Bootlegging it

If you’ve been near a club anytime in the last two years, chances you’ve heard an unauthorised white label bootleg rocking the joint. In 2001, the must-have platter for any DJ was the fantastic illegal fusion of Madonna’s ‘Music’ with the Daft Punk floor-filler ‘Da Funk’. Everybody from Bentley Rhythm Ace to your local club jock caned it. Early in 2002, an indie night with a difference was not the same without dropping ‘A Stroke of Genius’, playfully splicing The Strokes classic breakthrough single ‘Hard to Explain’, with the vocals from the Christina Aguleira smash ‘Genie in a Bottle’.

And there are hundreds, if not thousands more. To mention a tiny few; ‘Smells Like Teen Booty’ (Destiny’s Child and Nirvana), ‘9lb Cock’ (Missy Elliot and Compulsion) and George Michael’s ‘Faith’ soundclashing with Missy Elliot’s ‘Get UR Freak On’ on ‘Get Your Faith On’.

Kylie Minogue paid homage to the cult of the bootleg by performing her global hit ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ segued into elements from the New Order DJ staple ‘Blue Monday’ live at the Brit Awards at London’s Earls Court last month.

The bootleg craze is going forth and multiplying at a ferocious rate, much to the chagrin of some members of the music industry. “When you buy a CD you buy the rights to listen to it, not to change it in any way,” Matt Phillips from the British Phonographic Institute told The Guardian. “If they are released on CD and they’re not cleared, we’ll try to stop them.”

In a fantastic twist to the tale, Belgian musicians and DJs Soulwax have done all their legal homework in seeking and gaining clearance for their new release entitled 2 Many DJs, where Emerson Lake & Palmer collides with Basement Jaxx’s party anthem ‘Where’s Your Head At?’, Dolly Parton goes head to head with Royksopp and Salt n’ Pepa extol the listener to ‘Push It’ over the fabulous raw strains of ‘No Fun’ by The Stooges.

It’s a thrilling musical rollercoaster of forty five tracks rolled into one hour of mixed up and messed up madness. It took nearly three years in the making and took one record company employee more than six months of hard labour. The Soulwax crew claim that behind the scenes it required 865 e-mails, 160 faxes and hundreds of phone calls to contact over 45 major and independent record-companies. A grand total of 187 tracks were involved from which 114 got approved, 62 refused and 11 were untraceable. It’s totally legit and it’s probably the best CD you can buy for your house party.

One anonymous record company employee is reputed to have told the duo: “I’m sick of it, please, no more phonecalls. I can’t afford myself doing so much work for such little output!” Soulwax claim on their website: “It doesn’t run all too smoothly if you try to do something different. You have to prepare yourself for the long and winding road that runs through the jungle that is known as ‘the record industry’. In these post-modern times of illegal MP3s and white label bootlegs it is all too easy to think you can get away with anything. You can’t. Never forget that everyone wants a piece of the cake.”

Some bands or singers aren’t too keen on ‘lending out’ their songs for other people’s use, and that philosophy is not always coming from a corner you might expect. A certain very well known hip-hop trio from New York, for instance, who once encountered some copyright-lawsuits of their own, will never, ever license one of their tracks for any compilation. Mostly this has to do with maintaining the ‘exclusivity’ of their tracks or in other words they’re saying: ‘If you want to hear my songs, buy the frickin’ album’.” Further glimpses into such an arduous process are given at www.2manydjs.org.

As the Soulwax project proves, gaining clearance is a mammoth effort in terms of money, time and energy. There is no doubt that the illegal bootleg format is here is stay whatever one’s views on piracy.

Hmmm... what would work well with The Corrs?