Toy (David Bowie album)

In 1999, during the Hours Tour, David Bowie began performing songs he originally recorded in the 1960s. After ending his Mini Tour with a performance at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2000, he stated, "I hate to waste the energy of a show-honed band so I've asked one and all if they would like to make an album immediately when we get back to New York." He then revealed his intention of re-recording these songs, explaining "Not so much Pin Ups II as an Up Date I." Work on the "Sixties album" began a month later in July under the working title Toy, which came from a lyric in two songs recorded. The lineup consisted of the members of Bowie's touring band: Earl Slick (guitar), Gail Ann Dorsey (bass), Mike Garson (piano), Mark Plati and Sterling Campbell (drums). According to the biographer David Buckley, the band rehearsed the songs at Sear Sound Studios in New York City before recording them as live tracks. Plati recalled: "The idea was to keep it loose, fast, and not clean things up too much or dwell on perfection. As a result, we had 13 basic tracks cut in around nine days." Slick later told Rolling Stone: "We had been doing a lot of gigs up to that point. We didn't have to do a whole lot of thinking about how to approach the songs. We had an operating system; an unspoken one. We hardly ever talked about anything. We'd just look at each other, or David would look at us, and it would just happen." He also stated that he refused to listen to Bowie's original recordings of the tracks, so to prevent the originals from influencing his playing on the new versions. Plati, whom Bowie chose to co-produce the project, was integral to the new album's sound. Pete Keppler engineered the sessions, while Bowie's former producer Tony Visconti provided string arrangements on two tracks. Recording took a two-month break in August due to the birth of Bowie and Iman's daughter Alexandria. Following the two-month break, multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano was hired by Bowie, at Plati's suggestion, to contribute overdubs. After seeing her perform in New York for the rock band Eels in August, Plati stated "I knew I needed to get her on the Bowie album." Germano was thrilled by the experience and both Bowie and Plati commended her contributions. Overdubs commenced at New York's Looking Glass Studios in October. Also hired were Gerry Leonard and Cuong Vu, who contributed guitar and trumpet, respectively. Also recorded during this time was a cover of the Who's "Pictures of Lily" for the tribute album Substitute: The Songs of the Who. Mixing began at the end of October, with Bowie predicting a release date of March 2001. ==Songs==

Toy primarily consists of re-recordings of various songs Bowie originally recorded between 1964 and 1971, some with numerous bands. The author Marc Spitz describes it as "a sort of Pin Ups without the hits". These included: "Liza Jane", Bowie's 1964 debut single; "You've Got a Habit of Leaving", a 1965 A-side; "Baby Loves That Way", a 1965 B-side; "Can't Help Thinking About Me", a 1966 A-side; "I Dig Everything", a 1966 A-side; "The London Boys", a 1966 B-side; "Silly Boy Blue", first released on Bowie's 1967 eponymous debut album; "Let Me Sleep Beside You", "In the Heat of the Morning" and "Karma Man", rejected tracks recorded in 1967 that first appeared on The World of David Bowie compilation (1970); and "Conversation Piece", a 1970 B-side. Additionally, a new version of "Shadow Man", which dated back to the 1971 Ziggy Stardust sessions, was recorded. Many of these tracks had previously seen release on various compilation albums, such as Early On (1964–1966) (1991) and The Deram Anthology 1966–1968 (1997). Along with the re-recorded tracks, several new songs were written for the project, including "Afraid", "Uncle Floyd" and "Toy" (later retitled "Your Turn to Drive"). Bowie stated that these were written in the style he "may have written them in the sixties". More tracks written for Toy included "Hole in the Ground" and "Miss American High". Bowie explained on his website, BowieNet, that "some of the songs from the sixties were never recorded, let alone released, so will be as new to you as any of the new ones that I've written." Regarding the tracks themselves, Bowie stated: "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." ==Cancelled release and aftermath==

Bowie initially wanted to release Toy as quickly as possible. In the early 2000s, the idea of a surprise album was several years ahead of its time. Originally scheduled for release in March 2001, Toy was initially delayed to May. In June, Bowie revealed: "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." After making Bowie's back catalogue available for digital download in 2000, the label, who were in the middle of various financial struggles, feared poor commercial performance for Toy and expressed a desire for an album of new material instead, indefinitely shelving the record. "Afraid" and "Uncle Floyd" were remade for Heathen, with the latter retitled "Slip Away". "Let Me Sleep Beside You" and "Your Turn to Drive" later saw official release on the three-disc edition of the 2014 compilation Nothing Has Changed. Bowie remarked in 2003: ==Leak and official release==

In March 2011, 14 tracks from the Toy sessions, excluding "Karma Man" and "Can't Help Thinking About Me", were leaked onto the Internet, attracting media attention. "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" was released as a digital single the same day. while "Can't Help Thinking About Me" followed on 19 November. Plati, who assisted in the mixing of the Toy material for the box set, A separate deluxe edition, titled Toy:Box, was released on 7 January 2022, the day before what would have been Bowie's 75th birthday. The release includes previously unseen photographs, alternate mixes, proposed B-sides and 13 new "Unplugged and Somewhat Slightly Electric" remixes of the Toy tracks. The release ends with "Toy (Your Turn to Drive)", a new track compiled from an extended jam during a take of "I Dig Everything". Featuring updated mixing, Plati stated: "As it was culled from 'I Dig Everything', it makes sense to bookend the album with this track. It's also a fitting postscript to the Toy era." The album additionally saw standalone CD and LP releases on 5 August 2022, alongside the other studio albums from the Brilliant Adventure set. Critical reception The 2021 release of Toy received positive reviews from music critics. Writing for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis highlighted "Shadow Man" as a standout, further praising the versions of "Conversation Piece" and "Let Me Sleep Beside You". He ultimately called it "an enjoyable curiosity rather than a major release." Reviewing the deluxe edition, Erlewine called it a "record out of time", featuring songs clearly made during the 1960s with a "Y2K-era" production, which adds to its overall charm. However, he found the additional mixes in the deluxe edition insubstantially different from the main mixes, leading the deluxe package to be "monotonous". It also debuted at number two in Scotland, behind Twin Atlantic's Transparency (2022), number three in Germany, number four in the Netherlands and number five in Belgian Wallonia. Furthermore, Toy:Box reached the top 10 in Switzerland (7), Portugal (7), Belgian Flanders (8), and Finland (10). Toy:Box also achieved commercial success in other countries, reaching number 11 in Hungary, number 12 in France, number 13 in Spain, number 17 in Norway, number 18 in Ireland, number 21 in Italy, number 28 in Sweden, and number 32 in Japan. ==Track listing==

• On disc 3, all tracks are noted as "Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix". 2011 leak The following is the track listing of the version of the album leaked in 2011, which is different from the officially released version. • "Toy (Your Turn to Drive)" was also known as "Your Turn to Drive". ==Personnel==

According to the biographer Nicholas Pegg: • David Bowie – vocals, keyboards, Stylophone, mandolin • Earl Slick – guitar • Gerry Leonard – guitar • Gail Ann Dorsey – bass • Mark Plati – bass, guitar • Mike Garson – keyboards • Sterling Campbell – drums • Lisa Germano – acoustic and electric violin, recorder, mandolin, accordion • Cuong Vu – trumpet • Holly Palmer – backing vocals • Emm Gryner – backing vocals • Tony Visconti – string arrangements Production • David Bowie – producer • Mark Plati – producer • Pete Keppler – engineer ==Charts==