Track Listing

1. Rosalyn
2. Here Comes The Night
3. I Wish You Would
4. See Emily Play
5. Everything's Alright
6. I Can't Explain
7. Friday On My Mind
8. Sorrow
9. Don't Bring Me Down
10. Shapes Of Things
11. Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
12. Where Have All The Good Times Gone

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6186 in Music
• Released on: 1999-09-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Enhanced, Original recording reissued
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
PIN UPS served as a sort of "how to" guide to David Bowie'scareer. This all-covers album shed light on his ability to adopt personas and emulate musical genres with amazing speedand diversity. It also showed that Bowie was anticipating adifferent musical climate for the rest of the decade, signifying a change from what was admired during the 1960s.
The psychedelic overtones of Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play" andthe garage rock cynicism of the Easybeats' "Friday On My Mind" perfectly display Bowie's ear for melody and eye for pop-culture posturing. He even tips a hat to his more established influences. The Kinks' "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" sparks his interest as a memory-soaked ballad (a Ray Davies speciality), and with The Who's "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" Bowie admits to not having invented the rock 'n' roll ego.
PIN UPS served another suitable purpose for the chameleonic performer, down-playing his other-worldly image by betraying his influences. By presenting Bowie as an actual fan--and not just an image/style manipulator--the album portrayed the singer in a different light, allowing him to loosen up his approach to performing and to step outside the multiple characters he had created for himself.

Customer Reviews

Odd Collection - Great Band!
Bowie's first and only complete 'covers' album was a mediocre sales item, as most people wanted Bowie tunes. Taken from UK sixties hits, Bowie brandishes a cracker of a band and ups the ante with every song. Updated (at that time) to modern hard driving rock and roll, Bowie improves (in his own way) each song. "Sorrow" may be the slowest song here, but it's one of the best and one that's been chosen to represent this album on later collections many times. It's easy to argue with the choices, but not with the delivery. The band is tight and the sound is perfect. Not bad at all for a covers album. Definitely deserves a listen!

Bowie's great 'forgotten' album
One of Bowie's most underrated albums, Pin-Ups really is a wonderful piece of work - almost the perfect snapshot of its time. It probably helped that when I first heard this album as a teenager I wasn't familiar with the original songs, so all I heard was an outstanding Spiders from Mars album, with the band at their tightest and most assured. Even now, I still prefer the Bowie versions to most of the originals. It definitely deserves a better press than it's been given over the years. It's also a myth that this one was a commercial failure for Bowie, as is suggested in many reviews and reference books. It spent five weeks at number one in the album charts - the same as its predecessor Aladdin Sane - so even if the critics weren't especially enamoured, the public certainly were!

Highly Recommended Album!
The fact that this is an album of other people’s songs rather than Bowie originals still does not stop this from being one of my favourite Bowie albums! The arrangements for each track are absolutely stomping fantastic and quintessential Bowie. It’s hard to name a favourite but, in my opinion, the standout tracks for me are probably: ‘Here Comes The Night’, ‘See Emily Play’, ‘Friday on my Mind’, ‘Sorrow’,‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’, ‘Shapes of Things’… oh what the hell, all of them! It would be really good to hear David play some of these in his live sets now.

Cool album cover too.