Pin Ups (Enhanced, Original Recording Reissued)

by

David Bowie

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The reviews I read here call this an album of covers, which it is. But to call it that, merely that, misses the point.

Bowie has always been one to do something different, even if it is exactly the opposite of what was expected of him - something U2 has borrowed from. This album is indeed a tribute to the music that influenced Bowie during the British Invasion during the 60's, as the original LP liner notes explained. You hear The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, Them... But no Beatles or Dave Clark 5. Bowie makes a very personal statement hear, not only by defying expectations of his audience as perhaps the most original songwriter of his generation, but by taking his favorite songs by the bands that influenced him and putting his stamp on them with the then-Bowie style that those bands had influenced.

When I was 16 in 1983 I would travel to Crow's Nest Records in Crest Hill, IL (long before "Crow's Nest Digital") to search their massive supply of records and other fandom paraphernalia, particularly the many U2 imports. You could get anything there - from Boomtown Rats to Soft Cell to Hüsker Dü. A staff member there noticed my selections and asked if I like Punk. "Yes." "Do you own 'Pinups'?" "What's that?" (Fearing that he was talking about some kind of bad magazine.)

He explained that Bowie's Pinups was the first Punk record, because it bridged the gap between the 60's bands like The Who and The Kinks and the Punk bands that they influenced, from Iggy to Bowie to Talking Heads to the Pistols. I don't know if I agree that it was definitely the first Punk album, anymore than I agree that Elvis' "That's Alright" was the first Rock 'n' Roll Record, but like "That's Alright", Pinups was a monumental record in my musicology. It turned me on to Bowie and then to each of the bands that Bowie saluted with Pinups, and a whole new world opened up to me beyond the Beatles and a connection was made that before bands like the Ramones and before Bowie was singing "Let's Dance" there was a music with an intense authenticity, fertile with sound that would inevitably plant itself in the hearts of musicians for generations.

Most point to Ziggy or Aladdin Sane. But this and The Man Who Sold The World have always been my favorite Bowie records. Ziggy, Sane and Diamond Dogs are right there as well, and now, with Outside and Heathen, Bowie rocks again.

Another note: This concept certainly influenced the Annie Lennox album, Medusa.