HE’S BACK, DAVID BOWIE!

BY: India McCarty

It’s been announced that a new David Bowie album will be released early next year. Toy isn’t necessarily unheard, though. The album, recorded in 2001, was leaked online in 2011. However, this is the first time the album will be officially released.

Toy will be released in a three-CD box set on January 7 but will also be featured on David Bowie 5: Brilliant Adventure, another box set out November of this year.

 

The album is a mix of new material and different versions of previous songs, like ’60s tracks “I Dig Everything,” “The London Boys,” and “You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving.”

Bowie wanted to record an “old school” album, playing live in the studio.

 

“I still get really elated by the spontaneous event and cannot wait to sit in a claustrophobic space with seven other energetic people and sing till my tits drop off,” Bowie wrote in a tour diary for Time Out in 2000.

The album, initially recorded in 2001, was shelved by Bowie’s label, Virgin. The label was not enthusiastic about the project, so Bowie shifted focus to what would become 2002’s Heathen.

According to producer Mark Plati, the album captures “the sound of people happy to be playing music.”

 

“Toy is like a moment in time captured in an amber of joy, fire and energy,” said Bowie’s long-time collaborator in a statement. “I’m happy to finally be able to say it now belongs to all of us.”

We can expect more posthumous releases from the “Heroes” singer. Warner Music is currently preparing and has lots of unreleased music as part of a new licensing agreement it negotiated with his estate. The label previously held worldwide rights to Bowie’s music from 1968 throughout 1999; it also had Bowie’s catalog up to his death in 2016.

Check out Toy’s first single, “You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving,” here!