Unreleased Bowie Album Leaked Online?

A previously unreleased David Bowie album appears to have been leaked onto illegal download sites on the internet.

The album, titled Toy, was recorded way back in 2000 and consisted of re-recorded versions of old Bowie tracks from the mid-60s and early 70s. It was apparently never released due to a contractual dispute with Bowie's then record label, Virgin which meant that Toy was shelved. Bowie soon moved to a new label and then released the album Heathen in 2002.

The Amplifier reports that all but one of the tracks on Toy have crept up before in some form, so there's nothing entirely new here. The most recognizable song is 'Conservation Piece,' a 1970 B-side that later appeared on reissues of Space Oddity, and in this form, re-recorded with three decades of wear and cigarette smoke on Bowie's vocal cords, it sounds starkly different. Two of the tracks on Toy ('Slip Away' and 'Afraid') wound up on Heathen, and another two wound up as B-sides in the early 2000s.

The rest of the tracks, however, are culled from Bowie's teen pop days, when he performed as "Davy Jones" before the emergence of Monkees' Davy Jones forced Bowie to become "Bowie." These songs, like "I Dig Everything" and "Silly Boy Blue" that landed on Bowie's self-titled, pre-Space Oddity album, are almost unrecognizable on Toy as Bowie gives the songs new and modern arrangements.

The tracklist is as follows:

1. Uncle Floyd
2. Afraid
3. Baby Loves That Way
4. I Dig Everything
5. Conversation Piece
6. Let Me Sleep Beside You
7. Toy (Your Turn To Drive)
8. Hole In The Ground
9. Shadow Man
10. In The Heat Of The Morning
11. You’ve Got a Habit Of Leaving
12. Silly Boy Blue
13. Liza Jane
14. The London Boys

(The Amplifier)