Wiki
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Release Date
20 March 2011
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Length
14 tracks
"Toy" was an album David Bowie recorded for release in 2001, prior to Heathen, but which remained unreleased reportedly due to legal reasons. It included three new tracks along with reworkings of little-known songs from the beginning of his career, 1964-71. Due to some enterprising piraters on eBay, the album found wide release in 2011 via torrents and blogs up and down the web to great acclaim from the Bowie fanbase.
After performing 'Can't Help Thinking About Me', 'I Dig Everything' and 'The London Boys' on the short tours of 1999/2000, Bowie became enthusiastic about the idea of re-recording some lesser known songs from the early days of his career. These re-recordings, together with a couple of new songs, were to appear on an album titled Toy, that was tentatively scheduled for mid-2001.
According to David's journal on BowieNet, the production and artwork of the album were finished already by early 2001. However, time passed and rumours filtered through that Virgin appeared to be reluctant to release an album full of songs they didn't have the rights to. At the end of 2001, Bowie left Virgin to set up his own record label ISO, but the complete Toy album thus far remains unreleased.
In 2002, a couple of songs recorded for Toy appeared on Heathen and as B-sides to its singles. According to a reliable source, Toy was supposed to have featured the following tracks:
Uncle Floyd/ Afraid/ Baby Loves That Way/ I Dig Everything/ Conversation Piece/ Let Me Sleep Beside You/ Toy/ Hole In The Ground/ Shadow Man/ In The Heat of the Morning/ You've Got a Habit Of Leaving/ Karma Man.
In 2006, the complete Toy album was heard by some fans. Besides the 11 tracks above, also 'The London Boys', 'Liza Jane' and 'Silly Boy Blue' appeared. However, 'Karma Man' is not among the tracks that surfaced, so the assumption is that 'Silly Boy Blue' rather than 'Karma Man' was supposed to have closed Toy. Given the fact that 'Can't Help Thinking About Me' was among the songs played live, it seems likely that this song too was recorded but later rejected.
When asked about the album in a 2001 BowieNet online chat, Bowie replied with "I'm finding EMI/Virgin seem to have a lot of scheduling conflicts this year, which has put an awful lot on the back burner. Toy is finished and ready to go, and I will make an announcement as soon as I get a very real date. Meantime, I'm alrady started writing and recording for another album (untitled at the moment). So far I have to say it's back to experimental. But knowing me, it doesn't mean that's how it'll turn out. I shall be writing and recording throughout the summer, but daddyfying is really my priority at the moment."
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