Maps of Music

Pin Ups (1973)

Where the lyrics of Pin Ups take you, and where it was really made.

The cover photo was first meant for British Vogue, but the magazine did not want a man on its front cover, so Bowie used the image for his own album sleeve.

Key places

Where Pin Ups was recorded (1973)

Recording site Château d'Hérouville — Pin Ups was recorded at this château in Hérouville over about three weeks, from July to August 1973, after the Ziggy Stardust Tour ended. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Where the cover photo was taken (1973)

Album cover Paris — The cover photo of Bowie and Twiggy was taken in Paris, at a studio in the middle of the recording sessions. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Pin Ups: seventh studio album by David Bowie
• Covers album of glam rock and proto-punk versions of 1960s songs
• Released 19 October 1973 through RCA Records
• Devised as a stop-gap album to appease the record label
• Final album co-produced with Ken Scott
• Topped the UK Albums Chart

Background

• By 1973 Bowie was at his commercial peak; five of his six albums were in the top 40 at the end of July
• Released only six months after Aladdin Sane
• Came right after the Ziggy Stardust Tour, which left Bowie exhausted
• Manager Tony Defries negotiated larger royalties with the publisher and advised no new compositions until talks ended
• Bowie had first planned an adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four as his next project
• Songs were picked from bands that influenced him as a teenager, including the Pretty Things, the Who, the Yardbirds and Pink Floyd
• On the final tour date, 3 July, Bowie announced it was the last show, which drove a wedge between him and the Spiders from Mars

Recording

• Recorded July to August 1973 at the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville, France
• Session lasted about three weeks
• Venue recommended by Marc Bolan, whose band T. Rex had just recorded Tanx there
• Mick Ronson and Trevor Bolder of the Spiders from Mars took part; Aynsley Dunbar replaced Woodmansey on drums
• Arrangements followed the originals, performed in glam rock and proto-punk styles
• Tensions were high during the sessions; Bolder recorded his bass parts quickly and left

Cover

• Cover shows Bowie with 1960s supermodel Twiggy, taken in Paris
• Photo was taken midway through the recording sessions
• Originally intended for the cover of British Vogue
• Bowie chose to use it as the album cover instead

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Early life

• Born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London.
• Studied art, music and design; took up saxophone in 1961.
• Adopted the stage name David Bowie in 1966 to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.

Career

• Breakthrough with "Space Oddity" in 1969, reaching the UK top five.
• Glam rock success in 1972 with the Ziggy Stardust persona and album.
• Berlin Trilogy (Low, "Heroes", Lodger) with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti in the late 1970s.
• Greatest commercial success with Let's Dance in 1983.
• Fronted the hard rock band Tin Machine from 1988 to 1992 before resuming a solo career.
• Final studio album Blackstar was released two days before his death in 2016.

Legacy

• Sold over 100 million records worldwide.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
• Widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Greg Shaw in Rolling Stone: all tracks underproduced; Bowie's vocals called the album's true failure
• NME's Ian MacDonald: renditions lack value because they do not differ from the originals
• Loraine Alterman of The New York Times: album suffers from too much style and technique and not enough musical substance
• Record Mirror: unsatisfying, too cluttered musically and over-produced
• Billboard responded positively, saying there is humor in this music
• Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times: a light, unpretentious, high-spirited album

Reappraisal

• Pitchfork's Douglas Wolk, reviewing the 2015 box set Five Years (1969–1973): unfavorable, citing sloppy execution
• Bruce Eder of AllMusic: album out of place with Bowie's output up to that point
• Dave Thompson: called Pin Ups the underrated classic in David Bowie's glam-era crown
• Bowie's biographers give mixed reactions; Buckley calls it uneven but beloved by many

Records

• UK Albums Chart: number one, five weeks at the top, 39 weeks on the chart
• Advance copies of 150,000, which was 50,000 more than Aladdin Sane
• US Billboard Top LPs & Tape: number 23, 21 weeks on the chart
• Sweden: topped the Sverigetopplistan chart
• Spain number three, Australia and Finland number four, Brazil and Netherlands number six, Italy number seven, Norway and Yugoslavia number eight
• Returned to the UK chart in 1983 and peaked at number 57

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The Lulu covers of Bowie's tracks were recorded in the middle of the Pin Ups sessions, which were put on hold in mid-July.
• Bowie gave the backing track of a Velvet Underground cover, recorded during the sessions but never released, to Mick Ronson for his 1975 solo album Play Don't Worry.
• Twiggy had been name-checked on Aladdin Sane's Drive-In Saturday as Twig the Wonder Kid before she appeared on this cover.
• Bryan Ferry's covers album These Foolish Things came out around the same time, and both albums charted on 3 November 1973.
• The 1990 Rykodisc reissue added two bonus tracks: a Bruce Springsteen cover called Growin' Up and Amsterdam, the B-side of Sorrow.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Maps of Ages ↗ (mapsofages.com)

Privacy · Contact