Toyah’s iconic 1981 Top 10 hit I Want To Be Free is included on, the just released, The80s Pop Annual double-vinyl compilation album.
Continuing the tributes to certain decades, this selection concludes with 80s POP ANNUAL. The definitive sound of the 80s, it collects together some of the greatest songs of the decade. Presented in a gatefold sleeve with original artwork and pressed on 2x 180g Heavyweight black vinyl, featuring huge hits: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (Wham!), Footloose (Kenny Loggins), Kids In America (Kim Wilde), Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper), Heaven Is A Place On Earth (Belinda Carlisle ), and many more.
The 80s Pop Annual is available exclusively on vinyl.
SIDE C: Adam & The Ants – Stand And Deliver, Bow Wow Wow – Go Wild In The Country, Haysi Fantayzee – John Wayne Is Big Leggy, Toyah – I Want To Be Free, Altered Images – Don’t Talk To Me About Love, Ultravox – Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, Howard Jones – What Is Love?, The Lotus Eaters – The First Picture of You.
Burning Shed are now stocking the first four Toyah studio releases, Sheep Farming In Barnet (1979), The Blue Meaning (1980), Anthem (1981) and The Changeling (1982).
Featuring copious bonus tracks, these editions were pressed in 1999 and 2002 (N.B. These are not new pressings or remasters) and showcase Toyah’s adventurous and sophisticated fusion of Post-Punk and Art Rock at its very best.
The Changeling was produced by Steve Lillywhite and featured Be Bop Deluxe’s Andy Clarke on keyboards plus the formidable rhythm section of Phil Spalding and Simon Phillips (both soon to depart for Mike Oldfield’s band).
• Further info at Burning Shed. Pre-order for 21st April shipping.
33 years ago this week The Vow was released. Taken from the album Love Is The Law, it was also Toyah’s final single on Safari Records. A rousing rock ballad with fantastic vocals from Toyah, incredible guitar from Joel Bogen, and moving lyrics. But in love and war I’ll never desert you…
The extended version of Toyah’s debut solo single, released in 1985, Don’t Fall in Love (I Said), is included on the forthcoming 3CD Twelve Inch Eighties: Digging Your Scene box set.
The 30-song collection will also be available digitally via iTunes and other online music retailers.
Twelve Inch Eighties is the successful 3CD range by Crimson Productions, compiling extended alternate mixes of some of the biggest hit singles of the 80s. Each themed release is housed in a sleek 3CD digipak with abstract imagery representative of early dance label releases. These carefully selected titles across the range bring together the finest eighties pop, dance and disco, amongst other genres, in all their full 12” single glory.
Digging Your Scene is a collection of classic 12” remixes straight from the edge of the 80s. Other artists on the set include Japan, Fiction Factory, Thompson Twins, Adam Ant and Altered Images.
• In May of this year the original version of Don’t Fall in Love (I Said) was also included on “100 Hits” 5CD compilation Pure 80s. (Thanks to Michael Cooney for the Twelve Inch Eighties info)
Toyah has a successful go at covering Martha & The Muffins classic. Released in 1987 this was off the album “Desire” and see’s her go for a more mainstream sound. Mike Hedges gives it enough weird synth sound and the vocal delivery is spot on. The track is remixed by English electro-dance duo, The Quick and it polishes up the original really well. B-side, “Plenty,” was written by Toyah even has a Motown feel to it with a horn section and a guitar solo, weird!
This year is the 30th anniversary of the release of the Toyah & Fripp spoken word album collaboration The Lady Or The Tiger. Featuring two stories by Frank R Stockton, read by Toyah, accompanied by Robert Fripp’s guitar soundscapes (some call it “Frippertronics”). Watch Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists on VH-1’s New Visions from 1988, with a mention for The Lady Or The Tiger included, by clicking below.
Songs from In The Court Of The Crimson Queen and Anthem will be included in the new musical Crime & Punishment. Toyah revealed further info on this in her most recent blog:
“Even though it hasn’t been officially announced yet I think it is safe to confirm that Simon Darlow and myself are over the moon that many of the songs from IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON QUEEN are about to be used in a theatre production of Dostoevsky’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, a steam punk version/rock musical of the novel which opens on the 30th August at the Scoop Theatre in London. It will run until the 25th Sept.
It is a free event, it is an open-air amphitheatre by the River Thames, but it will be on a first come, first served basis. It is going to be busy. They expect 40,000 people will see it as the event has been full to capacity in the past. It is part of the London Festival’s Russian Season.
Simon and I are writing three new songs for the piece. The writer/director Phil Willmott is also using some songs off ANTHEM.”
Toyah’s 1985 single Don’t Fall in Love (I Said), from her debut solo album Minx, is included on the latest “100 Hits” 5CD compilation Pure 80s.
The much loved 100 Hits range is back in a brand new sleek slim digipak housing 5 discs of your favourite songs of the 80s to enjoy featuring incredible tracks from the finest pop artists such as Wham!, Cyndi Lauper, Adam Ant and many more in this timeless collection.
Don’t Fall in Love (I Said) is song 14 on CD5. The collection is also available digitally from iTunes, Amazon.
• Further info here. Win all five of the latest “100 Hits” CDs at Classic Pop.
35 years ago tonight Toyah kicked off a UK Tour at Derby in support of the album Anthem – Click below to view a larger version of the gig poster at The Official Toyah Facebook.
This week (and a bit of next) we are counting down to Toyah’s birthday by revisiting past birthday updates (as you do!).
May 2003 was an exciting month for Toyah fans. Not only did Toyah turn 45 but there was the not insignificant matter of the release of a brand new album. Toyah’s first all-new studio album in nine years and also of the new Millennium:
“Velvet Lined Shell (catalogue number VSR001) is released on Toyah’s own, newly formed, record label, Vertical Species. The CD artwork is dark and dramatic, similar to the actual music. Toyah has cited Mogwai, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Marilyn Manson and Elbow (among others) as her influences while recording these new songs.”
On this day – February 22 – in 1980, Toyah’s Sheep Farming in Barnet album was released. It began life as six-track EP (or AP – Alternate Play – as Safari Records called it), in August the previous year, but was expanded to full album status by Safari.
Another stocking filler courtesy oftoyahwillcox.com– Download the booklet for the digital issue of Toyah’s 1991 album, Ophelia’s Shadow – It’s the album’s 25th Anniversary in 2016 too!
2015 was/is the 30th anniversary of the release of two, starkly different, Toyah albums: The big-budget, major label, studio album Minx, which Dreamscape celebrated/posted about sporadically this year; and the, final 80s release on indie label Safari, compilation album Mayhem (“A Special Collector’s Edition Album Of Rare and Archive Recordings”).
Mayhem was also released on expanded CD in 2005 and digitally in 2013. Somewhat ironically in this 30th anniversary year the “multi-media” warehouse which the album was named after, “Mayhem” in Battersea, London began to be demolished. Visit the album page at The Official Toyah Discography, and download the album/buy the CD by clicking on the Mayhem feature from Issue 17 of Dreamscape’s Toyah Fanzine.
In October 1983, Toyah’s album Love is The Law was released. It was issued on CD in 2005 and made available digitally for the first time ever in 2013 – thanks to toyahwillcox.com – to mark its 30th anniversary. The release was accompanied by a new digital booklet. You can now view/download the booklet at The Official Toyah website. Click on the original 1983 Japanese Love Is The Law press advert – colourised by Dreamscape – below to visit the album page.
• Browse Dreamscape’s recent Love Is The Law archive of posts here. View the related post at Instagram. The album is available to buy at iTunes and Amazon.
As has been posted about a fair bit recently… Toyah’s three quite different and, more than quite, brilliant albums: Desire – originally released in 1987, Prostitute – originally released in 1988, and Ophelia’s Shadow – originally released in 1991, were made available digitally, for the first time, earlier this month. There’s been a lot of related promotion…
Desire: Read Toyah’s Letter, first published in Tellurian One (Spring 1987); View info on Tenterhooks, Echo Beach (Acoustic) and Desirable; Visit the album page at toyahwillcox.com; Read a full transcript of Chris Limb’s 1987 interview with Toyah; Listen to the album at Spotify; Buy at Amazon or iTunes; Browse Dreamscape’s Desirenews…
Toyah’s iconic 1981 Top 10 hit I Want To Be Free is included on, the just released, The 80s Pop Annual double-vinyl compilation album.
