David Bowie's long lost 2001 album Toy has finally been given an official release date. The unreleased project is scheduled to arrive on January 7 2022, a day before Bowie’s birthday.
Toy contains refashioned versions of early Bowie tracks from 1964-71, such as his debut single Davie Jones With the King Bees, Liza Jane, You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving and Silly Boy Blue. The album was originally lined up for release following 1999's Hours, but was delayed and ultimately rejected, due to "major problems" at Bowie's then-label EMI/Virgin.
Toy also arrives with album artwork that features Bowie's face photoshopped onto an image of himself as a baby...because that's not creepy, at all.
Co-producer Mark Plati describes Toy as "a moment in time captured in an amber of joy, fire and energy. It’s the sound of people happy to be playing music."
He explains, "David revisited and re-examined his work from decades prior through prisms of experience and fresh perspective – a parallel not lost on me as I now revisit it 20 years later. From time to time, he used to say, ‘Mark, this is our album’ – I think because he knew I was so deeply in the trenches with him on that journey. I’m happy to finally be able to say it now belongs to all of us.”
Speaking of the material on the album, Bowie previously told BowieNet in 2001 that "the songs are so alive and full of colour, they jump out of the speakers. It’s really hard to believe that they were written so long ago.”
As part of the announcement, a radio edit of You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving, a track lifted from Toy, has been released, which you can listen to below.
Additionally, David Bowie's estate has announced the arrival of a new career-spanning boxset, titled David Bowie 5: Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001), scheduled to arrive on November 26.
The collection will include Toy, as well as remasters of the albums Black Tie White Noise, The Buddha of Suburbia, Outside, Earthling, Hours, the live album BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27 2000 and the rarities compilation Re:Call 5. An expanded version, titled Toy:Box, will be released on January 7.
