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| Bob Dylan’s deluxe ‘bootlegs’? They’re just corporate spin | Bob Dylan’s deluxe ‘bootlegs’? They’re just corporate spin |
| (2 months later) | |
| There was a time when I was excited about bootleg albums. They were forbidden gems, something you heard whispers about at parties and sourced on some stall in Camden Market or that hard to find record shop in Palmer’s Green. | There was a time when I was excited about bootleg albums. They were forbidden gems, something you heard whispers about at parties and sourced on some stall in Camden Market or that hard to find record shop in Palmer’s Green. |
| Yes, bootlegging was theft and artists lost out on royalties. The sound quality was often awful. But they were also slabs of vinyl that somehow linked you to the band, and to other fans, in a way no commercial recording could; that possessed an intimacy all too rare in official recordings. | Yes, bootlegging was theft and artists lost out on royalties. The sound quality was often awful. But they were also slabs of vinyl that somehow linked you to the band, and to other fans, in a way no commercial recording could; that possessed an intimacy all too rare in official recordings. |
| The Velvet Underground’s Live at the Gymnasium, Prince’s The Black Album, Jimi Hendrix’s Live at the Los Angeles Forum, Bob Dylan’s In 1966 There Was… – they are precious in a way few official releases are. But those albums belong to a different time and not just because of their age. For, just as with everything from football to photography, big business has reached out and pressed its grubby fingerprints all over bootlegs. They have become commercial, official. For music companies, they’re often just a way of making money from outtakes. | The Velvet Underground’s Live at the Gymnasium, Prince’s The Black Album, Jimi Hendrix’s Live at the Los Angeles Forum, Bob Dylan’s In 1966 There Was… – they are precious in a way few official releases are. But those albums belong to a different time and not just because of their age. For, just as with everything from football to photography, big business has reached out and pressed its grubby fingerprints all over bootlegs. They have become commercial, official. For music companies, they’re often just a way of making money from outtakes. |
| Last week, More Blood, More Tracks, the official “bootleg” record of Bob Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece Blood on the Tracks, was released. It comes in as Vol 14 of Sony’s Bootleg Series. The “deluxe” six-CD version costs a trifling £99.99. That’s bootlegging for the prawn sandwich brigade. | Last week, More Blood, More Tracks, the official “bootleg” record of Bob Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece Blood on the Tracks, was released. It comes in as Vol 14 of Sony’s Bootleg Series. The “deluxe” six-CD version costs a trifling £99.99. That’s bootlegging for the prawn sandwich brigade. |
| It’s not that More Blood, More Tracks is not worth listening to. The original tracks for Blood on the Tracks were laid down at the A&R studios in New York. On the eve of the album’s release, Dylan decided to rerecord it in Minneapolis with a new backing band. The original unreleased tracks are much starker, with stripped-down arrangements, more personal and more intense. | It’s not that More Blood, More Tracks is not worth listening to. The original tracks for Blood on the Tracks were laid down at the A&R studios in New York. On the eve of the album’s release, Dylan decided to rerecord it in Minneapolis with a new backing band. The original unreleased tracks are much starker, with stripped-down arrangements, more personal and more intense. |
| The different versions give one a sense of Dylan’s creative journey. I’m more than happy to be able to listen to them. But it’s no bootleg. | The different versions give one a sense of Dylan’s creative journey. I’m more than happy to be able to listen to them. But it’s no bootleg. |
| • Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist | • Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist |
| • Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist | • Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist |
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