Tin Machine (album)

Development

The band prepared some demos in LA before moving to Mountain Studios in Switzerland and then on to Montreal and then finally to Nassau. The band did not have much luck recording in Nassau, finding it hard to record in the midst of the "coke and poverty and crack," which partly inspired the album track "Crack City." Bowie also claimed his own cocaine-addled past in the 1970s as an inspiration for the track. The songs on the album tend to stick to topics such as drugs and urban decay. All songs were a group effort, and the band recorded 35 songs in just six weeks.

The first song the band wrote and recorded was "Heaven's in Here," which they wrote from scratch and recorded in their first 30 hours together. They followed up by recording a cover of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" (one of Bowie's favorite Lennon songs) and Roxy Music's "If There Is Something," though the latter wouldn't appear until the second Tin Machine album in 1991.

The tracks on the album were recorded raw and live with no overdubs to capture the energy of the band. The band urged Bowie to avoid re-writing his lyrics: "They were there all the time saying, 'Don't wimp out,' sing like you wrote it. Stand by it. I have done and frequently do censor myself in terms of lyrics. I say one thing and then I think, 'Ah maybe I'll just take the edge off that a bit." He elaborated, "We wanted to come out of the box with energy, the energy we felt when we were writing and playing. There's very, very little over-dubbing on [the album]. For us [it] is our live sound." There were no demos made for the album; Gabrels said "Basically the album is the demo."

Bowie enjoyed making the album, saying "I'm so up on this I want to go and start recording the next album tomorrow." Stylistically, he felt that the album was a continuation from Scary Monsters: "It's almost dismissive of the last three albums I've done. Getting back on course, you could say."

Gabrels would later describe the songs on the album as the band "screaming at the world,", and Tony Sales, bassist for the band, described the band's approach to the music they created by saying:

We were so sick of turning on the radio and hearing disco and dance music and drum machines; all that stuff, which I think in the business they call "crap." We were just thinking about doing a project that would put an end to rock 'n' roll.

As the band finished the album, Bowie was sure the band would continue. He said, "There'll be another two albums at least. Oh, yes, this will go for a while. While we're all enjoying playing with each other so much, why not?"

Live performances

The band played a handful of shows in support of the album, informally called the "Tin Machine Tour" in mid-1989.

Critical reception

At the time of release, Tin Machine met with some success, winning generally positive reviews and reaching No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart. However, short-term sales of the album were not good, with the album estimated to have sold only around 200,000 copies by 1991 (although by the end of 2012 the entire catalogue of Tin Machine albums sold an estimated 2 million copies).

Spin magazine called the album "noise rock without the noise. Aggressive, direct, brutal and stylishly plain, it combines the energy of the rock avant-garde with traditional R&B rhythmic punch", summing up the album by calling it "incendiary fun" and noting that "the buoyant Sales brothers and Gabrels certainly equal and frequently surpass Bowie." Rolling Stone magazine praised the album's "cynical, indignant and acidic" approach to music as an "all-too-welcome feast of aggro-guitar flamboyance and bass-drum body checking", noting that at times it sounds like Sonic Youth meets Station to Station. A review by the McClatchy Company called the band "a lean, mean rock 'n' roll machine", that showed that "Bowie's back", going on to say that this is his most invigorating album since 1980's Scary Monsters.

When asked in an interview what the main criticism of the record would be, Bowie conceded that the album might be "not accessible" to fans. "I guess it's not as obviously melodic as one would think it would probably be [for a Bowie album]."

LP

1. "Heaven's in Here" (David Bowie) – 6:01
2. "Tin Machine" (Bowie, Reeves Gabrels, Hunt Sales, Tony Fox Sales) – 3:34
3. "Prisoner of Love" (Bowie, Gabrels, H. Sales, T. Sales) – 4:50
4. "Crack City" (Bowie) – 4:36
5. "I Can't Read" (Bowie, Gabrels) – 4:54
6. "Under the God" (Bowie) – 4:06

7. "Amazing" (Bowie, Gabrels) – 3:06
8. "Working Class Hero" (John Lennon) – 4:38
9. "Bus Stop" (Bowie, Gabrels) – 1:41
10. "Pretty Thing" (Bowie) – 4:39
11. "Video Crime" (Bowie, H. Sales, T. Sales) – 3:52
12. "Baby Can Dance" (Bowie) – 4:57

CD

The CD release of the album contained two tracks not available on the vinyl release.

1. "Heaven's in Here" (David Bowie) – 6:01
2. "Tin Machine" (Bowie, Reeves Gabrels, Hunt Sales, Tony Sales) – 3:34
3. "Prisoner of Love" (Bowie, Gabrels, H. Sales, T. Sales) – 4:50
4. "Crack City" (Bowie) – 4:36
5. "I Can't Read" (Bowie, Gabrels) – 4:54
6. "Under the God" (Bowie) – 4:06
7. "Amazing" (Bowie, Gabrels) – 3:06
8. "Working Class Hero" (John Lennon) – 4:38
9. "Bus Stop" (Bowie, Gabrels) – 1:41
10. "Pretty Thing" (Bowie) – 4:39
11. "Video Crime" (Bowie, H. Sales, T. Sales) – 3:52
12. "Run" (Kevin Armstrong, Bowie) – 3:20
13. "Sacrifice Yourself" (Bowie, H. Sales, T. Sales) – 2:08
14. "Baby Can Dance" (Bowie) – 4:57

The 1995 Virgin Records reissue of the album included a live, country-styled version of "Bus Stop" recorded in Paris on the band's 1989 world tour.

Later reissues have been in line with the rest of Bowie's back catalogue, and the spine and disc of the 1999 reissue credits the artist as David Bowie, with Tin Machine as the album's title.

Personnel

Tin Machine

Additional musician

Production