My Month of Bowie, day 7: 'Pin Ups' (1973)

Twiggy meets Ziggy on the cover of Pin Ups.

The album: Pin Ups (RCA, 1973)

The cover of a covers album.

My thoughts: David Bowie really went through a remarkable run of albums between 1970 and 1973. The music he released during this time would define his legacy for decades to come. I'm only a week into this project, and I've already heard plenty of David's greatest hits. Why was he working at such a furious pace in his mid-twenties? Was he motivated by his father's death at the age of 57 in 1969? You never know when the Grim Reaper is going to come calling; better record some masterpieces while you still can.

I fully expected that Pin Ups, a 1973 all-covers album released as a concession to his label, would break the spell. But here's the miracle: it didn't. This thing is a boatload of fun, maybe the closest thing to a "party record" that Bowie had recorded to that point in his career. (The full-fledged dance music wouldn't arrive for a while.) Rock critics and Bowie purists tend to worry themselves into anemia as they analyze, categorize, and scrutinize each of David's records, especially those albums from this pivotal period of his career. They approach each LP as a mystery they have to solve, and the best place to go looking for "clues" is in David's often-abstract lyrics. Being an album of other people's songs, then, Pin Ups may not have a lot to offer these folks.

But it had plenty to offer me, the Bowie novice. Once again, my lack of expertise comes to the rescue! I don't really care that this isn't another Hunky Dory or Aladdin Sane, because I don't need it to be. When I play Pin Ups, I just hear a half-hour of great, catchy songs, only some of them familiar, performed by an ace rock & roll combo. (Bowie's band was really in the zone in 1973.) What more can you really ask of an album than that? To turn your back on Pin Ups is to deny yourself enjoyment, which is a terribly foolish thing to do. It yields no dividends whatsoever.

Imagine an alternate universe in which David Bowie had written each of these twelve songs himself. Same lyrics, same melodies, same chords. I fully believe, in that universe, Pin Ups would be mentioned in the same breath as David's other albums of the period and would be hailed today as another glam rock masterpiece. Instead, these songs all come to us second-hand from other bands (The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, and more), so Pin Ups gets dismissed as a throwaway. That seems profoundly unfair to me. May I never be a Bowie purist, then. To hell with those killjoys.

Next: Diamond Dogs (1974)