

“By coincidence, we already have two of them (on bootlegs),” noted Erik Flannigan, who writes a bootleg column, “Going Underground,” for the International CD Exchange newsletter in Santa Monica, Calif.

Springsteen added four new songs to his recent greatest-hits CD. While many artists deny it, pressure from bootleggers has pushed them to release some of the material legitimately. (The introduction of CD technology in the ‘80s meant that bootleg sound quality - often spotty on vinyl bootlegs in the ‘70s - could rival that of legitimate releases.) Most releases sell just a few thousand copies popular ones, such as Prince’s “Black Album” (now legitimately released), have passed 100,000 copies. Nirvana, Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, Tori Amos and Melissa Etheridge also are the latest big sellers, joining long-established bootleg favorites such as Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Led Zeppelin and others.īecause of its underground nature, no one has an accurate estimate of how much money changes hands over bootlegs each year, though it’s in the millions. Pearl Jam is the most-bootlegged artist at the moment, and it doesn’t help matters that the band has done two live worldwide radio broadcasts in the past year. While browsing a Smashing Pumpkins bulletin board on the Internet, Parikh spied a reference to a different board -, an Internet site where fans post reviews of the newest bootlegs and where to find them. “I wasn’t aware that there were companies that actually manufactured them.” “It was just kind of amazing that there were all these songs on disc that I’d never heard of by my favorite groups,” he said. Keyur Parikh, 18, a biology freshman at the University of California, Irvine, was puzzled a few years back when he went to a record store and found a stack of Pearl Jam CDs that he never knew existed. He recalled a bootleg video tape of one particularly potent Hall of Fame match-up: “Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger sharing a mike, belting out a great version of ‘Satisfaction,’ backed by Neil Young and George Harrison and John Fogerty.” “If I were to point to why I do it, that’s just why,” said Daryl Teshima, a legal analyst who works in Costa Mesa, Calif. Sure, almost everyone has heard of bootleg records or CDs.īut what are they, exactly? Why are they illegal? And why are music fanatics willing to pay $25 to $40 or more for a single compact disc?įans do it to have rock music highlights they never dreamed existed.Īll collectors have their own favorite performances that make the compulsion worthwhile, whether it’s listening to the early Beatles go through Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” to mind-blowing latter-day performances from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies. Most mainstream music fans don’t know what they are, either.
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They make their way from country to country via an underground network, often hidden, disguised and called by code names so that customs agents and police won’t know what they are. Like drugs, they’re legal some places in the world, forbidden in others. Eddie Vedder upon catching a bootlegger recording a Pearl Jam concert in Stockholm, June 25, 1992 … Yeah, we want to remember this, right? He can tape it …” “This guy’s making a tape recording, everybody be careful, don’t make too much noise.
