Issue 7: It Ain't Final 'Til It's Vinyl, So Check It by John Book
Trends in hip hop come and go, but one that has been consistent is the bootleg record. We're not talking about counterfeit copies of official albums, or all of those Wu-Tang Hidden Chambers CD's on eBay.
It has been said that "it ain't final 'til it's vinyl". Cassettes made music more portable, CD's made music appear to sound more clean, but in hip hop you are nothing until you have a piece of black vinyl in your hands. Even people like the Cash Money Millionaires, who you wouldn't think are vinyl friendly, have some instrumentals floating around.
Bootlegs, plain and simple, are records that aren't official. If they were not made by the record company, they are considered bootlegs. Back in the days of Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin, bootlegs were records of unauthorized recordings. Led Zeppelin released only nine albums in their eleven year career, yet travel to the bootleg side and there are hundreds to choose from.
In the early days of recorded hip hop, it was a risk to release a song on vinyl. Who would buy something that had been well circulated on cassette? Can a record done in the studio have as much energy as a tape made at last night's block party? There were risks, but eventually someone had taken them and hip hop on vinyl was born.
As a record collector since I was still a single digit, I was already aware of bootleg records. I remember walking into a record store in Honolulu called Froggies, this would have to be about 1981. I had just learned about The Beatles and some of the unreleased music from the "Get Back/Let It Be" sessions. I had hoped one day to be able to buy some of these. One day I walked in, and along with the used records was a full aisle of bootleg albums. It was the same feeling I had when I walked into a DJ's Sound City record store in 1978 and saw Kiss' solo albums on the racks. I couldn't move, I might as well have been drooling. I don't know how many eleven year old kids would be in a state of shock looking at bootleg records by The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin (including the infamous "Stairway To Gilligan"), and the awesome Pink Floyd "The Wall" in triple picture discs. There I was, witnessing illegal bootleg heaven. I wanted to buy the mall. I knew I was the shit, because I felt like a grown up. No one in elementary school could care less about this, they were all into the Go-Go's and Missing Persons. As I browsed through, reading song titles that I knew were fake names for the real songs (for example, "Everybody Got A Good Year" was The Beatles' "I've Got A Feeling").
I then came across two particular albums that I thought I would never see. I had gotten myself familiar with record collecting guides. I'm sure friends my age had comic book or baseball card guides, I had my records. The two albums were The Beatles' Christmas Album, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono's TWO VIRGINS. In the guides they were said to be worth about $100 U.S. each. Here they were, at Froggies, for $10 each. I knew my mom and dad would have never bought me TWO VIRGINS, so I begged for the Xmas album. I said I would clean the yard for the next month, merely a lie to hear this music that was previously unobtainable to me. Dad gave me the money, he drove me to Froggies, and I got my Christmas album. One thing I noticed when I opened it was that the labels were blurry. How come? I later found out that they were not official pressings, but counterfeit copies. Fakes. This is why they were so cheap.
Fast forward to 1990, in my first (and so far only) visit to New York. As I walk through Times Square, seeing members of 3rd Bass and Stetsasonic casually pass me, I find a record store. This is New York City, this is hip hop, this was heaven. I walk inside and see loads of new vinyl on the wall. The 12" singles seemed endless. Oooh, Dawn Robinson of En Vogue looks kinda nice on this 12" for "Lies", I'll buy that. I turn around and in the racks was a 12" for something called "Feelin' James". I had no idea what it was, but it looked illegal as fuck to me. I bought doubles, thinking that if I ever got two turntables, I can at least scratch the James Brown beats I thought were on there. A week later I fly back home to Washington State with $2000 worth of vinyl... ON THE PLANE. I wasn't fucking around, I didn't want my records getting lost in Chicago. One airline passenger saw how big the bag was and he goes "damn, what do you have in there, a liquor cabinet?" I immediately took the "Feelin' James" records out and found out it was some weird James Brown break beat thing, along with some loops for Funkadelic and "Catch A Groove". I found out a few years later that "Feelin' James" was somebody's custom remix of one of the Double Dee and Steinski "Lessons" (#2), complete with cheese 80's keyboards at the end.
I don't know when the big hip hop bootleg vinyl boom actually began, but I remember going to Atlanta in 1995 and entering Earwax. As I browsed through, I saw a lot of older and out of print albums right there in front of my eyes. Oddly enough they were mixed in with the new batch of Cold Chillin' reissues, which could have easily been passed off as illegal since they looked like crap. When it came to the 12" single, you had to buy it within the first six months of release or else. Now I was witnessing BDP and Public Enemy, even Faith Evans, in white label form. Some of the labels looked handwritten, but there was no doubt what they were.
Around this time, hip hop was reaching new levels of popularity. Gang Starr were at their peak, the Wu-Tang Clan could not be touched, and Nas was being praised as the next Rakim. The music was coming out faster than it could be produced, in a time when sampling clearances could delay a full album for at least a year. Word of unreleased songs, unreleased remixes, new music, unknown acapellas, freestyles on vinyl would slowly leak out. We had to have them, and before there were MP3's and CD-burners, we got all of this music on mix tapes, sometimes dubs of dubs of dubs. Our record buying habits changed when some of these unreleased songs came out on vinyl. But how, and why? They sounded really good too, unlike the bootlegs of yesteryear.
It was an interview with The RZA, who revealed that sometimes it was the artist themselves who were releasing this illegal product to the streets, in order to avoid clearances, delays, and lawsuits. All one had to do was have enough money, a record pressing plant to do the job, and boom... there was your bootleg. While most fans had to wait two to three years for a new album, others who looked to the bootlegs could find new tracks every few months. In New York, where reggae exclusives and dub plates are part of the norm, it seemed more than appropriate for the next type of music to be pressed up illegally was hip hop. If you are a completist, not only did you have to buy the official recordings, but every little bootleg that would surface.
For years, DJ's would seek 12" singles for the instrumental versions of songs so they could make their own custom mixes. DJ's would often make their own custom pressings when they went on the road. Instrumentals became hot commodities for collectors, and by 1996 one could find instrumental versions of full albums on vinyl, for everyone. Hip hop's attention again moved from the lyricist to the producer, with the instrumentals revealing how DJ's and producers made those funky loops and beats. The instrumental album phenomenon was slow, but fans now look forward to the possibility of one coming out. Some artists (such as Mos Def and Kool Keith) even release them officially, knowing that a possible lifted sample could mean extra money in their pocket. These days, go to any online record store and you'll find reissues of funk, soul, jazz, and world beat records that used to be impossible to find. Warehouse discoveries? Unused stock? Maybe, maybe not. Something tells me someone is being smart in reissuing them on their own. Either way, the fan is getting the music, and the unknown bootlegger is making a killing. Bootleg vinyl has definitely keeped the vinyl torch alive.
As far as the record industry was concerned, vinyl was supposed to have died off in 1986. The death of the 45, the death of the LP. Goodbye analog, hello digital, right? Today, there is an actual rise in vinyl sales, not only among independents but major labels. Turntable sales are selling more these days than the entire 1990's. There is a great article in the recent issue of "Jazz Times" which talks about the new vinyl phenomenon. In 1982 the industry told everyone to throw away all of their records and convert to those shiny discs. Twenty years later, you'll now hear "if you're thinking about getting rid of your records, think again." Along with urban and alternative music, country music fans continued to buy their favorite sounds on vinyl, so you have to give them some recognition for keeping vinyl alive too. Japan, known for their quality vinyl pressings, continues to this day to release high quality records.
Besides bootleg vinyl, record collectors are also buying high quality audiophile 180g pressings of old and new recordings, officially licensed by the artists and labels. These are the same audio purists that existed in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, but these high quality records are also being purchased by a new generation of record buyers who were lucky enough to be too young to miss the vinyl "void" of the 80's and 90's.
We, as vinyl junkies, can talk endlessly about why we love records. But let's be serious. It's kind of silly, isn't it? The fact that we enjoy sitting in our bedrooms, holding the cover, watching the grooves move, reading the liner notes and lyrics legibly as the music plays. The fact that we look forward to the end of the 20 minutes so we can go to our turntables and flip the album over. The joy of buying a 45 to hear the perfect song in four minutes or less. The joy of loving a non-LP B-side more than the hit. Kicking back and listening to a "record" just sounds... right.
Thank you, bootleggers. Once again: vinyl junkies of the world, unite!