Bootleg Vinyl Records - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 

Man I swear theres so much more passion put into bootleg vinyls sometimes “art and inserts wise” then official press.

That Chrono Trigger bootleg is absolutely spectacular!

9:16 This is exactly what happened to me. Paid 50 euros for what eventually turned out to be a bootleg version of Blonde. The record sounds and looks great so in the end it doesn't really matter but I still feel like the store owner kinda scammed me...

Nice room tour. Love the artwork and how you have everything set up. Now you can crank those Fluance speakers if you want without having to worry about anything.

Great vid Matt, love it! hope you're doing well during this insane time.

Thanks for the video Matt! A well needed distraction today

Thanks for posting this to take my mind off one other thing which is currently on, man! Always interested in finding out which bootleg is good. 👍

Great timing, I just got my copy of Tools Anima from rolling Recs. It sound good.

Solid vid as always man. Really enjoyed this one. Completely agree, boots should be indicated in some form or fashion and not marked up ridiculously. Man tho you may as well kick me in the nads right now after showing off that Chrono Trigger set.

I love live boots and boots of unreleased and alternate takes. I got hooked when I bought a Springsteen concert CD back in college in the mid-90s and have been going ever since. Most of mine are on CD, but will pick some up on vinyl periodically. There’s a shop near me that will carry vinyl boots at decent prices (mid-$20s for a single LP).

My favorite “bootleg” even though it is now official, is an Art Tatum record recorded in the 50s by a guy in the audiance who took his equipment around to jazz clubs.

I hope this video gets Gravediggaz-6 Feet Deep and Yeezus a new pressing

Good points!

I’ve picked up quite a few bootlegs over the years. For the most part they all sound really great. Some of my favs are my pink Beatles butcher cover, Cake Fashion Nugget, Childish Gambino STN MTN/Kauai, Logic Bobby Tarantino I & II, and pretty much any of my Pink Floyd bootlegs.

I only got 1 unofficial release. Pink Floyd’s ”U-N-I-T-E-D”- reunion at Live8 2005 , at the O2 arena. Excellent sound quality and a fantastic performance. The dedication and delivery is out of this world.

Like you said, bootleg is really strong if we talk about VGM, basically because no one has cared about officially released that music. I have some VGM on vinyl and it sounds great to me.

hey matt very informative vid. wondering if you think frank ocean's blonde and channel orange are bootlegged by the same source/company? or are they made by different ones. how do you find their sound quality? also i'm curious would you have any guess why the label or artists doesn't make an official release instead?

I bought a bootleg copy of The Beatles Yesterday and Today that used the butcher cover. It's my holy grail album, and I figured I'd never afford a real copy, so why not. It's on pink vinyl, so that's kinda fun too.

this is literally what happened to me last week and thus how i found your channel. had no clue Graduation was never officially pressed. saw a local record shop had it and not only had it but was selling for $70. i immediately jumped on it and was disappointed when i saw it in person. the reprinted sleeve was so terribly pixelated lol it was just bad and then i researched and found out Graduation was never pressed. it sounds good but i really thought the vinyl gods shined upon me that day lol. oh well, at least i have it now.

Bootleg Tip: Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense Tour 2LP. Bought it an Amazon for 20 Euros incl. Shipping. It is on clear pink vinyl and sounds really good. The Tracks are from other Dates of the tour and were recorded with 24 MultiTrack Tape Machine. Very cool stuff!! Love it! (Compared to the BlueRay Mixdown, everything is there, but the Vocals are not so compressed and very clear and dynamic. So you can hear every little things his voice is doing)

All my bootlegs and “unofficial presses” are solid. Just have to find a reliable distributor.

Where could i get the Live in hyde park rhcp vinyl?

Have you seen any import grey market labels such as waxtime, DOL jazz images ,vinyl passion,not now music,pan am records, del Ray records,and other unnofficial issues,those use the same sources as you mentioned,they are spanish grey market labels that over there,they are public domain and not copywrited,and can you do a video on that topic i mentioned please? That would be an exceptional add on to the topic of this video!

I have two bootlegs in my collection, both purchased from the same guy at a record fair. Nowhere on the album was it implied that they were bootlegs (but he did give them to me at half the price, 15 bucks each, so i should've seen it coming lmao) so I was pretty disappointed when I got home to catalog them on Discogs and found out they were unofficial pressings. The records are Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and Throbbing Gristle's Third and Final Report. They both sound fine, especially the TG one, but it still bummed me out :/ I hope to replace them one day with actual official copies.

Whaaa. Where can I get ragnarok online vinyl? I need The city of Pront spinning.

I actually bought a Beatles bootleg from a company in Japan recently (it probably won't actually arrive until next year). I've no idea what it sounds like, but I saw the artwork and had to have it (plus I'm a massive Beatles fan anyway). It's this weird, multicoloured print of The Beatles playing at a totally different concert (the album is of a show in Melbourne, Australia 1964 but the picture appears to be from Shea Stadium 1965) with a really strange audience featuring The Beatles themselves, several Richard Nixons, Ali...and 2 Chimpanzees. I just loved the randomness of that image. I don't know if they were going for a sort of Sgt. Pepper vibe, but it was just so strange. If the recording is from the source I think it is, then it should actually sound really nice, but if not then I might just frame that cover art. I've got a few where they've been very sneaky in order to get away with it. Like there's a David Bowie one where it never mentions Bowie on the cover, instead it uses his real name, David Jones. Then the song titles are all slightly off too. There's another one where they song titles are almost completely different, Fame is called Is It Any Wonder, Red Sails is called The Hinterland, etc. Another Bowie one randomly at the start of side 2 has a clip of Groucho Marx singing a love song. Another interesting one is The Beatles VS The Rolling Stones: When Worlds Collide. Another interesting cover which depicts a wrestling match between the 2 bands. The music is an interesting collection of songs that may or may not have members of both bands. Some are real, some are not. There's a song on their that they claim is George Harrison with The Rolling Stones called Shades Of Orange. It's actually by a band called The End who were produced by Bill Wyman and there's a possibility that Charlie Watts plays percussion on it, but that's it. It's still an amazing song though. When I first heard it on the bootleg, it's played slightly fast and the vocals could pass for George Harrison if you're not really paying attention, but if you hear it at the correct speed it's clearly not him.

What are the top three websites for finding bootleg vinyl?

Where can i go to get my own custom bootleg?

Slightly off topic, but you mentioned missed opportunities, I'm amazed no one ever released a Laserdisc with the soundtrack on vinyl in the 1 package. It'll never happen now as no one makes Laserdiscs anymore, but that would have been so cool. Or they could have had an album with the videos or an EPK or some live footage or whatever on a Laserdisc. It'd be a bit like CDs that come with DVDs, but so much cooler.

By accident i bought Kraftwerk's Die Mensch Machine at record store because it had a cover in german and i thought that it might have songs in german and i askes owner if can he play it. And i was surprised to see a red marble vinyl and as it turned out it was bootleg based on og german release and sound awesome.

I finally got a bootleg copy of blond, it's on light yellow vinyl. It has some crackle but I love it regardless.

What websites can I get these from?

Uh... Where did you snag that Chrono Trigger box set?! I'm a CT mega-fan with tons of collectibles and have never seen / heard about this. I would pay GOOD money to have this in my collection. Just came across your channel because I'm getting back into vinyl (major way to de-stress during this pandemic). It's basically become my therapy. Love the channel, by the way.

My embarrassing bootleg vinyl story was ordering a pink vinyl edition of Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. The "limited edition" factor was what inspired me to buy it. When I played the record, I noticed a skipping sound that sounds much more like a compact disc skipping. Conducting research what what made me realize I bought a bootleg. At the same price, I could've probably found a genuine vintage copy in a record store in Manhattan.

I really wish someone would start bootlegging the Zelda soundtracks off the N64 I would buy it immediately.

What about a uk bootleg from 1972 of Nick Drake - Pink Moon? Does someone knows to tell? Does it worth it?

I collect VGM and adore every release I am lucky enough to get. As a store owner, we do not order boots to sell. Sometimes I will match up my customers who are looking for an expensive record like Manson or those types, I just send them in the direction of where to purchase a boot. However, I do find it crazy that in this day and age, Rolling Recs can get away with being so blatantly selling bootlegs on their public website. I mean, no skin off my back but it does seem crazy. I have the Cake "Fashion Nugget" and love it. I would still buy an official if it wad ever released. I also bought the first QOTSA boot and it sounds so bad that I can't play it or sell it because I would feel terrible. I would say that the quality varies a great deal. Sorry to write a book here. Lol

I have two Marilyn Manson bootlegs that sound fantastic. Bought them both in two different record stores. Anti-Christ Superstar was labelled as a reissue, but I could see how they could have thought it was a reissue, as it was a bootleg of another reissue that was hard to find on discogs. The only issue is that the some songs are around the wrong way in the tracklisting so that the songs could all fit on one side of the record. They also added bonus tracks not on the album which is fun. When I bought my second MM bootleg, Mechanical Animals, the record store owner was upfront about it. That one sounds amazing but the only issue I have with it is that some of the tracks that fade into each other have some silence between them, which might mean the vinyl was sourced from a cd.

Can you make a custom colored bootleg because the record i want Is selling on eBay for 800?

I haven't bought many boots (thus far), but my favourite are my Marilyn Manson 2x red Holy Wood and 2x white Antichrist Superstar. Holy Wood in particular sounds brilliant.

I have Tool’s Aenima, 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum on bootleg vinyl, and all 3 are some of the best, cleanest, fullest sounding records I own. No regrets on purchasing them at all.

I bought Into The Wild ST in a retail store in the Netherlands, they weren’t sure about the release but it looks surprisingly similar to what RR has on their site. Apart from that, most record fairs have tons of unofficial releases, got SP Mellon Collie 3LP for 30 bucks, MM Mechanical Animals, two Tribe Called Quest albums and even STP’s Core (which I can’t find on Discogs so for now it’s an official copy ;-)) despite shipping and tax/import, I got 3 albums from RR shipped overseas, Frusciante releases that are not being reissued anytime soon... all sound fine to me. Only had one bad buy, Temple of the Dog on coloured vinyl sounding like only one channel was recorded on a voice memorecorder and put out as 128 mp3 😩

Just recently got one of the most infamous bootlegs in Metal Records. And even though it's a Bootleg, I'm happy to have it for the history

I got a blond bootleg (my only bootleg) from rollin recs and its on white vinyl, has the black friday editor cover, looks great but it has quite a bit of surface noise and ultimately I did want it to sound decent so I guess my only experience with a bootleg wasn't the best

Thank God my whole collection was purchased as I was coming up I start buying Record at 12 years old started playing in my Uncle club at 15 and I am 55 my collection is all original and crazy

You’re the man! I was wondering if you were going to “go there.” I Starting to see those boots pop up at used record stores and people go nuts. Even worse when people through them on eBay labeled “import” for triple the prices.

I only own two unofficial releases, first one I bought was Mellow Gold by Beck. I bought it knowing it was an unofficial pressing and the store even had a sticker on the shrink wrap that said "unofficial pressing". I had no problems spending the $30 or how much it was was because official ones aren't cheap. That was probably like 5+ years ago, second one was Slipknot's Iowa. I bought this from Rollin' Recs and had zero problem spending the $40 he was asking versus the easily $300+ an official copy goes for.

Thoughts on record stores' obligation on identifying them as bootleg / unofficial to customers? I bought my partner a BTS record from a local shop recently thinking it was the real deal. She told me this album was never printed on vinyl, then we found on Discogs it's labeled "unofficial" from Czech Republic... The sound is not great, it makes my stylus wobble like crazy, and I even notice little dents on the record. Pretty disappointed that this record store sold me it without disclosing what I was buying. EDIT: my bad you kind of touch on this topic at the 9 minute mark haha! Sorry I didn't think you would cycle back to this convo after talking about the video game albums. I agree it feels unethical to call it "Rare" or "Imports" especially if you're not going to clarify at the counter what those 'code names' mean

Matt making an entire video just to show off that badass Chronotrigger and make us all jealous, lols.

I have buyed my first bootleg vinyl in 1975........rolling stones Cheap great fun color vinyl.. Still have more than 100 boot LP,s

So if I see some record on Discogs which is listed as unofficial, it's always a bootleg?

One of my favorite bootlegs I got was the Childish Gambino Kauai/ STN MTN. Sadly I also got a really crappy bootleg of nostalgia ultra that pops and skips. :(

I don't think I own any bootleg records (unless we're counting the OESB Floral Shoppe, which that whole thing is really up for debate). There is an indie record store where I live that sometimes carries bootlegs mixed in with their official releases. The two I remember seeing were the soundtrack to Lost in Translation and a mysterious Aphex Twin release that ended up being a boot of Caustic Window (which my friend ended up buying).

Matt. Dude. Chrono Trigger was THE ONE soundtrack I asked YOU about. I wasn't aware there was even one in the works. I NEED that soundtrack. It is the greatest JRPG EVER MADE.

There is another side to all of this bootlegging. As a store owner you have got a ton of research to do before buying from a newer Distributor. A lot of the times they will have the bootlegs themselves mixed in with normal releases. Example: The other day I was looking for Neil Young records coming out and the distributor had some oddball Live albums I've never heard of, so I bought them and on Discogs they are marked as unofficial releases. This seems to be happening more and more lately.

My favorite vinyl bootleg in my collection is a Roger Waters "Roger" 2LP live recording from Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY, March 28th 1985 on Reg Records. Bought it new in the late 80s at my college record store. Full-on custom color cover and custom color labels with a great little Reg dog logo. It was only $20 at the time (that's about $45 in today's $). But $20 was my entire weekly spending $ for the week! Still surprised this one never got an official release. If you want a fantastic reference guide and historical documentation of the bootleg biz, pick up a copy of "BOOTLEG: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry" by Clinton Heylin. Some good stuff in there.

I own Pink Floyd live at pompeii bootleg and daaamn it sounds good

NIRVANA Live in Argentina is a pretty good bootleg from what I remember.

Matt already knows that I’m bootleg friendly to a point. Video game vinyl is a big yes from me but where I draw the line is when people bootleg already pressed and released albums.

I only have three bootlegs...two of which I purchased unknowingly. One was a copy of Depeche Mode - Violator. Early on in my collecting I bought it not knowing that it was a Russian bootleg. It is from '92 (original out in '90) and I think this was pressed after U.S.S.R. fell and Russia was brining in music not previously allowed. Second is a copy of Pearl Jam's Unplugged. I bought it as it had a different cover and was titled "Live in New York." I didnt know until I got home that it was just an unofficial recording of PJs MTV Unplugged which I was able to get a copy of on RSDBF '19. Last one I bought from Rollin' Records and its a copy of Chris Cornell's Songbook. I bought it because originals are in the triple digits now and it will probably get a repress, but who knows when.

I bought a graduation vinyl from rollin recs, and the track flashing lights skips a little bit, should I contact rollin records?

Damn now I want that FF9 bootleg....where to find? EDIT: Shiiiiiit that Chrono Trigger Boxset!!!

I have Section 80. Just bought it and never really gave it any thought (I can’t even remember when or where I bought). I didn’t know until now that it is a bootleg (although looking at it now, I should’ve guessed 😂)

Some of my personal bootlegs are of Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac they don’t sound fantastic but I love to just have them for the art or to hear a live concert performance 🖤

I have Z by sza and it’s not even on discogs, the record plays super super quiet it’s kinda annoying to play but I love it it’s so pretty

I have one Bootleg from King Diamond, and was only pressed 300 times,Which is my Holy Grail find

I did bought the ''Graduation'' Kanye west bootleg on Discogs. I knew it was a bootleg because I know this album doesn't have an official release. but I paid nearly double the price of what RollinRec was selling them. I didn't knew about RollinRec at this time. My copy from discogs was awful, the tonearm was literally waving on the vinyl, that cause a lot of distortion. I purchase a copy on RollinRec and I don't have any issues with it.

Any other good sources apart from Rollinrecs for bootlegs?

I bought a copy of Innuendo by Queen, pressed on a red vinyl, in a record shop, little did I know it was a bootleg! I had a proper listen to it recently and the production is okay, but it's not the greatest sounding. hoping to replace it with a first pressing somewhere down the line :)

2/3 of my bootlegs sounds amazing the only one that sounds pretty good is my THPS from Magic Bum

I for the life of me don't understand where to buy any of these video game bootleg records. What do people follow to find them for sale? I just see them popping up on ebay constantly for insane prices.

I'd love to get a A.D.1701 Soundtrack.

Got a at the drive-in - live in Japan bootleg. And a 45 of nirvana doing the man who sold the world electric version. Love those ones . Had a few I did not like the quality of . Radiohead one and tool one that I sold off

I have a bootleg of Meat Is Murder by the Smiths in clear vinyl for some reason :)

The way you combat stores charging wall prices for bootlegs, is to boot the boot. The 1st bootlegger certainly can’t complain about it

Anyone own the QOTSA self titled bootleg ? I've seen them on ebay for $50+ . I wish QOTSA would repress it again .

No bootleg for me. I don't buy bootleg BluRays or concert t-shirts either, so I try to keep my collection of just official records, but I don't mind if other collectors buy them.

I remember looking up the price of that Chrono trigger box set and subsequently shitting my pants

I love bootlegs. Period. My Prince bootleg collection is pretty impressive.

great video! Is there any good cheap online stores for bootleg vinyls?

I've bought from Rollin' Recs twice, so I was worried that you were gonna say you don't like them😅😅 but yeah, Effff resellers

Do u have any mars volta records?

Yeah, i bought the samurai champloo record a while back during the first wave of represses and the shop had no idea they were bootlegs until told. Ended up going for a refund as their quality was clearly inferior to the original pressing. Unfortunately, my collection consisting mainly of anime releases, the bootleg scene doesn't have a crazy amount to offer for me (as of yet). I do love the VGM bootleg scene though; the guy who made Ragnarok Online, especially. Releases have all been solid so far, even though i'd never even heard of any of the games. I hear he might actually be working on some anime stuff..

I get the appeal but I am not a fan. Finding the files and making my own CDs is more than adequate if I’m looking for an obscure live show or something. Good video and information tho!

At the risk of being "that guy" the use of bootleg seems to get used also to mean what is a pirate. Both bootlegs and pirates are unofficial releases. A bootleg is a release of something that was never released. Examples of bootlegs are those live concerts you cited, other famous examples of bootlegs are Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder which were demos and some studio recordings, those video game soundtracks are also probably considering they aren't released by the owners of the music in any format (not just vinyl). Pirates, on the other hand are based on actual releases. The Frank Orange release would really be a pirate, even though it was never released on vinyl, it was released as a CD and digitally. That Tom Petty Wildflowers you mention is also a pirate. Grey market is kind of another sort of piracy. I bought Jay-Z's Black Album from a major grocery store retailer that was getting out of the vinyl business. When I tried to figure out what pressing it was, I realized that it was actually a pirate pressing-- the giveaway being the "Made In Czech" sticker on it not to mention the incorrect matrix information. In this case, the distributor that worked with this chain probably was to blame for this happening. An interesting situation where a record moved between bootleg and pirate was Prince's Black Album. Since he pulled the record off the shelves before it could be widely distributed, it was quickly bootlegged and widely available in 1987. Then in 1994 as part of Prince getting out of his contract Warner Brothers, they officially released the Black Album on CD. It was available for like one month before it was pulled from distribution! Fast forward to this decade and you can find vinyl pressings available-- I've seen "peach" colored ones. These are now pirates since it was once an official release! In 1994 Warner Brothers put the Black Album out on vinyl as a promo. I was very lucky to have purchased one of those before the cost of those skyrocketed. I'm sure that we'll end up seeing another official vinyl pressing of the Black Album before too long considering the hype around the reissue of Sign O' the Times. You mention that you wanted retailers to be more transparent about bootleg (and pirate) releases. The fact of the matter is that when a retailer knows they're selling pirates or bootlegs, they don't want to disclose it because it is illegal. In what seems to be an alarmingly growing situation, record stores are selling grey market titles and the don't know it. This situation has existed for as long as records have been made. I found out a while back that a copy of Introducing The Beatles on VeeJay that my dad bought in the 80's at K-Mart was in fact a pirate release. It is estimated that there are many more fake VeeJay Introducing the Beatles in circulation than real ones! There is speculation that the owner of VeeJay Records was also the source of the pirate ones, the goal being that he was making more money on those since they weren't paying the licensing for the album. Caveat emptor!

Bootlegs are vital,esp. because of all the joy division (my #1 band) gig releases. which opened up the access to the concert experience for those who couldn't see them live.theres a difference between bootlegs and pirates.bootlegs are illegaly audience recordings and pirates are illegal copies of officially released material.

I really want the original Grand Theft Auto game (on PC) soundtrack on vinyl. I have no idea how to go about this and searched and searched to no avail.

I couldnt find the website

3:37 GREAT ALBUM

I have no qualms with bootlegs. There are some things that just will never be released or too niche. The label is either unwilling or unable or unaware of the demand of some music.

That CT Box Set is priced at 2k USD 😮

i have mac miller faces and i love life thank you bootleg, but how can you tell if it's a bootleg?

I really wish Square Enix would get their head in the game and start pressing their classic game scores to vinyl. How great would it be to see proper vinyl releases of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV and VI, and Xenogears?

Wouldn't the source for these unofficial releases most likely to be CDs? If so, from a sound quality perspective, why would you want one?

I slept on Type O Negative's October Rust pressing through Rollin Recs and still regret it. It's a never ending battle of f.o.m.o. when you collect though 🤷‍♂️

You should ask yourselves this. Would a company that doesn't even keep up-to-date ports of a game out on the latest platforms take time to make an official vinyl release of a soundtrack to that game?

No joke, I have a high-quality double-album bootleg of the OSTs from Sonic and Sonic 3 that sounds just as good as my official Sonic music from Datadiscs.

I have a bootleg I paid $200 for that’s limited to 100 copies (hand numbered) and it’s a 3xLP box set of a live show with my favorite band and another band I like. I scoured the internet trying to find a recording of the show but couldn’t find one anywhere. Not even a rip of the LP so that’s why I justified the $200. It also came with a mirror of the cover of the box set which was original art made just for the box set. The audio quality is atrocious but I still think it’s a neat piece to have in my collection, I’ve spent over $1500 on stuff from my favorite band including a 7” split of Black Sabbath covers signed by the vocalists of both bands so it seems logical. I have the mirror hung up in my room. I will say as nice as the rest of the box set is I find it odd that the three sides for each band have pictures of the other band on the labels so I was confused when I first played it. Like imagine if Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin had a split but Ozzy was on all of Zeppelin’s sides.

Respectfully, I personally think it's difficult to talk bootlegs without mentioning artists like Dylan, the Beatles, Stones or Elvis, just to name a few. Also - not all boots are live recordings - plenty were taken from studio tapes, and often despite later official releases the boots still hold their own.

The only thing I hate about the bootlegs is trying to find where to directly get them. Especially with the video game stuff. Want to get to them before the scalpers sell them on ebay for way too many moneys and coinseseses.