the decades.”