Ground Control To Colonel Tom

Happy Birthday Elvis! Happy Birthday, David Bowie!

Big Twitter trendings this morning, noting birthdays for Elvis Presley and David Bowie. What a two-fer!

Did you know that there is a "new" David Bowie album called Toy? I've had a download for a few weeks, but haven't written about it because I could not verify an official release date. But it seems to be the right time, as the Bowie 75 project tells us that Toy's official release date as a standalone album was January 7.

The album was recorded in 2000 after Bowie's live show at Glastonbury. The idea was to go back to Bowie's oldest songs (1964-1971) and renovate, rearrange, and revive them with some fresh material in a new studio album. Instead, it was held, Heathens was released in 2002, and most of it remained unreleased. According to the Bowie Bible website, which has detailed information about each song, Bowie told his fans in a June 4, 2001, webchat on BowieNet:

I’m finding EMI/Virgin seem to have a lot of scheduling conflicts this year, which has put an awful lot on the back burn…