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)

My Month of Bowie, day 6: 'Aladdin Sane' (1973)

David Bowie gets personal on 1973's Aladdin Sane.

The album: Aladdin Sane (RCA, 1973)

The album's iconic cover.

My thoughts: Years ago, I read in Rolling Stone that the title and cover of David Bowie's sixth studio album, Aladdin Sane, held special significance. The title was a pun on "a lad insane," and the lightning bolt across Bowie's face symbolized the schizophrenia of Bowie's troubled half-brother, Terry. Being largely unschooled in all things David Bowie, I took Rolling Stone's word as gospel. So I went into this album expecting it to be vulnerable and quiet, full of moody, reflective piano ballads about the fragility of the mind and soul.

Boy, is Aladdin Sane not that.

The first track is a confident, Jagger-esque rocker called "Watch that Man," which sounds like something you'd play if you had access to a six pack and a Camaro and were gearing up for a loud, fun night on the town. Things get considerably weirder on the album's second song, the title track, with a clattering piano solo that sounds like Tom chasing Jerry through the Steinway factory. After that, Aladdin Sane is all over the place. Bowie albums tend to be a smorgasbord of styles, all served in generous proportions; this one is no exception. I'm led to understand that Bowie intended this album as a departure from Ziggy Stardust, the end of one persona and the beginning of another. To my untrained ears, however, Aladdin Sane sounds like a direct sequel to Ziggy. It's precisely the kind of LP that an androgynous rock star alien would have made. 

Speaking of which: while listening to this album, I could not help but think of the Frank-N-Furter character from the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show (1973) and its film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Frank, too, is an androgynous rock star alien, and his musical tastes (like Bowie's) run the gamut from Brechtian show music to swoony 1950s teen pop. You know how, when Frank is confronted by Riff Raff near the end of the show, he takes the opportunity to sing a dramatic ballad ("I'm Going Home")? That strikes me as a very Bowie-esque thing to do.

I mentioned at the outset of this series that my introduction to David Bowie came through a 1989 box set called Sound + Vision. Well, that set included Bowie's bratty 1971 cover of a Chuck Berry song called "Round and Round." (He recorded it during the Ziggy sessions and burned it off as a B-side.) Throughout Aladdin Sane, you can really hear how Chuck Berry's music affected a whole generation of musicians, including young David Robert Jones. How appropriate that Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was etched onto a golden disc and sent into space by NASA in 1977. Perhaps someday, it will reach other members of David Bowie's species.

Is it strange to say that one of my favorite tracks from Aladdin Sane is Bowie's cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together" by The Rolling Stones? I take it that not all rock critics approve of Bowie's hyped-up remake—some of those spoilsports still aren't wild about what Devo did to "Satisfaction" either—but I think Bowie's rowdy rendition manages to be sexier and more fun than the original. And isn't that why we're here, ultimately? To have some fun? 

Next: Pin Ups (1973)