David Bowie’s Lost Album “Toy” Is Finally Being Released

The previously shelved record will be officially released in November

David Bowie speaks onstage while accepting the Webby Lifetime Achievement award at the 11th Annual Webby Awards at Chipriani Wall Street on June 5, 2007 in New York City.
David Bowie speaks onstage while accepting the Webby Lifetime Achievement award at the 11th Annual Webby Awards at Chipriani Wall Street on June 5, 2007 in New York City.
Getty Images

Twenty years ago, David Bowie shelved Toy, a planned album for which he re-recorded some of his lesser-known early work, after leaving Virgin Records. It leaked online in 2011, but now the long-lost album will finally be officially released this fall.

Toy will be released along with two discs of outtakes from the sessions as part of the box set David Bowie 5: Brilliant Adventure (1992 – 2001). The massive set will also include remastered versions of Black Tie White NoiseThe Buddha of SuburbiaOutsideEarthling, Hours, the live album BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27th, 2000 and the rarities compilation Re: Call 5. It’s slated to come out on Nov. 26 as a seven-CD set, an 18-LP vinyl collection, or a digital download.

Toy is like a moment in time captured in an amber of joy, fire and energy,” co-producer Mark Plati said in a statement. “It’s the sound of people happy to be playing music. 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 twenty 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.”

You can check out the tracklist and listen to the Toy version of “You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving” below.

1. I Dig Everything
2. You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving
3. The London Boys
4. Karma Man
5. Conversation Piece
6. Shadow Man
7. Let Me Sleep Beside You
8. Hole in the Ground
9. Baby Loves That Way
10. Can’t Help Thinking About Me
11. Silly Boy Blue
12. Toy (Your Turn to Drive)

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