Please could somebody help me out. I was chatting with a colleague at work today, he was telling me about the mega-bucks he'd just spent on a load of bootleg albums last weekend. We started talking about bootlegs and whether they were 'official', how they got to the marketplace, etc... As part of this conversation, I made the claim that The Black Album is, or was, the leading bootleg album with regards sales figures.

Am I right in that statement or have I just made up a statistic to make Prince sound more popular? I seem to remember someone, somewhere saying that this WAS the case... Any answers would help soothe a troubled mind.

Good Question I Dont Know What Sells $ Cheap in Tiawain But Yes I Believe it 2 be True oh Cindy C Wont u Dance 4 Me

i've heard this too. i do remember him making a claim about being the most bootlegged artist in history during a Larry King interview.

BoySimon said:

Well, there's no way of knowing the exact sales figures for bootlegs because they're a). unofficial and b). reissued several times over. It was estimated that the vinyl bootlegs of The Black Album had sold around 200,000, and that was around 1989.

Shapeshifter said:

i'm pretty sure i've heard over a million before. maybe it was the total after 1989, but like you said who knows.

Yeah, I thought that the Black Album sold well over a million.

In fact, I could swear I've read somewhere that this album sold multi-million copies... It's all so confusing.

The Black Album was surely one of the most famous bootleg albums, especially of the 80s when copying technology started to get easier to own, combined with the fact that it wasn't too hard to get, it isn't hard to believe it became the biggest seller. But since there was no need for even unofficial figures to be kept, there's no way of knowing how many exactly. Besides, owning a bootleg album doesn't necessarily mean owning an original pressing, simply owning a copy or a copy of a copy is still having a bootleg of the album as far as I'm concerned, so even if the bootleg labels kept accounts it wouldn't tell the whole story of the amount of copies floating about.

Lets not confuse two issues, one is the number of copies sold unofficially and officially and the other is most widely spread bootlegged album/cd. What I understand is there in no accurate way to determine the combined unofficial sales so what's the point in discussing it. What is often brought up is the notion that the Black Album because of it's weird and mysterious beginning it became the it bootleg to have at that time (87/88) and thus it became the most widely held bootleg album in numbers by people who got a hold of an official or unofficial copy. So when talking to an "outsider" a point to make is that Prince's Black album is the most held bootlegged album ever. Also my understanding is that Prince's bootlegged catalogue is the largest of any artist. Hope this helps.
[Edited 11/10/06 10:52am]

GOOD RECORD THO

I once heard that as quiet as it's kept, Prince don't mind Boots as much as folks think he does, and I believe it. think about it.

Thanks for the responses.

The whole Black Album thang is such a massively cool aspect of Prince's career. The thought that we'd just had Sign O The Times, plus all the other magnificent side-project material, and we were about to get Black only for it to be struck from sale and Lovesexy to emerge from the ashes... An awesome period in his career musically.

I say "aspect" I mean "era" - also the aspect I'm referring to, I think, is that that Q mentioned at the time - the idea of the decisions a muscician like Prince is making day-to-day with regards his image and musical output.

ALSO - The sound quality of some of the bootlegs out there can only mean they are coming from someone within the Paisley circle... which goes someway to confirming that Prince enjoys the idea of these 'unofficial' recordings being out there.

Id also heard it was over one million which is totally believeable since Prince did little to stop it's proliferation. Im sure it was his intention for it to leak out with all the hype involved. It's still one of my top five.

There was an article in a mag a few yaers ago, I think it was called Goldmine or something like that. They said in that article that Prince was the most bootlegged artist of all time. Don't know how true that is, but they also indicated that the Black Album was the number one booted album also. I believe the mag was a record collectors magazine but I cannot remember the exact name. This came out about 6 or 7 years ago.

Sometimes.....

I wish I was the most bootlegged artist ever.

Graycap23 said:

It wasn't Springsteen or Led Zepplin?

iconsweat said:

No. According 2 that article the 2nd place was not even close 2 Prince.

Graycap23 said:

Oh. Back on 95-96 there was a Goldmine issue as well as a coffee table book regarding bootlegs. It has a specific Rolling Stones concert as being the most booted performance as well as put Elvis, Zep, Springtsteen and Prince in that order of most bootlegged. As I said that was 10 years ago.