Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001), the latest edition of David Bowie’s ongoing series of box sets spanning each era of his career, is a defining document for fans of a certain stripe. Consensus prevails for the earlier decades: The 1970s were brilliant, the ’80s initially brilliant, then naff. By contrast, the ’90s continue to be a live issue, dividing fans as to whether Bowie was doing vital new work by engaging with prevailing trends or simply cosigning them in hopes their success would rub off. With each album it collects taking a bold left turn from the sound of its immediate predecessor, Brilliant Adventure makes an inarguable case for the former viewpoint: This Bowie took a lot of risks—and those risks largely paid off.
The centerpiece of the 18xLP box set, and its selling point, is Toy. One of Bowie’s proverbial lost albums, Toy was originally recorded in 2000 with members of his touring band playing fast and loose new versions of some of Bowie’s earliest songs, mostly predating his post-“Space Oddity” stardom. It speaks to both Bowie’s restlessness as an artist and willingness to risk embarrassment in service of that restlessness that he’d revisit his juvenilia at all, much less make a whole record out of the project.
The album was subsequently lost in the scheduling shuffle by Bowie’s then-label EMI/Virgin, before being shelved altogether. Rather than fixate on the cancellation, Bowie moved on to brand-new work, and Toy was relegated to the stuff of fan legend. Songs from the sessions dribbled out as B-sides, digital exclusives, and, in 2011, a full-fledged leak; Brilliant Adventure—and the forthcoming set Toy:Box—is the first time this material has been officially made available as a complete album.
The resultant record is a mixed bag. Bowie and his band gel well: “It’s the sound of people happy to be playing music,” as co-producer Mark Plati puts it. But these seasoned pros often fail the material, losing the ramshackle charm of the originals—turning the Swinging London, proto-reggae sound of “I Dig Everything” into a preening rocker, or smoothing out the rough edges of sexed-up, pill-popping mod tracks like “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving” and “Baby Loves That Way.” In many cases, the original versions sound more avant-garde than the remakes, despite Bowie’s intervening decades in the art-rock trenches.
The strongest track from the set is “Shadow Man,” first recorded as a demo from the Ziggy Stardust sessions. In this version, Bowie’s rich croon is accompanied by a string section and Mike Garson’s piano, turning the song into a lovely, lyrical meditation on our secret selves; it benefits from the wisdom Bowie accrued with age. Elsewhere, rapturous backing vocals twin with the string section to give “Silly Boy Blue” a gorgeous outro, while “Toy (Your Turn to Drive),” the only song newly written for the collection, mines beauty and pathos from Garson’s rainfall piano and a blissful, wordless, two-note hook. Even if Toy mostly served as a template for the neoclassicist rock of Bowie’s subsequent albums, 2002’s Heathen and 2003’s Reality, these highlights make it worth your time.