just wondering..

I've never found myself looking for a bootleg of any performer.

I'm sure there are a lot of people on here who do not care about bootlegs, which is fine.

But i'm also quite sure there are people on here who do not care for Prince's music at all, though they have convinced themselves that they do.

TheDigitalGardener said:

I'm sure there are a lot of people on here who do not care about bootlegs, which is fine.

But i'm also quite sure there are people on here who do not care for Prince's music at all, though they have convinced themselves that they do.

True.

Prince's officially released material is like 5% of what's out there and I don't know how you could really experience his brilliance without listenign to live shows and outtakes, etc, etc.

I've been unimpressed with the bootlegs I've heard. The released material is just better. A lot of the appeal in bootlegs comes from their novelty.

FunkiestOne said:

Prince's officially released material is like 5% of what's out there and I don't know how you could really experience his brilliance without listenign to live shows and outtakes, etc, etc.

I agree, but I think for most fans that 5% is enough.

Shockedelicus said:

I've been unimpressed with the bootlegs I've heard. The released material is just better. A lot of the appeal in bootlegs comes from their novelty.

You are entitled to your opinion on official recordings being better of course, a lot of people feel the same, but i'm not sure what you mean about the appeal in bootlegs being their novelty. I don't think there would be many bootleg collectors who would agree with that.

The appeal for me, is in hearing something that I never heard before, whether that be a live recording or an outtake. I still get excited in hearing a great show in top quality or an outtake in increasingly better quality than before.

If it wasn't for the hundreds of unreleased songs/versions/mixes and the more than 1000 concerts/rehearsals that are circulating I might have forgotten about Prince like in 1999.

His released stuff wouldn't have been enough to keep me interested for so many years.

But, of course, I'm sure the general disinterest for boots here at the org is because they are eeeeeeeeeevil and 'their man Princey' doesn't want them to have them.

vitriol said:

If it wasn't for the hundreds of unreleased songs/versions/mixes and the more than 1000 concerts/rehearsals that are circulating I might have forgotten about Prince like in 1999.

His released stuff wouldn't have been enough to keep me interested for so many years.

But, of course, I'm sure the general disinterest for boots here at the org is because they are eeeeeeeeeevil and 'their man Princey' doesn't want them to have them.

Yes, there are definitely people on the org (and no doubt elsewhere) who think along those lines, but there must be an awful lot of people who collecting all (or a few of) the official recordings is more than enough for them and simply have no interest in hearing anything further.

That's something I don't understand.

If I like a musician as much as to visit forums devoted to him I'm definitely interested in hearing any note he played, legally or otherwise.

I don't get why people join lots of forums of lots of musicians they only like partially.

There's a whole lot of other interesting things to do.

I like a lot of different musicians and different kinds of music. But I only keep trace through the internet of a couple more besides Prince. And not as intensely as Prince.

vitriol said:

That's something I don't understand.

If I like a musician as much as to visit forums devoted to him I'm definitely interested in hearing any note he played, legally or otherwise.

I don't get why people join lots of forums of lots of musicians they only like partially.

There's a whole lot of other interesting things to do.

I like a lot of different musicians and different kinds of music. But I only keep trace through the internet of a couple more besides Prince. And not as intensely as Prince.

I think the 5%'ers can't be looked at with the same rose-colored glasses you look at normal people with. There's no explaining the crazy.

From the moment I first heard a Prince album, I wanted more. I can think of less than a handful of other musicians who have ever captivated my attention like Prince, but none of them for nearly this long (some of that being circumstancial).

And the bootlegs only made me hungrier for more. The special live arrangements, the performances that come off the vinyl, so to speak, and percolate in the air. Records like the "From The Soundboard: 1984" boot or whatever that just came out. I don't know how someone could not listen to that and fall back in love with the things you fell in love with in the first place and want more of it.

Rarely am I interested in boots.

In the old days, I wanted to hear EVERYTHING by Prince.

But these days, so much of it is retreading or bland sounding, I don't bother. It's a waste of time these days.

IMO.... there's more than a handful of boots that are every part as essential as P's officially released material.

I'm with vitriol (wow!) that if you're interested enough to talk about Prince online then it logically follows you'd be more than interested in hearing bootlegs.

I can't believe there's any fan out there that wouldn't want to hear things like Dream Factory or Small Club or the 84 Birthday Soundboard show.

Really, if you haven't heard these things you're missing out. To put it lightly.

I mean, everybody has a favorite Prince era and in a lot of cases you can put together at least another albums worth of material from that era. Like, how can you be a fan of the 1999 era and NOT wanna hear Purple Music or Extra Loveable or Moonbeam Levels?

The problem with many (young) people today is that they discover an artist by hearing a couple of his songs and then run to the internet to join every forum they can to defend to death their new artist-of-the-fortnight.

15 days later, the musician is different but the process is the same.

We can't blame them, they're growing in an hyper-consumist society where some 'idols' are caused to fall as quickly as they were caused to rise.

It must be hard to deal with that when your musical taste/knowledge/criterion is not yet defined.

Prince is my favorite musician and I've been given a boot here and there over the years by people I've met but no, I've never looked for them.

Just ain't that big of a deal to me,

Eye get alot sent me....so u could say bootlegs find me,in my younger days was quite anal re bootlegs but u have 2 grow up right....

Don't let anyone on here fool you we all have collected or have listened to some bootlegs at some point (especially after the whole Black Album scrapping).

i must admit, i haven't looked. there was a wrecka stowe near me that has closed (like so many others) and I would see these "imports" and unofficial releases and I would be afraid of the quality, not to mention lots of them were expensive. i'm sure i saw stuff like Small Club and several others often mentioned here. If the store were still open, I'd probably cop a few since the Org has helped me know what some of the quality boots are, but I just haven't taken the time to search and download stuff. so my catalogue has only the 5% of released stuff pretty much. I still haven't heard PFunk (is that the name of the "diss" song?). I still QUITE enjoy the official releases though!

not me. don't really want bootlegs.

if i understand correctly, isn't the quality better with a cd rather than a bootleg?

[Edited 8/4/11 12:15pm]

i JUST (like 2 days ago) started looking for bootlegs, and the only one i was looking for was purple rush,

i have a couple hundred. i had more but i deleted all of the ones that were bad quality, except those i liked. thats kinda how ive been doing it. just getting whatever doesnt sound awful.

sweething said:

not me. don't really want bootlegs.

if i understand correctly, isn't the quality better with a cd rather than a bootleg?

I think you may be consfusing bootlegs with pirate copies of offically released material.

A bootleg's sound quality can vary drastically, especially with the boots that came out in the late 80's/early '90s. But thankfully there a lot of labels out there doing some great work with sound issues, and these days it's not unreasonable to expect EX sound quality.

I would recommend bootlegs to anyone who has more than a passing interest in Prince (as with other musician/bands). You'll be in for more than a few treats!

I used to hunt bootlegs, from "Small Club", "Black Album" etc.. in 1989 (ca.) to the London tour in 2007.......

Prince bootlegs are not that interesting anymore, IMO.

A few weeks ago, I gave most of my pressed boots to a dear friend of mine for a very small amount, the reason - I was never listening to those anyway......

When I am listening to Prince music it's mainly his released music 1978 to 1995.

I will never be tired of those records.

dm3857 said:

i JUST (like 2 days ago) started looking for bootlegs, and the only one i was looking for was purple rush,

Ha! Same here ("2 days ago") ! I've been a bit Prince obsessed (again) after going to his recent concert.

I never had an interest in bootlegs, I knew Prince had plenty, but I assumed the quality would be bad or the content wouldn't be that interesting.

However, now I know different The soundboard Birthday party @ 1st Ave is just amazing!

Looks like I'm going to be maxing out my broadband allowance this month.

Sure wish Prince would release all the old albums remastered with plenty of extras or even a massive box set loaded with interesting stuff... We can dream.