yes, a "revival", of sorts, of that random bowie thing what i did. having gone done a decidedly amateurish, just a fan overview of his albums (here, look you see) it seems appropriate to continue (and tag) such with this, a "new" album off of David Bowie. except, of course, it is not "new" as such. yes, newly released and now official, as it were, but that's it.
for those of you reading who have missed what this might all relate to, it's Toy. this album off of David Bowie got released on 7 January 2022, on the eve of what would have been (or is) his 75th birthday, north of 20 (twenty) years after it was recorded and not released, north of ten (10) years after it rather infamously "leaked" online. with regards to the latter, it got "leaked" in a more complete version that this actual release, but i shall get to that. you will too, i suppose, if you keep reading.
certainly i did go and get this on the day of release, off of HMV. full well i knew they were charging £3 or so more than the official website for it, but then the website would have piled on postage costs, and it was obvious that the packaging for it wouldn't have gone in a conventional letterbox, so it would have been the faff and fiasco of trying to catch Royal Mail parcel delivery and arranging redelivery. ultimately, buying it off of HMV was supposed to be nostalgic, but turned out to be depressing. no sign of it on display in the shop (hence no pics), with them instead trying to sell me Adele, Abba and Ed Sheridan (or whatever). i had to ask a nice man at the counter, and yes, they had a couple behind the counter.
the first thing one will note of Toy is, of course, the eye-watering price on it. quite a challenge to Bowie fans, that, especially as January is generally considered a poor month financially, what with the excesses of Christmas and what have you. after that, it's difficult not to note (or notice) is the album cover. indeed, yes, it is hideous. January 7 2022 is the day, or date, then, when Never Let Me Down lost the title of being the worst ever David Bowie album cover. quite a bit of noise from the Bowie Estate has been made, clarifying that the image was "designed and created" by Bowie himself. this was never ever in doubt, for David Bowie imposing a (then) recent image of David Bowie on a baby picture of David Bowie is about the most non-musical David Bowie thing i can think of. but i have my doubts he intended for such to ever be used in furtherance of album art.
if you were looking for, or seeking, a quick idea of whether or not Toy in an official variation is worth it or any good, well done for pushing in so far to this text to find that and the answer is kind of. leaving aside, for now, the needless way in which this release has been bloated, the record, as in the music itself, is a determined personification of "average". so far all the reviews i have seen, written by people what get paid to review vibes (i do not) have been diplomatic, with the echo of "it's nice to have but not an essential album" ringing through them all. quite an accurate description of it. none of the songs are particularly that bad, yet very few stand out.
essentially, or effectively, what happened with this record at the time? well, no one knows for certain. claims were that Bowie was "inspired" by his consideration for his Glastonbury set to go and rush record a "surprise" album of spontaneous choices, with Toy being it. alas, the record label disagreed, with the official line being that they didn't believe an album of mostly re-recorded pre-fame Bowie songs would be as successful or as "commercially viable" as an album of new material. cynical types would suggest that Bowie's plan was somewhat less spontaneous, with some of the songs appearing in sets a year or so before release. for the label, owing to how publishing rights, licencing and all that works, the income split for the album would have been 80% David Bowie, 20% record label. so the record label told him to f*** off back to the studio, please.
above is the cover of the booklet inside the lavish box what Toy has come out in. yes, indeed, i agree that would have made a considerably better cover than what came out. but, here we are.
mostly, then, what Toy consists of is Bowie re-recording some songs off of his less famous era, mid to late 60s. surprisingly he resisted the obvious temptation to revisit Laughing Gnome or When I'm Five, but for the most part, at least, did go and select some songs from his past that were full worthy of attention beyond cheap to licence cash-in releases by the initial rights holders. undoubtedly, or certainly, this is true of one particular tune which he particularly hammered in the year or so prior to recording Toy, the rather good Can't Help Thinking About Me.
on my personal list of "all time favourite Bowie songs of all time" there sits the relatively obscure tune that is Conversation Piece. i first heard it on the Space Oddity CD release of, what, 89 or 90, and more or less immediately fell in love with it. some delight, then, in seeing Bowie pick it out to try and ensure it got a bigger audience in the modern world, much like he did (with a shorter turnaround time) with the magnificence of Strangers When We Meet in the 90s. not sure i am overtly keen on this slowed down version, hearing it here again (three times) on Toy.
quite a few people, myself included, will of course have already heard this re-recorded Conversation Piece in an official way, for it was one of the bonus tracks included in the "deluxe edition" of the album Bowie f****d off to the studio to record when Toy was declined a release. that one was Heathen, a not too bad album but not memorable.
going back a bit on the basis of that, be it all non-linear or non non-linear, it's a bit interesting (i guess) that the official release of Toy doesn't quite match the tracklisting of the leaked, or if you will bootlegged, version of the record. i did some checking, and sure enough two (2) songs are omitted. they, or them, would be the ones that were relatively (so far as anyone knows) new compositions and recordings, which got reworked and re-recorded for inclusion in Heathen.
best i can do for you, that picture above is, of what is inside the box for Toy, limiting the view of that hideous artwork as best i can. yes, it is on the front of each of the three (3) discs inside, but i figured it would be more better to try and show the tracklisting for them. oh, goodness me, yes, there is a lot of repetition across the discs. for those interested, the sequence of images in the booklet you can vaguely make out in the image are portraits of all the artists what appeared on the record, with the attribution that Bowie himself gone done them portraits. a reasonably rare insight into his art, then. reduced here to images barely the size of a conventional stamp.
a not unreasonable question would be why now? exactly, why now? this release of Toy shall have been considered and planned long in advance of the recent deal, in which Warner have bought the Bowie catalogue for some very serious money. more on that later (if i remember), but i suppose there was always an intention to put this one out at some stage. putting out an officially (ahem) new album for what would have been (or is) his 75th birthday makes a degree of sense.
just strange, though, that it all seems to have come at the cost (or instead) of any particularly special or decent celebration of the 50th anniversary of Hunky Dory. considering how hard and large they hammered the 50th anniversaries of Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold The World (the latter was subject to two CD issues), that all we get for (arguably) his first truly great album is one (1) vinyl picture disc of an 8 (eight) year old pressing of it. worth mentioning that Hunky Dory is the album home to Changes, a song which one could suggest defined his career, and Life On Mars?, a song which routinely gets voted as his "greatest ever" when they do polls.
so it is, then, that Toy marks (probably) the final, last release before Warner take over the issuing of the Bowie catalogue to we, the people. for those who are responsible for the Bowie Estate, if the reported US $250 million is anywhere near what they got, good business, especially as they seem unable to work out what to do with what they have (refer to the Brilliant Live Adventures debacle). for Warner they have paid a huge some of money for effectively priceless art. as to us, the humble fans, everything about their track record says good days are ahead. look to how Warner have gone done reissues of classic Prince albums, and that album which has strong claim as being the greatest ever, Rumours off of Fleetwood Mac. the overwhelming majority of their music releases gives every indication of them subscribing to the idea that if you give the fans what they want, fairly, they are happy to pay. we are.
oh, yeah, Toy. what this post is supposed to be about, but i figured it would be amiss for me not to mention the recent developments, and a separate post would have been excessive. rather get it all out in a longer, bigger one. so to speak.
effectively, the spirit of the reviews in general (mentioned earlier) sum it up well. besides the well covered "leak" of it, more than half of the songs here have turned up on CD singles (remember them, i miss them), extras on albums of even "best of" sets. the whole of Toy amounts to Bowie re-recording some of the obscure things from his early days, long before such was popular. him being ahead of the game is not really a new thing, or at least wasn't.
the main problem, or barrier, prohibiting getting excited about this is how needlessly bloated it is. i cannot stress enough how you end up with rather more than less of it being three discs all of the same thing. certainly some "audio experts" will note differences, but me not so much. disc two, called alternate mixes and extras (i think only an extra two songs), don't feel far removed from the album proper, whereas the third, a quasi acoustic "unplugged and somewhat slightly electric" take on most of the songs, amounts more or less to demo versions. not bad but no, not essential.
comments on the actual music, beyond what i have done? ok. the standout, or outstanding, one is certainly Can't Help Thinking About Me. no surprise, really, as he had been playing it for close on two years before deciding to do a studio version, and of all the tunes it sounds the closest of them to the original 60s recording. as for the titular Toy (Your Turn To Drive), it's also great. weird, though, as the piano bit sounds like it is "borrowed" off of that Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton, yet seems to have been recorded a year or so before that song. various reports and comments suggest that one tune, Shadow Man, has been kicking around in a lyrical form since the Ziggy Stardust sessions, with this incarnation turning up on some variations of Heathen bonus discs. no, it isn't a lost or newly discovered masterpiece, sorry.
putting this out as a full tilt, loaded one disc affair would, i suspect, have been wiser. sure, on the one side it's kind of interesting to have (quite close to) all recordings of one album sometimes, but i am unconvinced Toy is such an album. still, done now, obtained and, after some shuffling, on the shelf with the remainder of my Bowie collection. where, i suspect, it won't get moved much.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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