PIN UPS

After Aladdin Sane, Bowie decided that he wanted to take a bit more time about crafting its followup, Diamond Dogs - but his record company were constantly pestering him for more material, even going so far as to reissue Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold the World with anachronistic cover art depicting Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust phase. To placate them whilst he worked on the abortive 1984 musical which would become Diamond Dogs, he quickly cut this album of covers, giving a dirty glam rock veneer to Bowie's favourite songs from the Swinging London scene of the 1960s.

Aside from Sorrow, which is genuinely affecting, most of the songs here suffer on most issues from a mastering job which fails to tease out the wild garage rock stylings that Bowie was trying to bring to the material here - a sound reminiscent of Bowie not so much directly covering the material as Bowie covering the Stooges covering the Britpop originals. Thankfully, the Five Years boxed set and its accompanying reissues of the individual albums solves this issue magnificently, with the remasters finally teasing out the true quality of the material. (Possibly it helps that the set includes the Santa Monica '72 live release, which showcases Bowie and Spiders in a garage rock mood that could have helped the remastering crew find the appropriate spin to put on the material.) Star rating is for that issue of the album; earlier CD issues lose several stars for burying the release's charms.