Happy birthday, David Bowie: Ranking his 20 best albums

Pressured by his record label into delivering a new album in time for the Christmas season of 1973 and encouraged by his manager to withhold original material until his publishing deal was renegotiated, David Bowie solved his conundrum by bashing out a covers album. Easier said than done, though. Just prior to the sessions, Bowie wrapped the Ziggy Stardust tour with his infamous proclamation that “This is the last show we’ll ever do,” news that came as a surprise to his backing band the Spiders from Mars. Drummer Mick Woodmansey left in frustration, so the band on Pin Ups isn’t quite the Spiders but it is the last time guitarist Mick Ronson pops up on a Bowie record and the last LP to be produced by Ken Scott, so it serves as a bit of a fizzy epilogue to the classic era: Bowie is deliberately in second gear but still delivers some trashy thrills. Some of the fun derives from the song selection, assiduously focused on the stylish blues and arty pop of pre-psychedelic Britain yet careless enough to offer repeat after repeat: there are two songs each from the Who, the Yardbirds, and Pretty Things. This isn’t indifference as much as it is an obligation executed recklessly. There’s a real appeal to the sloppiness—it gives “Rosalyn” and “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” a gleeful edge—and when it lifts, as it does on “Sorrow” from the Merseys, the album can even seem gorgeous.

Thwarted in his attempt to mount a musical adaptation of 1984 by George Orwell’s widow and abandoned by his remaining Spiders and producer Ken Scott, David Bowie picked up the pieces on his own, cobbling together Diamond Dogs with the remnants of unfulfilled dreams. The resulting record is lean, heavy, and grimy, driven by Bowie’s overblown guitar and fueled by dystopian decadence, a hybrid crystalized on its hit single “Rebel Rebel.” The particulars of Bowie’s grand vision are fuzzy but evocative, suggesting a society revealing in its own collapse. Bowie’s smeary focus means that Diamond Dogs can verge on silliness but that’s also a key to its appeal: it’s lurid and lascivious, a record that seems more decadent due to its half-baked pretension.