{"id":317052,"date":"2025-10-19T22:37:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/317052\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T22:37:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:37:12","slug":"on-this-day-in-1973-david-bowie-released-this-stopgap-album-just-to-placate-his-record-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/317052\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1973, David Bowie Released This \u201cStopgap\u201d Album Just To Placate His Record Label"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1972, David Bowie introduced his androgynous, otherworldly alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Fans grew to love the garishly costumed, over-the-top rock icon\u2014until Bowie unceremoniously killed him off<\/a> in front of a live audience. Exhausted from nonstop touring, the \u201cFame\u201d singer was nevertheless obligated by his record label to release a new album by Christmas 1973. So, Bowie decided to put out together an album of cover songs as a \u201cstopgap\u201d while he figured out what the next phase of his career would look like. He released that \u201cstopgap\u201d album, Pin Ups, on this day in 1973.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pin Ups\u2019 Was David Bowie\u2019s Tribute to His Own Teen Idols<\/p>\n

Rummaging through a stack of 45s in his Hyde Park Hotel room, David Bowie plucked 12 favorites that would become the Pin-Ups tracklist. \u201cThese are all bands which I used to go and hear play down the Marquee between 1964 and 1967,\u201d he later explained<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve got all these records back at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final result contained two songs apiece by The Yardbirds, The Who and the Pretty Things, along with tracks by the Kinks, Them, The Easybeats, The Mojos, The Merseys, and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd.<\/p>\n

Despite reaching No. 1 in David Bowie\u2019s home country of the United Kingdom, Pin Ups failed to crack the Top 20 in the U.S. More than five decades later, it still ranks among the Thin White Duke\u2019s more polarizing works. However, Bowie personally considered it the perfect bridge between the Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs eras.<\/p>\n

\u201cPin Ups was really my way of shaking off Ziggy completely, while retaining some excitement in the music,\u201d Bowie told Uncut<\/a> in 2001. \u201cIt really was treading water, but it happens to be one of my favorite albums. I think there is some terrific stuff on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

[RELATED: David Bowie\u2019s First Band Was\u2026 Something: Behind the Obscure 60s Band Bowie Played Saxophone For]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

That Time Metallica Fanboyed Over Bowie<\/p>\n

While David Bowie and Metallica are pretty far apart sonically, the \u201cSpace Oddity\u201d singer left his mark on the heavy metal pioneers. In fact, their hit song \u201cMaster of Puppets\u201d borrows a riff from Bowie\u2019s 1971 song \u201cAndy Warhol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett recalled how awestruck<\/a> he and his bandmates were when they met David Bowie by complete happenstance. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe sit down and there he is, just like, \u2018Hey!\u2019, baseball cap on. So funny, so personable and so goofy,,\u201d Hammett recalled. \u201cRob [Trujillo, Metallica bassist] and I sat down, once again the fan boy stuff came out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featured image by Jack Kay\/Daily Express\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1972, David Bowie introduced his androgynous, otherworldly alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Fans grew to love the garishly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":317053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7654,171,975,4185,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-317052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-david-bowie","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-rock-music","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115403230300482721","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}