Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Toyah – Chameleon : The Very Best Of
(3CD/ Blu-Ray Box Set)

Chameleon is certainly well named; it perfectly describes singer & actor Toyah Willcox’s ability, much like David Bowie (the greatest chameleon of them all) to evolve and change with the musical times, whilst still holding her own identity and artistry.

It’s also, courtesy of Cherry Red Records, her first ever all-encompassing collection, one that covers every era and musical slant of her four-and-half decade career, from her late 70s new wave/ punk beginnings to the ultra-successful 80s pop period and into the 21st century as an artist who remains relevant through her contemporary pop and rock stylings.

CD1 is collated to showcase the best of Toyah the band, from 1979-1983; it also, unsurprisingly, leads with the Top 10 trio of glossy, new-wave pop hits ‘I Want To Be Free,’ ‘It’s a Mystery’ and ‘Thunder In The Mountains.’

Other chart successes, such as the atmospheric ‘Brave New World,’ feature, but the selected album tracks are their equal; choice cuts here include the pop-punch of ‘We Are’ (from best-selling album Anthem), the slightly darker textures of ‘Dawn Chorus’ and the semi-theatrical, new wave stylings of ‘Angel & Me.’

There’s also space for tracks from the band’s debut EP Sheep Farming In Barnet, including the frantic jazz-punk of ‘Neon Womb’ and the spacey synth & guitar led ‘Danced.’ The live version of the band’s first ever single, punk-pop hybrid ‘Victims Of The Riddle,’ closes out the first disc.

• Continue reading at Fabrication HQ. See links to other Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah reviews here. Buy the album on 3CD/Bluray Boxset, 2CD & Double Vinyl at Cherry Red.

Another chance to catch Top Of The Pops with Toyah’s studio performance of Thunder In The Mountains. This originally aired on BBC One on Thursday 1st October 1981 and wasn’t repeated by the BBC until almost 35 years later – on BBC Four in May 2016. This is only the third airing, nine years after that first repeat!

Top Of The Pops: 1981: BBC Four: Friday 3rd October: 8pm
01/10/81. Mike Read introduces the pop programme. Includes appearances from Godley & Creme (Under Your Thumb), Sheena Easton (Just Another Broken Heart), The Teardrop Explodes (Passionate Friend), The Creatures (Mad Eyed Screamer), Ottawan (Hands Up [Give Me Your Heart]), Toyah (Thunder In The Mountains), Bad Manners (Walking In The Sunshine), Altered Images (Happy Birthday), Dollar (Hand Held In Black & White), Adam & The Ants (Prince Charming).

Our latest “tour date” (aka a day out) was a joint birthday celebration for Sharon’s birthday (18th September) and my birthday (15th September). Yes, we are both Virgos!! A faberoonie day out in Edinburgh – Delicious high tea at The Dome – lovely staff who added a wee bit extra for our birthdays – a visit to the amazing castle – a jaunt around the city – and finishing with a fun afternoon at Camera Obscura.

• See all our 2025 “tour dates” :) here! (Photos © David Fleming)

• Saturday Song: Good Morning Universe (1981 TOTP) – Watch… • Toyah & Robert: UpBeat Moments – Watch… • Toyah & Robert’s Sunday Lunch – with added Cream! – Watch… (Image © Toyah Willcox)

Flatpack Monthly: Aaaaaaaah!
+ Q&A with Steve Oram & Toyah Willcox
Wednesday 26th November, 2025

The Mockingbird Cinema – Screen 1 | 19:00 – 21:10

It’s been 10 years since Aaaaaaaah!—the wild directorial debut from Sightseers star and co-writer Steve Oram—and we still haven’t seen anything else quite like it.

In a world where the line between human and ape is blurred, Oram creates a wild blend of bedlam and the bizarre as a suburban family goes full primate. When a visitor crashes the Ryan family’s pad, the domestic pecking order gets a hilarious, dialogue-free shake-up (communicating purely in grunts). Oram and his stellar cast (Tom Meeten, Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Toyah Willcox, Holli Dempsey, and Alice Lowe) go full-on bananas, delivering a gleefully unhinged and animalistic film that’s a true one-of-a-kind.

• Continue reading/Buy tickets at Flatpack Festival.

Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted: Really: Saturday 4th October: 0.00am
Toyah Willcox. Series 1, episode 5. The team undergoes one of the most terrifying investigations yet when visiting Toyah Willcox, who has experienced strange activity in her home ever since she moved in. (Photo © Discovery)

A specially created extended cut of the classic 1982 promo video of Brave New World for the release of Chameleon: The Very Best of Toyah. Utilising the iconic and original footage filmed at Battersea Power Station and Birling Gap, this new edit includes previously unseen B-roll footage without any AI effects or recreations, to extend the narrative of the original audio-visual production.

The quintessential image of Toyah, and a firm favourite of Toyah herself, the striking hair was by Robert Lobetta and ethereal otherworldly make-up by Carolyn Cowan. (Screenshots from a video that is © Cherry Red)

Toyah guested on Channel 5 News on Thursday evening, talking Chameleon, her career, her imagery and look, AI, next year’s Songs & Stories Tour and more. (Screenshot © 5)

Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah entered numerous Official Charts rundowns on Friday, the highest placing being at #9 on the Independent Top 40.

More importantly the album placed at #10 on the Physical Album chart and #11 on the Album Sales chart. Great stats!

#9 Independent Chart
#10 Physical Album Chart
#11 Album Sales Chart
#15 Scottish Charts
#22 Vinyl Album Chart
#35 Record Store Chart

• Browse Toyah’s Official Charts history, dating back to 1980, and also including numerous releases from recent years on a variety of Official Album Charts.

A selection of just some of the Toyah news and press – all about Strictly – instigated by her interview on Thursday’s Good Morning Britain. (Photo © BBC)

• Manchester Evening News: Strictly Come Dancing star picked own partner after ‘rejecting’ two professional dancers: Singer Toyah Wilcox danced with Neil Jones on the hit BBC Latin and ballroom dance show in 2024 – Continue…

• Mirror: Strictly Come Dancing’s Toyah Willcox turned down partners over ‘inappropriate’ fears: Toyah Willcox has admitted that she turned down certain Strictly Come Dancing partners over fears of coming across as ‘inappropriate’ if there was a considerable age gap – Continue…

• Liverpool Echo: BBC Strictly Come Dancing star rejected two partners as ‘it would have felt completely wrong’ – Continue…

• Devon Live: Strictly Come Dancing star got to pick professional partner after ‘inappropriate’ choices: A former Strictly Come Dancing star has revealed why she turned down two partners before signing up for the show last year – Continue…

• Daily Star: GMB: BBC Strictly Come Dancing star turned down two partners as she admits ‘it felt wrong’ – Continue…

• Female First: Toyah Willcox reveals why she was allowed to pick her Strictly Come Dancing partner – Continue…

• Yahoo! News: GMB: Toyah Willcox turned down two Strictly pros before show – Continue…

• Wales Online: Strictly Come Dancing star turned down two partners before signing up for BBC show – Continue…

Toyah guested on David & Carrie Grant’s BBC Radio London show on Saturday morning. Talking Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah, her career, touring and more.

• Click below to listen at BBC Sounds – Toyah’s interview is in the final half hour of the four-hour show.

Good Morning Britain‘s studio looking amazing this morning with some of Toyah’s most iconic imagery as the backdrop…

Toyah talked her 45-year music career, working with Katharine Hepburn and George Cukor, making – or not making – music with AI, the upcoming tours, including Songs & Stories, and a new book Meteorite, which she said will be published in November. (Screenshot © GMB)

The interview has resulted in numerous press articles… Most centring around Toyah mentioning she chose her dance partner for Strictly last year, rather than the show choose one for for her!

Underneath the Toyah “Top Stories” news links at Google, there just happened to be a link to this very website :)

NB. Toyah guests on David & Carrie Grant’s BBC Radio London show tomorrow morning.

Toyah – Chameleon – The Very Best of Toyah: Album Review

First-ever career-spanning collection covers Toyah’s entire recording career – the band years, the solo years and the adventures alongside husband Robert Fripp. Chameleon REALLY is a ‘Best Of’ collection

Release Date: 5th September 2025
Label: Cherry Red Records
Formats: 2xCD, 3xCD+Blu Ray, 2LP Vinyl

A TRUE ‘BEST OF’ COLLECTION
Rule-breaker, boundary-pusher, consummate entertainer. Even, dare I suggest it – National Treasure. Toyah Wilcox has been, and remains, all of these things – and she fulfills her roles in many guises, from attitude-loaded punk to loving companion. As the title to this career-spanning collection suggests, Toyah is a persona-shifting chameleon.

It’s hard to believe that Chameleon is the first ever comprehensive retrospective of Toyah’s varied recording career, a career that began as long ago as 1977 when fledgling actor Toyah hooked up with guitarist/songwriter Joe Bogen and keyboardist Pete Bush to form the band that would soon be christened ‘Toyah.’ Tall trees from little acorns grow – Toyah’s musical career went on to spawn over 20 albums and delivered eight Top 40 singles. And the highlights of that career are all here. Chameleon is, truly, a ‘Best Of’ collection.

• Continue reading at At The Barrier. See links to other Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah reviews here. Buy the album on 3CD/Bluray Boxset, 2CD & Double Vinyl at Cherry Red.

Toyah’s Wonderful World Of Weird
The Long Weekend
An original short story
Written & read by Toyah Willcox

A brand new short story – the seventh – written by and narrated by Toyah!

“I have always loved short stories, they can inhabit any world from suburbia to the fantastic. When time is short and long distances need to be travelled, the short story has taken me to places i willingly want to go to. So whether you have five minutes to spare, or you want to escape for a while…join me and my love of the unpredictable. Welcome to Toyah’s Wonderful World of Weird…”

• Listen at Toyah’s official You Tube and Facebook. Browse our other Toyah’s Wonderful World Of Weird posts, here. (Image © Toyah)

We’re hoping for a great chart placing for Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah tomorrow evening when the Official Charts Top 100 Albums is announced. The album is currently at #10 but streaming is the best chance for the album to stay in the upper reaches of the chart. We have 24 hours… PS. Here’s some Chameleon fan art I created – to celebrate the new release and it’s fantastic debut chart placing – and will be including in the new issue(s) of Toyah Fanzine.

Toyah: Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah
Box Set Review

From humble beginnings of a young girl from Kings Heath in Birmingham, the rebellious nature shone through early with acts that thrill the heart such as setting off a multitude of clocks from underneath the stage of her school that disrupted a speech from the then Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher, and which led rightly to her being hailed within a few short years as the Queen of the British Punk movement.

It is in that reassurance of Time shaping our future without our realising that those who hear the ticking of the clock act with a kind of urgency that commands attention, that regards even a minute wasted as a tolling bell ringing out the laments of lost opportunities and creative despair; a kind of passing of the moment that would never resurface.

The be the best in the world you have to take it on, the ticking of the clock that signals each beat of a life’s intended mission, the chameleon’s camouflage adapting, changing, altering with every circumstance and yearning, of breaking free…this is the heartfelt and honourable belief that comes from every pore of the Cherry Red release of Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah.

• Continue reading at Liverpool Sound and Vision. See links to other Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah reviews here. Buy the album on 3CD/Bluray Boxset, 2CD & Double Vinyl at Cherry Red.

50 Wild Women Of The 80s!: NOW 80s: Tuesday 16th September: 9pm
Brilliant songs, big voices, blazing hair & bags of attitude – the ladies of the 80s had the lot! From Toyah to Tina & Joan Jett to Janet Jackson.

Way Back When! 1981: NOW 80s: Wednesday 17th September: 7pm
60 minutes of lesser heard hits from 1981. Including The Pretenders, Spandau Ballet, George Harrison, Toyah & The Pointer Sisters.

Toyah said “Thank You” on the day Chameleon was released… (Image © Toyah)

Toyah guested on The Diamond Dave Show on Total Rock yesterday, talking Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah, her career and much more. Listen by clicking below.

Chameleon is currently in the Top 10 – at #10 – of the Official Chart’s Top 10 Albums (Chart Update).

Official Charts: Midlands-born singer Toyah may earn a third Top 10 with greatest hits compilation Chameleon: The Very Best of Toyah (10).

• Browse all of our ‘Toyah on the Official Charts’ posts here…

Review | Chameleon – The Very Best of Toyah [Cherry Red Records]

Toyah Willcox’s career has always defied easy classification, and Chameleon – The Very Best of Toyah leans into that restlessness, offering a panoramic view of her 45-year arc as punk agitator, pop icon, and enduring creative force. Released via Cherry Red Records, this career-spanning anthology is the first to fully embrace the breadth of her recording history, and it does so with a curatorial precision that mirrors Willcox’s own chameleonic artistry.

The collection’s structure tells a story. CD1 captures the original Toyah band years (1979–1983), where the collision of Joel Bogen’s spiky guitar and Willcox’s commanding, otherworldly vocals forged a sound that felt both feral and theatrical. Singles like “It’s A Mystery” and “I Want to Be Free” may have cemented her as a chart presence, but it’s deeper cuts like “Jungles of Jupiter” and “We Are” that underline her singular lyrical vision, tapping into cosmic anxieties and spiritual yearning against the urgency of post-punk rhythms. The material retains its charge, a reminder of how Toyah helped broaden the vocabulary of British new wave beyond mere attitude.

• Continue reading at Ottic Media. See links to other Chameleon: The Very Best Of Toyah reviews here. Buy the album on 3CD/Bluray Boxset, 2CD & Double Vinyl at Cherry Red.