David Bowie’s Lost 2001 LP ‘Toy’ Coming In January

David Bowie's unreleased 2001 album, Toy will finally be released on January 7th — a day before what would've been the “Thin White Duke's” 75th birthday. The oft-bootlegged Toy — now renamed Toy:Box — will be available in three-CD or six-by-ten-inch vinyl versions.

Included in Toy:Box is a second CD/set of 10-inches of alternative mixes and versions including proposed B-Sides (versions of Bowie’s debut single “Liza Jane” and 1967’s “In The Heat Of The Morning”), later mixes by Tony Visconti and the “Tibet Version” of “Silly Boy Blue” recorded at the Looking Glass Studio time at the of the 2001 Tibet House show in New York featuring Philip Glass on piano and Moby on guitar.

The third CD/set of 10-inches features Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric mixes of thirteen Toy tracks.

According to the press release for Toy:Box:

David planned to record the album “old school” with the band playing live, choose the best takes and then release it as soon as humanly possible in a remarkably prescient manner. Unfortunately, in 2001 the concept of the “surprise drop” album release and the technology to support it were still quite a few years off, making it impossible to release Toy, as the album was now named, out to fans as instantly as David wanted.

In the interim, David did what he did best; he moved on to something new, which began with a handful of new songs from the same sessions and ultimately became the album Heathen, released in 2002 and now acknowledged as one of his finest moments.

Coming November 27th is David Bowie 5: Brilliant Adventure (1992 – 2001), the fifth in a series of box sets chronicling his career from 1969 to the 21st century.

The 11-CD box features of some of Bowie’s most underrated and experimental material: Black Tie White Noise, The Buddha Of Suburbia (available on vinyl for the first time in nearly 30 years), 1.Outside, Earthing, and 'hours…' along with the expanded live album BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27, 2000, the non-album/alternative version/B-sides and soundtrack music compilation Re:Call 5 and the legendary previously unreleased Toy.

In 2003, David Bowie spoke about mortality during a rare TV appearance on Britain's Parkinson talk show: (David Bowie): “I had this poetic, romantic, kind of juvenile idea that I would be dead by 30. 'Cause that's — all artists think: 'I'll be dead by 30! Y'know, I'm going to get TB and die.' (Laughs) But you don't, y'know, you get past it and then suddenly, you're 30 and you're 40 and then you're 50 and 57, and then all that. And it's a new land, y'know?” (Parkinson): 'Sure.” (Bowie): “I'm a pioneer — me and my kind are just sort of scraping the edge of what this think is about, being a rock and roller at the age of 57. But my revenge is all these bands that are below us, they've got to do this — so, they kind of say: 'Yeah, they're like, really old' — but secretly they're thinking, 'I better watch how he does it, 'cause I'm gonna get there soon (laughter).'”