Flavorwire

Word on the internet this week is that a leaked version of David Bowie’s lost 2001 record Toy has slipped out into the wild and is now doing the round on file-sharing sites. Toy is one of many albums over the course of musical history that for one reason or another got delayed, shelved or otherwise waylaid. There’s often a mythology that grows up around such albums, and although the story can sometimes outweigh the actual music – after all, often albums get canned for a reason — there are some that warrant the attention they attract. Here’s our pick of 10 of music’s best lost records — or the ones that sound like they would be the best, if only we could hear them…

David Bowie – Toy

The late 1990s and early 2000s were a strange period for David Bowie in general — he made a drum’n'bass record, for God’s sake. But things started looking up with 2002′s Heathen, an album that featured a cover of The Pixies’ “Cactus” and got the strongest reviews Bowie had enjoyed in years. Before Heathen, however, came an aborted album called Toy, and while several songs from the Toy sessions ended up on the final album, there’s plenty that didn’t. As such, the record has been something of a Holy Grail for Bowie completists ever since, one of those albums that lots of people have heard about but few have ever heard. Until this week, that is.