‘Pin Ups’: the unlikely album loved by David Bowie
After finding his footing in the studio with 1970’s The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie maintained an unrelenting pace, following it with a string of groundbreaking albums: Hunky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972), and the chart-topping Aladdin Sane (1973).
In addition to developing his sound and style, Bowie also developed his Ziggy Stardust character—an androgynous, alien rock star who fell to Earth ahead of an impending apocalyptic disaster with the intention of delivering a message of hope—in his public appearances and tours of Europe, Japan, and, less successfully, the United States.
Ziggy Stardust’s far-out and theatrical outfits, hairdo, and makeup inspired a wave of star children, who would attend Bowie’s shows adorned in space-glam get-ups and go crazy for Ziggy, Weird and Gilly.
What had started out as a stage character for the London boy, though, soon came to take over his life. Bowie, in the early stages of a rapidly deepening cocaine addiction, found it increasingly difficult to separate his own personality from that of his on-stage persona. The huge demand for his attention and time that came from his success, combined with his relentless touring schedule and building tensions within his band, led Bowie to the brink of burnout and breakdown.
When Bowie, as Ziggy Stardust, announced from the stage at the Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd, 1973, that “this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do”, it wasn’t only his adoring audience who were shocked. Of his band, only guitarist Mick Ronson and pianist Mike Garson were pre-warned that this was to be the end of the line. Bassist Mick Boulder, drummer Woody Woodmansey, and rhythm guitarist John Hutchinson all found out on stage at the same time as the crowd.
Having killed off Ziggy Stardust on the stage, Bowie set about wrestling back control of his identity straight away. At a star-studded after-show party, he immediately began formulating the idea for his next album, although not without trepidation at what he had just done. As he remembered in 1993, “About 48 hours later, I’m sitting there thinking, ‘What have I said? I don’t think I really meant that at all. I’m feeling better already.’ But too late. I know I really pissed off Woody and Trevor. They were so angry, I think, because I hadn’t really told them that I was splitting the band up”.
Despite having split the band up, Bowie enlisted both Boulder and Woodmansey to record on his next release, the 1973 covers album Pin Ups. Made up entirely of songs made famous in London’s 1960s mod scene of Bowie’s childhood, the album was a far cry conceptually from Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, if not sonically.
Bowie’s take on Billy Boy Arnold’s (via The Yardbirds) ‘I Wish You Would’ is suitably ‘Gene Genie’-esque, while the Pretty Things’ Johnny Dee-penned ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ would have fit comfortably on any of his previous four albums. His version of ‘The Shapes of Things’, another Yardbirds classic, echoed a rocked-up rendition of his own ’60s sound. Meanwhile, the saxophone-led ‘Here Comes the Night’ and the slow-burning ballad ‘Sorrow’ hinted at the directions Bowie would explore on Diamond Dogs and Young Americans.
And while he was on the way to formulating that new sound, Pin Ups was an important transition record for Bowie and one that he was very fond of, as he told Uncut in 2001: “Pin Ups was really my way of shaking off Ziggy completely, while retaining some excitement in the music. It really was treading water, but it happens to be one of my favourite albums. I think there is some terrific stuff on it”.
His audience must have agreed at the time, as, even though it’s something of a forgotten album in his career, the record followed Aladdin Sane all the way to the top of the charts on its release.
