Monday, October 07, 2013

Album of the Month for October 2013: David Bowie - Pin Ups


Our Album of the Month (#209) for October 2013 is David Bowie's Pin Ups!

The album cover with Bowie posing with model Twiggy is one of his iconic ones from the 70's. (Yes, it's actually 40 years since it was released).

This is a collection of cover versions, Bowie favourites from the 1964–67 period. Songs by Kinks, The Who and Pink Floyd to name a few. A neat collection of songs but maybe recorded in a bit of a hurry. The previous album Aladdin Sane was released less than six months before Pin Ups.

One may think that it is a mystery why the best cover song from the period was not released until 1990, when two bonus tracks were added to the Rykodisc cd reissue. We are talking about Growin' Up by Bruce Springsteen, a superior version of a song from Springsteen's Greetings From Asbury Park album that had been released earlier that year. The explanation is that the recording of Growin' Up did not take place during the Pin Ups sessions, but later when Pin Ups was already released during the early sessions for the following album Diamond Dogs. Also, the song by the then rather unknown American artist Bruce Springsteen may not have fitted in with Bowie's idea to do songs from the 60's that were not known as well in the States as they were in England.

P.S.
Today is the day that the 2013 version of the song Sound And Vision is released. And later tis month we'll be able to hear a never-aired 1973 promo for Pin Ups on Spotify. So it's definitely Bowie month here in October.

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