It’s a never-released David Bowie album that we’ve heard about for twenty years. Recorded in New York in 2000, co-produced by Mark Plati and Tony Visconti, boxed and looped, cover included, this record called Toy, who was to succeed Hours… ultimately did not see the light of day, his then record company, EMI / Virgin, demanding something more commercial.
After having leaked in 2011 in a version of poor quality, this “ghost” album is finally pulled from oblivion by Warner Music with the approval of its heirs, who planned a release in two stages.
Toy first released on Friday November 26, 2021 in its original version, in a buxom box set, David Bowie 5: Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001), which contains other recordings, including one live on the BBC in 2000. Then on January 7, the eve of his birthday, it will appear in an expanded edition called Toy Box with alternative and acoustic versions.
A first title, You’ve Got A Habit of Leaving, had been unveiled at the end of September.
Let’s rewind the story. For the 1999/2000 tour, David Bowie decides to include in the setlist Cant ‘Help Thinking About Me, a track he released in the mid-60s, long before exploding with Space Oddity in 1969. Rearranged, this 30 year old single goes very well on stage, and even better than expected.
The man with a thousand faces then had the idea of recording with his stage group, the one who accompanied him during the famous concert in Glastonbury (England) in 2000, an entire album on which he would offer new versions of his most old pieces often unrecognized such as Liza jane (his first single as Davie Jones recorded with his band The King Bees), You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving (his third single recorded with his group The Lower Third), I Did Everything (released as a single in 1966), Silly Boy Blue Where The London Boys.
As soon as the tour is over, and while the group is still hot and boiling and in a kind of osmosis, he reserves a studio in New York. There, with a five-star team made up in particular of Earl Slick on guitar, Gail Ann Dorsey on bass, Lisa Germano on violin and Mike Garson on piano, they will record as spontaneously as possible, in live mode, about fifteen pieces for two weeks.
David Bowie was obviously delighted to take a look at his past repertoire, known only to a small handful of fans, and to give a second life and a second chance to his sixties compositions. “The songs are so alive and colorful that they jump out of the speakers“, he described in 2001.”It’s really hard to believe they were written so long ago“.
Guitarist Earl Slick isn’t quite so definitive. “I didn’t know any of these songs (when entering the studio Editor’s note), so for me it was new“, he says in a recent interview.”But after I started playing them, you could realize, just from the style of writing, that these were his first songs.. “
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Virgin will not share Bowie’s enthusiasm and will decide to let the album collect dust. This dispute will lead to his departure from Virgin, the musician founding his own ISO label (distributed by Columbia) in the wake to release his next album, Heathen, which also contains two re-arranged titles of Toy, Afraid and Uncle floyd (renamed Slip Away).
Three more songs from Toy, Let Me Sleep Beside You, Your Turn To Drive and Shadow man appeared on the compilation Nothing Have Changed in 2014.
Yes Toy is far from dishonorable, nor is it essential, let’s face it. We will always prefer him, by far, his last album Blackstar, released two days before his death on January 10, 2016. Toy especially true for admirers dying in need of Bowie. And for his voice, changed by age and years of smoking: he sings on this album like “Scott Walker, whom he adored, and goes to a baritone voice“, remarks Jérôme Soligny, author of the reference work David Bowie Rainbowman.