Two more sleeps until Toyah’s new album Posh Pop is out! Pre-order here.
Which edition are you adding to your collection? This deluxe CD+DVD edition (below right) has 10 videos directed by Toyah Willcox for each of the songs on the album. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)
The album includes Monkeys, plus Levitate, Zoom Zoom, Summer Of Love and Space Dance.
• Posh Pop Reviews: As well as the album reviews which have been published online in the past two days; Retro Pop, At The Barrier, The Arts Desk, the latest print issues of Mojo and Uncut magazine also carry reviews of the album. No doubt more reviews will be published over the coming days…
• Magazines: There will be multiple-page Toyah/Posh Pop features in the next editions of Classic Pop and Record Collector magazines.
• Online Press: There will be a Toyah/Posh Pop feature in The Quietus (Bakers Dozen).
• Television: Toyah is guesting on BBC Breakfast next week.
• Toyah At Home: The Toyah At Home Posh Pop Special will premiere 11am BST, this Saturday, 28 August, at Toyah’s official You Tube channel and Facebook page. This will include fan questions, new in-session performances and unseen videos.
• #ToyahPoshPop: Share your images this coming weekend on social media with the hashtag #ToyahPoshPop
• All of the above info gleaned from the latest Breaking Through – The Official Toyah Willcox Newsletter. Sign up here. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)
Three more sleeps until Toyah’s new album Posh Pop is out! Pre-order here.
The album includes Monkeys plus Levitate, Zoom Zoom, Summer Of Love and Space Dance. (Image © Toyah Willcox)
Anthems, hope and escapism – it’s all there on the first Toyah album for 13 years!
Release Date: 27th August 2021
Label: Demon Music Group
Formats: CD / CD+DVD / Vinyl / Digital
“Thank you, Toyah, for a great album. And welcome back – we’ve missed you!”
The last time Toyah graced these pages was back in May, when we reviewed the reissue of her 1980 album The Blue Meaning. In that review, we gave a brief a resumé of what Toyah has been up to in recent years, including a mention of the hilarious You Tube postings, Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch (and if you haven’t seen this yet, check it out – it’s unmissable!) and releasing her (until now) most recent album, 2008’s In The Court of the Crimson Queen.
Well… She’s back, and how!! Posh Pop is Toyah’s first album of new material for 13 years, and it’s a blast. Toyah herself is very proud of Posh Pop, considering the album “A career best,” and she could very well be right. It’s a joyful album that draws copiously on Toyah’s glam and punk roots and builds upwards from there; the 80’s synth sound is still around, tempered and enhanced by lots of stunning rock guitar from Toyah’s husband, “Bobby Willcox” and the lyrics are clear and excellent, covering topics as diverse as the lockdown “Zoom Boom,” space exploration, ageing, bereavement, the devastation of war, the fate of humanity and the Beirut explosion. And it all comes enclosed in a wrapper of addictive, anthemic rock and pop.
• Continue reading at At The Barrier. The album is released on Friday. Pre-order Posh Pop here.
A very limited number of the Limited Edition space grey vinyl release of Posh Pop, with a signed Toyah print, are available at Amazon UK.
Posh Pop, possibly Toyah’s most eagerly anticipated studio album since Minx, is released on Friday. Toyah considers this a “career best” album.
Posh Pop is a strong collection of infectious and affirmative pop songs that are as joyous as they are reflective, from the cosmic groove of Space Dance, to the sun-kissed anthem of unity Summer Of Love. The album is crafted with evocative storytelling and musicianship from Toyah, Simon Darlow (guitars, keyboards, cello), Bobby Willcox (guitar) and Jeremy Stacey (drums). Posh Pop opens with the energy-burst of Levitate and leads the listener on a journey that climaxes in the soaring, intergalactic-tinged Take Me Home.
• See/Buy the Limited Edition Posh Pop space grey vinyl with signed print at Amazon UK.
A great interview with Toyah on today’s Steve Wright In The Afternoon show on BBC Radio 2. This included plays of two previously unheard songs from Posh Pop.
Toyah talked about the recording process of Posh Pop, what inspired the album, and about loving being back on the road touring, playing festivals and gigs.
There were plays of I Want To Be Free, It’s A Mystery, Levitate, The Bride Will Return, and a short burst of Rhythm In My House at the close of the chat.
Steve enthused about Toyah having such a longtime career yet still releasing such quality music. He also mentioned Toyah’s legendary warehouse, Mayhem!
Toyah also talked about her latest film work, on, the just released, To Be Someone and, the to be released in October, The Ghosts Of Borley Rectory.
• Listen to the show/interview at BBC Sounds. Toyah appears approximately 2hrs 30m into the show. (Photos © Toyah Willcox)
The Posh Pop reviews are beginning…
Toyah – Posh Pop
Released: 27 August 2021
“A body of work that stands amongst the best of her career”.
Toyah embodies the essence of pop music on her latest LP ‘Posh Pop’
The collection was recorded with husband Robert Fripp and co-writer/producer Simon Darlow during lockdown – a theme that underpins each of the 10 tracks.
Opener and lead single Levitate deals with the forced confinement and sees the star rise beyond the realms of the pandemic and reacquaint herself with a world seemingly gone by.
It encompasses the overall theme of the album, which for listeners and as a creative pursuit for Toyah, is about escapism.
While songs like Space Dance and Rhythm In My House are through and through pop numbers, the genius of ‘Posh Pop’ is in the lyrics, which simultaneously reference the world today while remaining timeless.
• Continue reading at Retro Pop. The album is released on Friday. Pre-order Posh Pop here.
Sheep Farming In Barnet will be available to buy as a Limited Edition HQ print later this year.
The print will be available in two sizes: 20x25cm and 50x70cm.
Toyah: Sheep Farming In Barnet
Album Cover Print (20x25cm / 50x70cm)
£99.00 / £199.00
Released: 11th November 2021
Toyah Sheep Farming in Barnet album cover designed by Bill Smith and photographed by Andrew Douglas. The location for the shoot was a secret military installation in Yorkshire. Design by Bill Smith from the book Cover Stories. Signed by the photographer. Numbered edition of 150 copies. Size 50 x 70 cm. Printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm paper with a matte finish. Wrapped in acid-free tissue and sent in cardboard tubes. 50 x 70 cm.
Numbered edition of 300 copies. Size 20 x 25 cm. Printed on Hahnemuhle Gloss Baryta 305gsm paper with a silk finish. Wrapped in acid-free tissue and sent in hard-backed envelopes. 20 x 25 cm.
• Further details and pre-order at HMV.
Congrats to Toyah and, her new studio album, Posh Pop. As of right now at Amazon UK the album’s release formats hold the top four positions in their Pop Rock Best Sellers and the top three on the Dance Pop Best Sellers. It is also at positions 3, 4 and 31 in the Rock Best Sellers, and number 7, 8 and 11 in CDs & Vinyl Best Sellers. Astounding stats!
More Official Chart placings for The Blue Meaning.
Album chart #59
Rock chart #1
Independent chart #4
Sales chart #12
Physical chart #12
Vinyl chart #14
Scottish chart #16
Toyah tweeted and Instagrammed about the great news over the weekend, saying:
“Wonderful news that The Blue Meaning has charted in the UK @officialcharts yesterday & topped the Rock & Metal Chart. Thank you!! Toyah xx”
Great news, the reissued The Blue Meaning has entered the Official Rock & Metal Album Chart at number 1. The album also entered the Official Charts Top 100 Albums chart at number 59.
“I was very reliable” Toyah tells SDE
Toyah Willcox, the new queen of ‘Sunday Lunch’ lockdown videos talks to SDE about the reissue of Toyah’s 1980s album The Blue Meaning. This is the second major release in Cherry Red’s reissue campaign, since the label acquired Safari Records in early 2020.
SDE: You’ve been keeping busy during lockdown – I’ve seen the videos – but you must have missed playing live, since you used to do it so much?
Toyah Willcox: Yes, that’s true, but I managed to build a pretty phenomenal… brand name in lockdown. So we’re going to continue with it. It’s been a phenomenon we never expected, and it’s still growing. In a couple of years we’ll have our own TV channel, doing our own TV broadcasts. What seems to have struck home is the very basic truth and simplicity of what we do. We’re not in hi-tech studios or anything like that, but we’ll actually be broadening the whole of that.
• Continue reading at Super Deluxe Edition. Browse Dreamscape’s SDE news archive.
The fantastic deluxe, and remastered, reissue of The Blue Meaning has this week been charting on iTunes, Amazon and, most significantly, on The Official Charts’ Album Midweeks – at an amazing No. 22!!
Stream The Blue Meaning on Spotify to see a new animation for each of the album tracks and hear 27 bonus tracks. Or order the stunning pink vinyl or 2CD+DVD.
• Browse Dreamscape’s Toyah on the Official Charts news archive here.
Buy the gorgeous pink vinyl edition of The Blue Meaning. It is sold out at Cherry Red but is still available, in all of it’s pink glory, at Amazon UK.
Toyah – The Blue Meaning (Expanded Deluxe Edition): Album Review
Dark, intense and disturbingly graphic – an early masterpiece by Toyah revisited
Release Date: 28th May 2021
Label: Cherry Red Records
Formats: 2CD + 1DVD, Limited Edition Coloured Vinyl
Cherry Red Records have done it yet again! This week’s lucky recipient of their deluxe reissue treatment is Toyah and the band’s second album, 1980’s The Blue Meaning. In fact, Cherry Red are working their way through Toyah’s Safari Records catalogue – the band’s debut album, Sheep Farming In Barnet, has already received the deluxe repackaging and the rest of the bunch, Anthem (1981) The Changeling (1982) and Love Is The Law (1983) will be along soon – a veritable treasure trove from the happiest, most productive and most creative period of Toyah’s career. Oh – and for clarity – at this stage in the career of Toyah Willcox, Toyah was the collective name for the band in which she featured – Joel Bogen on guitar, Charlie Francis on bass, Steve Bray on drums, Peter Bush on keyboards and Toyah herself on vocals (or verbals and unusual sounds, as the album’s excellent sleeve notes put it.)
• Continue reading at At The Barrier.
Toyah – The Blue Meaning
Expanded Edition (Cherry Red)
With the context of the passing of time, this is all brilliantly boundary-pushing music, and The Blue Meaning is an album which could astound the unprepared. Pure gold
The Cherry Red Toyah reissue programme continues with the second album, 1980’s The Blue Meaning, following on from the excellent reissue of the Sheep Farming In Barnet debut. As with its predecessor, The Blue Meaning is a very different proposition to the impression casual listeners tend to have of the pop-punk singer with the wild hair taking It’s A Mystery and I Want To Be Free to the upper reaches of the singles charts. In truth, that image was always a false one when the albums were listened to in their entirety, but even more in the case of these earliest records. In fact, the next studio album following this would be Anthem, the first big hit album which contained those two singles, but you would never guess that from the music contained here, which is dark, edgy and often brilliantly experimental. The Sheep Farming In Barnet album had contained a great mix of post-punk attitude with a sort of ‘difficult prog’ edge to it, but on this follow-up things got even more serious and uncompromising, both in terms of lyrical matter and musical content, and this three-disc reissue rounds it up with some tremendous extra material from the time to produce a definitive edition if ever there was one.
• Continue reading at Velvet Thunder.
Toyah unboxes the new 2CD+DVD edition of The Blue Meaning, released by Cherry Red Records this Friday, 28th May 2021. Pre-order this or the neon pink vinyl LP edition at Cherry Red.
Today’s Toyah At Home was a one-hour special dedicated to The Blue Meaning, which is reissued in deluxe CD/DVD format and colour vinyl next week! Watch at You Tube by clicking below.
Toyah features in the new book, Bill Smith Studio: Cover Stories.
A beautiful 12-inch square hardback book featuring the influential album art produced by Bill Smith Studio and the stories behind them.
Across five decades Bill Smith Studio worked on countless covers for the likes of Kate Bush, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Toyah, Marillion, Genesis, No-Man, Thomas Dolby, Richard Barbieri, Mike Oldfield and others.
In Cover Stories you’ll find the stories of over 70 albums, featuring contributions from the bands, artists, photographers and painters involved, all offering a unique insight into the creation of several iconic sleeves.
Includes 40 album covers at original 12-inch size. Cover Stories offers a unique insight into the creation of several iconic sleeves and includes 40 album covers at original 12-inch size.
• Further info/Order the book at Burning Shed.
A review of The Blue Meaning by We Are Cult.
Toyah: ‘The Blue Meaning’
“Cherry Red’s second re-release of Toyah’s early output, The Blue Meaning is full of lyrics that reflect her interest in sci fi, occultism and Nostradamus… Self-admittedly pretentious in a good way, Toyah’s lyrics and singing style often also seem to be influenced by Broken English-era Marianne Faithful and Patti Smith.”
1980 was a busy year for Toyah. Working as both an actress and a musician she was only 22 but had already appeared in films such as Quadrophenia, Derek Jarman’s Jubilee and The Tempest and George Cukor’s remake of The Corn Is Green with Katherine Hepburn and Patricia Hayes. As well as television work in Shoestring, Second City Firsts and the TV remake of Quatermass, Toyah had also already acted in productions at the National Theatre.
In this short one-year period Toyah starred in a Royal Court production of the controversial Nigel Williams play Sugar and Spice, filmed over the course of three months for an hour-long ATV documentary, appeared in the TV series A Question of Guilt and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and guest-hosted the talk show Friday Night, Saturday Morning in which she interviewed (and played Space Invaders with!) Steve Strange, Derek Jarman and Vivian Stanshall. The year was also the prelude to her chart success of 1981, which occasioned hit singles It’s A Mystery, I Want To Be Free and Thunder in the mountains and numerous Smash Hits and Look-In covers.
• Continue reading at We Are Cult.
A new video to previously unreleased Jack & Jill including footage of Toyah in Park Gates Studio with producer Steve James. This track is a bonus track on the deluxe edition of The Blue Meaning, out 28 May. Pre-order the three-disc set here. Click below to watch the video.
