Toy (studio album) by David Bowie

Criminal that EMI didn’t allow this a release when it was recorded. However I think this meant that Heathen was then so brilliant.

I first heard this long buried album in 2011, some 10 years after its initial intended release, when it leaked online and was the stuff of legends. I loved it on first listen - familiar with some of the old Decca / Deram singles that are more early genius than mere juvenilia. They have been made better by Bowie's aged voice and wisdom, the band are tight and all the songs - which span several years from the late 60s / early 70s flow to make a cohesive album, not too dissimilar to 2002's excellent Heathen.

The tracklist is different here, the newer or unheard songs Hole in the Ground and Your Turn to Drive are here, but missing is alternative Heathen cuts (the better versions of Slip Away: "Uncle Floyd", and Afraid) and perhaps unforgivably, the ever divine In The Heat of the Morning, the sort of song other artists would kill for, somewhat buried in Bowie's back catalogue of BBC Sessions, to be given new life in the Toy Sessions, it does resurface in the "Toy:Box" expanded set.

If this album should fall under "2022" given its official breakout release, then it gets top billing on my chart. But it feels like a 2001, or more personally, a 2011 release. I'll see how I feel about its placing as genuine new releases steadily come out this year.

95/100