Toy (2000)

The Bowie Project #27 – Toy (2000)

Hot off the heels of touring his latest album, Hours, in 1999, David Bowie decided he wanted to utilise the energy of his touring band and record a quick surprise album for his fans. The project he envisioned would be made up of re-recordings of his old material from the 1960s and described as “Not so much Pin Ups II as an Up Date I”. Work on this sixties album began in July 2000 under the working title Toy.

No longer working with his previous collaborator and former Tin Machine guitarist Reeves Gabrels due to creative differences the lineup now consisted of his touring band guitarist Earl Slick, bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, pianist Mike Garson, frequent collaborator Mark Plati, and drummer Sterling Campbell. The band rehearsed songs at Sear Sound Studio in New York City and recorded them as live tracks with Plati stating the idea was to keep things fast and loose, record them quick and not focus too much on perfection. Or has Bowie himself said: 

I've pulled together a selection of songs from a somewhat unusual reservoir and booked time in a studio. I cannot wait to sit in a claustrophobic space with seven other energetic people and sing till my tits drop off.

They cut 13 tracks in just nine days. As a touring band they had developed a type of shorthand with one another and Slick said they barely had to speak about how to approach the songs they would just look at each other and start playing. During this time Bowie and his wife Iman welcomed the birth of their daughter Alexandria and production was halted for a two-month break.

Toy was set to feature songs that Bowie had originally recorded between 1964 and 1971 and would shine a light on an often underappreciated and strange era in his career, this was mostly before he had found fame and desperately searching for a hit, the type of music he was recording was a mishmash of so many style, vaudeville theatrical, mixed with psychedelic folk, and hard rock, it was all a little over the place at the time but Bowie’s desire to revisit a lot of these tracks indicates he had a soft spot for this early era.

After recording, Bowie wanted the album to come out as quickly as possible however at this point the idea of a surprise album drop was years ahead of its time. Now it’s common for artists, like Beyonce, to release albums with almost no prior notice at this point in the year 2000 the internet was still relatively new to the average person and it was harder to spread information and build hype at the rate that would be necessary to promote a new album by a major artist. The record label weren’t up to the challenge and the release of the album was being delayed, this mixed with a fear that the record would be a flop due to the lack of new material it was eventually shelved indefinitely and Bowie cut his losses and moved onto a new project that would become his Heathen studio album two years later. For years, the Toy album was just another lost project in Bowie’s long career until in 2011 it leaked onto the internet, for the next 10 years this unofficial leak would be the only way to hear the record until in 2021 as part of the Bowie box set Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) it would receive an official release becoming a commercial success and debuting at number 5 on the UK album charts becoming Bowie's 35^th UK top 10 album.

Fan made artwork for the leaked Toy album

The record opens with “I Dig Everything” which was a single Bowie originally recorded in 1966. The original version is an upbeat pop number very much reflecting, musically and thematically, the Swinging London era reminiscent of some of the mildest work by the likes of the Small Faces or bands like Herman’s Hermits. The re-recording is presented as a more guitar-led and rock-based arrangement. The track is the first introduction we get to this backing band and does sound great, the musicianship is strong, the overdubs and backup vocals mix well, it might all sound a little bit too polished but it’s a strong opening.

“You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving” dates back to 1965 and is even pre-David Bowie initially being released under the band name Davy Jones and the Lower Third and was influenced by the early mod singles of The Who. There’s nothing particularly wrong per-say with this re-recording but it just feels like it has lost its soul a little bit, it’s all a bit too safe and uninteresting. The original, while highly derivative of The Who, had a strange psychedelic edge and was previously included in the cult Nuggets collection of lost forgotten psych-rock, I’d call it the superior version.

Another Davy Jones and the Lower Third track “The London Boys” was later released as the B-side to Bowie’s 1966 single “Rubber Band” from his strange and uneven debut album. This anti-drug song is probably the most fervently negative opinion Bowie ever recorded regarding drug use. The dark lyrics concern a 17-year-old girl who moves to London and starts popping pills with the boys to fit in. The original recording is one of the best of Bowie’s early era with frank and sympathetic lyrics and an emotional resonance. It's an early example that there was some real talent brewing in the young Davy Jones. It seems he thought so himself as it was a track that he had originally planned to re-record during the sessions for Pin Ups, then revived it in concert during the Hours tour, and finally in the sessions for this unreleased album.

“Karma Man” was written back in 1967, and is one of the first tracks Bowie wrote expressing his interest in Tibetan Buddhism and concerns a character who is put on display as a freak in a carnival tent living in isolation and was supposed to be a tribute to monks in exile. At this point Bowie was fascinated by Buddhist monks and in an interview with Melody Maker referred to them as super-human stating they could go days without eating and could live underground for centuries. Bowie biographer Chris O’Leary likened Bowie’s opinion of monks at this point to the Marvel superhero Doctor Strange.

For me, the highlight of this album as well as one of the best songs of Bowie’s early career is “Conversation Piece”. The original version had the feel of an intelligent young man searching for his place in the world and the re-recorded version has the vocal inflection and depth of a man who has lived the feelings he is singing. I have trouble deciding which version I prefer as they both contain something special. It’s the best thing about this record and in my opinion it alone justifies its existence.

Possibly the most exciting moment for Bowie fans on this record is “Shadow Man” which was an unreleased song from the Ziggy Stardust sessions. Exploring classic Bowie themes of doubling and identity the song could be influenced by Carl Jung’s idea of the shadow being the unexplored aspects of our unconscious selves. All those things we dare not look in the eye, the shadow man is waiting up ahead. The Toy version is slower than the unreleased bootlegged version from that era, a slow and thoughtful ballad-style number; it's a nice surprise for Bowie fans to hear something new from such a celebrated era in his career.

“Let Me Sleep Beside You” originally opened with a Monkees style “I’m a Believer” guitar intro and this is half retained in this re-recording. Originally recorded in 1967 is one of Bowie’s first songs with a more rock n’ roll edge to it and a move away from conventional pop music. It’s a fine re-recording but like a number of songs on the record a little bit lacking and maybe slightly too full on, could have dialled the band back a bit, in this nostalgia project I am leaning more toward sentimentality and the way decades of living can bring new meaning into these tracks, instead of just a bombastic cover of an old forgotten sixties song.

The only known version of its original era of “A Hole in the Ground” is a home demo recorded by Bowie around late 1969 or early 1970 and from listening to that version it really seems like nothing special, but it must have stuck with him as he chose to revisit it here 30 years later. I have to say despite Bowie keeping in the back of his mind all these years it really doesn’t do anything for me.

Another Davy Jones single, “Baby Loves that Way” is a three-chord beat song about a man’s disloyal girlfriend but she’s my babe and that’s alright, a little mixed up and right inline with confused sexuality and emergence of the free-spirited open minded 1960s scene or as Bowie biographer Chris O’Leary described it: “Mod cuckold laments life.” The re-recorded version takes things a little bit slower, and it loses some of its innate soul, humour, and energy.

Davy Jones and the Lower Thirds turned into David Bowie and the Lower Third for the 1966 track “Can’t Help Thinking About Me” which uses a mod sound a la the Who and the Kinks to tell the story of a self-obsessed boy ready to go start a new life. This was another song that Bowie revived for the Hours tour and this re-recording has a fair amount of energy and works the best of all the mod style beat tracks he chose to redo in these sessions. This feels like everything this record could have been, he’s clearly having a great time rocking out to this old single and he just didn’t give the same amount of passion to a lot of the other tracks.

“Silly Boy Blue” like “Karma Man” before it represents Bowie’s early interest in Buddhism and was included on his debut album. At the time of its original release, he used to perform songs during mime performances, and it is an early example of strong songwriting and emotional resonance from the young artist. The re-recording maintains much of what was great about the original but it's definitely some of its innate heart. That’s the problem with re-recordings, it can be really difficult to overtake what’s already ingrained in a listener's head, maybe I am just sentimental for that first album.

The album closes with the title track “Toy (Your Turn to Drive)” which is the only bit of new material written for the record. A dreamy and meandering song it lacks bite and you wonder if its worth breaking the entire theme of this record to include it and even further you question why the entire album is named after it. Unfortunately, all I can say is, as an ending it’s a let-down.

As this album’s release was put on hold indefinitely, Toy was never issued in Bowie’s lifetime, and he moved on to other projects. Over the years various tracks would be released in dribs and drabs through bonus tracks or online promos and in 2011 it leaked onto the internet. Bar a few exceptions like “Conversation Piece” and “Shadow Man” there is nothing really essential here, it was interesting idea for a record, and for Bowie fans it's great to see what songs he chose to go back to and how they sound in this new era but it is an exercise in nostalgia and isn’t exactly pushing any boundaries. The rushed nature of the recording is also evident, the songs were recorded quickly without worrying too much about perfection, but I can’t help but feel maybe if they were laboured over a little bit more this project could fulfil its potential a little bit more, the closest comparison in Bowie’s career is Pin Ups and that suffered a lot of the same problems. I would say Toy is a decent album and it’s great to be able to hear it as an official release after all of this time, but it being shelved isn’t the great lost masterpiece some have named it, it’s just a bit of fun, and that’s all it was ever really meant to be.

Toy ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ [5/10]

Bonus:

When Toy was released in 2021 as part of the Brilliant Adventure Box Set it came as Toy Box a three CD set that includes plenty of alternative mixes of much of these song, it also includes in the bonus track “Liza Jane”, the original version of this song was the first single David Bowie ever released and was put out with Davy Jones with the King Bees which was one of his earliest band names after the Konrads, and is an arrangement of the old standard “Lil Liza Jane” that dates back from at least the 1910s, Bowie’s music publisher Leslie Conn had the rights to the track at that point and was credited as songwriter and it seems it was a little under the table scam to get some extra royalties for Conn who was truly living up to his surname. The song was re-recorded for Toy but not included in the official track listing and it sounds more like a studio jam session or a bit of a warm track.