My very 1st bootleg xperience happened right here at the org.

MantuaPharoah said:

Me too. My first was the Black Album, then Small Club not long after. On 'Imagination' I always thought Miko was playing along with him, 'til someone here let me know otherwise...wow! 'People Without' still gives me goose bumps when I hear it.

Anxiety said:

yep,'The Family Jewels'.

seriously guys... what's a bootleg?

usedtobebliss said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w..._recording

xtraloveable said:

thankyou

i don't quite undertsand though.... how does prince make any money from them?

usedtobebliss said:

He doesn't.
He fails to address a (niche?) market properly.
Maybe when he's dead and somewhat sane yet slightly greedy heirs can reign the vault...

udo said:

but it's his music... isn't that stealing?

usedtobebliss said:

Not if you're not buying it. Does it cut into his profits? I say no. Sure, some initial bootleggers sell the Cds, but 99% of the people out there trade the stuff, not sell it. Fans just want the music, not a padded wallet. But stealing on the level that he didn't release it, yet someone has it? Sure, but find the source, not the collector. I have HUNDREDS of Prince bootlegs in MP3 or on CD. LOADS of stuff. Never bought one of them. Honest. The stuff I bought in the mid 90's has since disappeared, so all my current stuff has no money attached to it. And although I know Prince purposely didn't release this stuff for whatever reason, he's almost created his own black market in the regard that he refuses to let anything but dreck like MPLSound out, or hypes Musicology, when fans would have rather (probably?) had another CD of outtakes. I mean how many Greatest Hits packages can we deal with or give a flyin' flip about?

PUt "Moonbeam Levels", "All My Dreams", "In A Large Room With No Light", "Old Friends 4 Sale", and "Schoolyard" on a CD, I'd buy it. But put out a CD with four 15-minute instrumentals and ask for $14 in return? I don't think so.

But Udo is right. Prince is missing a market with this stuff. Crystal Ball was to clean up the black market of his stuff a bit. It's why he released that stuff that had been floating around for ages (well, SOME of it). Crystal Ball II never happened, but could have been spectacular. Why NOT release a CB set every 5 years or something, just to clean up the bootleg market, give the fans a clear, original quality recording, and get PAID for it?!?! Prince is dumb with this.

But it's a tug of war between the two sides. Prince once said, when Crystal Ball came out, that he "understands the fan's need for the music". I think he's forgotten that. And at this rate, he'll never remember it again.

Udo kind of echoes what I've said for years now. It'll take Prince DYING before we EVER see remastered CDs w/ bonus tracks and material, or ANY other stuff from that alleged vault. It kills me to think those tapes are slowly rotting away, with great stuff on them that Prince can never record again (cuz face it...he can't, he doesn't have it in him), and that we'll never hear. I don't want him dead, but something's gotta give in the meantime.
[Edited 5/22/09 0:55am]

ernestsewell said:

Ditto to all of that.

ernestsewell said:

I don't remember where I heard/read it (Rolling Stone maybe? A post on the org?) but a few years back somewhere mentioned that "The Vault" really was not that much of a vault after all and some tapes started to deteriorate. If this is true, I really hope he's had backups made, especially of the older stuff.

I was at my university in 1997 and there was a market there for bric a brac and old clothes, someone was selling cassette tapes and three were Prince bootlegs, it was early 97 and a lot of the tracks on one tape were songs like Good Love and Prince's version of 100MPH (My Mum threw those tapes out what a shame), as well as his 1985 interview (I need love and water like anyone else) and a live tape of the March 1985 Syracuse concert of the Purple Rain, all I remember was I paid $10 for each one and the quality was atrocious and they had cheep ass photocopied covers with pictures of Prince on them.
In 1995 I nearly bought a CD set from the 1992 Diamonds and Pearls tour (Some concert in Germany) called 00symbol in Licence to fuck, and it had Prince with his penis microphone. The set was $89.95 so I left it.

coppin' charade and the jewel boxes 1 and 2 on ebay 2 years ago and being like the whole time and then find all that shit and more and in better quality (via the work and revelations sets) online for free . still finding and rediscovering shit. and then there's live shit (small club, live at the rex, 2 favorites ) always something new to hear. gotta love bootlegs

Nikademus said:

If this vault thing is true and if he's smart he must digitise his stuff ASAP.
Not that that is a definite solution but if the resolution is high enough, the effort needed to keep the audio in good condition is better to control and the quality will be constant.

contrapposto said:

OMG, my friend Scott & I used to deal with her too!

Anxiety said:

The released verison had Prince on lead vocals.

TRON said:

She's the one I got "The Back Album" from

Prince's Black Album on Lp. 1989
I don't remember how I heard of it. I think it was in Rollingstone. After the beach one day I walked into Lou's Records in Encinitas California and asked for it. The man told me that they didn't have a copy but he took my number and said he would let me know. Well, he called me that afternoon and I drove the 45 minute drive to buy it. I was 19 and in hog heaven to be have 8 new Prince songs in my possession. Af first I thought that it would be fluke or a fake, but when I took it home and unwrapped it I knew. The sleeve was black matte with a shiny black silkscreen of Prince(Parade Era) on it. You could only see the image if you held it up to the light and tilted it. Good times.

mschirmer said:

That was one of the replicas. The actual originals (500 supposedly survived Prince destroy order) were in a plain black sleeve no embellishment whatsoever and only a catalog number on it for identification. The last I heard of any of those was at a Sotheby's auction where it sold for $13,500. The cd's that Warner released were just as rare since they only printed 1 million guaranteeing a platinum record but also boosting demand.