Popular Music and Society
Vol. 33, No. 3, July 2010, pp. 357–375
Shopping for Legs and Boots: Tori
Amos’s Original Bootlegs, Fandom,
and Subcultural Capital
Rebekah Farrugia and Nancy Gobatto
Using Tori Amos’s Original Bootlegs as a case study, this paper considers the impact of
the introduction of an extensive collection of “official” bootlegs in relation to debates
around fan communities, music sharing, and genre. Amos’s strategic adoption of the term
“bootleg” and the strategies employed to market her official bootlegs to the Toriphile fan
community work to blur the boundary between the value of the “authentic” and massproduced music releases. Additionally, the Original Bootlegs contribute to the music
industry’s discursive and material cooptation of the term “bootleg.” By choosing to call
these releases “bootlegs” Amos ultimately undermines—and in the process destabilizes—
the bootleg as a genre.
Introduction
Digital technologies of all sorts have enabled fans to record and access unreleased
musical material with greater ease and speed than they could prior to the Internet
revolution. No longer do fans have to rely solely on an artist’s officially released
albums or put excessive effort into acquiring a bootleg recording. In the current digital
age bootleg recordings of unreleased tracks and live concerts are made available online
in record time to anyone willing to do the minimal work required to find them.
This case study explores a growing trend in the music industry, the ever-increasing
release of official bootleg recordings. Using Tori Amos as a case study we trace and
attribute the growth of official bootlegs to the pervasiveness of digital downloading.
Because recordings of live performances account for a significant percentage of illegal
downloads, official bootlegs are a means by which artists can combat this by
packaging and selling these performances themselves. We suggest that the growth of
official bootlegs and the commodification of the bootleg by the record industry
undermine and destabilize the following: material bootleg recordings as artifacts, the
conventional meaning of the term “bootleg,” and the subcultural capital bootlegs have
historically embodied. Although Tori Amos is by no means the only artist to take this
route, her position as a cult figure who at times relied heavily on word-of-mouth and
ISSN 0300-7766 (print)/ISSN 1740-1712 (online) q 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/03007760903523153
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other unofficial channels to disseminate her music makes her actions worth of some
critical scrutiny.
A dedicated fan and self-proclaimed Toriphile for close to two decades, one of the
authors of this paper’s experiences with the Toriphile fan community attests that
bootlegs have proven to be especially important for artists like Amos who receive
limited or no radio play. This is more than personal observation, however. A 2003
article from Wired magazine titled “Bootleggers Roll Your DATs” describes the
changes in technology and distribution methods that have contributed to the
immense growth of music trading communities. Using Amos specifically in his
example, Steve Knopper writes:
The day after Tori Amos shocked fans in England with a piano rendition of the
Eagles’ “Desperado,” MP3s of her performance showed up in Nashville, Tennessee,
where David Mobley downloaded one from alt.binaries.tori-amos. “The Tori
community is loosely organized,” says the 25-year-old cable TV employee, “but it
gets shows to people quickly.” (Knopper)
Along with the potential to increase visibility for new artists, bootleg recordings hold
the promise of increased symbolic capital for the fans who gain the sometimes hardto-find knowledge they contain and whose trade allows them to communicate with
other like-minded fans. Indeed, within the Toriphile community, trading in bootlegs
has been a critical component of social relations and the hierarchy inherent in them.
Recently, Amos has begun to incorporate the word “bootleg” into her official
releases, first with the release of her Original Bootlegs (2006) series, then with
subsequent digital albums coyly called Legs and Boots at toribootlegs.com. While fans
continue to consume these items without hesitation, these “bootlegs” raise serious
questions regarding the line between catering to and exploiting an increasingly
invested fan base. This paper considers the impact of the introduction of an extensive
collection of “official” bootlegs in relation to debates around fan communities, music
sharing, and genre. Ultimately, we feel that Amos’s strategic adoption of the term
“bootleg” and the strategies employed to market her official bootlegs to the Toriphile
fan community (one that has invested significant financial and symbolic capital in her
and her music over the years) blur the boundary between the value of the “authentic”
(i.e. unofficial) and mass-produced music releases. Additionally, the Original Bootlegs
reflect the music industry’s relatively recent discursive and material cooptation of the
term “bootleg.” By choosing to call these releases “bootlegs” Amos ultimately
undermines—and in the process destabilizes—the bootleg as a genre.
We begin with a brief history of bootleg recordings before moving on to a
discussion of the changes in recording and distribution technology that are relevant to
bootleg recordings. Next, we examine the Original Bootlegs series in the context of the
online activities of Toriphiles and the significance of Amos’s live concert
performances. We conclude with theoretical concerns over the destabilization of the
subcultural capital of the bootleg.
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History of Bootleg Recordings
For the purposes of this paper the discussion of bootlegging is limited to the history of
the practice in rock music. Despite bootleg activity in music genres that predated
rock, such as jazz, blues, and opera, it was the emergence of one bootleg in particular,
Bob Dylan’s Great White Wonder in 1969, that heightened the demand for and interest
in bootlegs (Heylin). Great White Wonder consisted of tracks Dylan recorded in a
basement after a motorcycle accident in July 1966. Deemed the most successful
bootleg of all time, it is estimated to have sold approximately 200,000 copies since it
was first compiled as a fourteen-song acetate record by Dylan’s music publishers
(Marshall). Over the past forty years bootlegs have become valuable objects rich in
symbolic and material capital. For decades, jam bands like the Grateful Dead and
Phish have endorsed the recording and tape-trading of their live shows, and bootlegs
have been readily available at record shops, flea markets (in the UK), and most
recently websites such as bt.etree.org and file trading software programs.
The term “bootlegging” can be ambiguous, but it is used here to refer to albums
that contain recordings that have never been officially released by record labels and/or
independently by artists. In this traditional sense bootlegs are not intended to be
mistaken for or to function as substitutes for official releases (Marshall 111). The term
“piracy” is much more apt for describing the illegal copying and distribution of
officially released albums.
Recorded music and other works considered unpublished were not granted
copyright protection until the 1976 revision to the US Copyright Act. The new Act
gave song owners exclusive copying and distribution rights (Fries and Fries). Since
1976 there have been numerous revisions to the Act—most recently the Sonny Bono
Copyright Term Extension Act (1998) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(1998)—and changes to the US Code that have fortified laws concerning copyright
and music. For instance, in 1994, a state “anti-bootleg statute” criminalizing the
unauthorized production, distribution, and trafficking of sound recordings and music
videos of live musical performances became a federal statute (U.S. Code Collection;
Naghavi and Schulze). Changes to the law in the Internet era reflect a trend towards
more stringent copyright protection that favors big business, with stricter
repercussions for the illegal downloading of material that is available for purchase
on record-store shelves and online at sites such as amazon.com and Apple’s
iTunes store.
The record industry’s general concern over piracy is understandable, but its disdain
for all bootlegs is perplexing. Record companies simply do not want to see recordings
they have paid for and officially released downloaded for free, even though there is
little evidence suggesting that industry profits suffer from illegal downloading
(McLeod). However, why the industry has historically loathed bootlegs is less clear
given their characteristics prior to the advent of digital technologies. Historically, the
audio on bootleg recordings was poor and they were often sold at higher prices than
officially released albums and distributed in limited numbers (Naghavi and Schulze).
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They were DIY (do-it-yourself) recordings of interest to fans dedicated enough to
work to acquire complete artist collections, who make up only a small segment of the
larger fan base. Bootlegs of this era did not compete with official releases for these
reasons, as well as the fact that they usually consist of live concert recordings and/or
studio outtakes that are not officially recorded and released.
Furthermore, bands’ attitudes towards bootlegging vary. For much of his career
Bob Dylan virulently opposed bootlegging, though he did not possess the same degree
of opposition to tape-trading. Some bands, most notably the Grateful Dead,
encouraged the non-profit-making activities of “tape-traders” and were among the
most vehement in their opposition to commercial bootlegging (Heylin). Although
labels and artists have been debating the pros and cons of the bootleg for decades, the
concept of official bootlegs has grown in popularity since the 1990s as more popular
artists and record labels are appropriating the term. With the digital revolution well
under way in the 1990s, increasing numbers of people were finding ways to produce
and exchange bootleg recordings via the Internet. Not coincidentally, both labels and
artists finally began to recognize the potential this genre could hold. For instance,
between 1991 and 2005 Dylan released seven volumes as part of his Bootleg Series on
Columbia Records. Concurrently, official albums with the word “bootleg” in the title
were released by a number of other artists including Paul McCartney (Unplugged—
The Official Bootleg, Live, 1991), Frank Zappa (Beat the Boots!, Vol. 1, 1991, Vol. 2,
1992), Roy Orbison (Authorized Bootleg Collection, 1999), and Tangerine Dream
(The Bootleg Box Set Vol. 1, 2003, Vol. 2, 2005). As well, since the Internet boom, bands
such as Pearl Jam and Phish—whose live shows are known for being heavily
bootlegged and downloaded from the Internet—have consistently released recordings
of their live sets and made them available for purchase online. Similarly, inspired by
her fanbase’s heavy bootlegging activities Tori Amos released a series of compact discs
titled Original Bootlegs in 2005, which was soon followed by the launch of the official
website toribootlegs.com. The website catalogs recordings of live shows that are
available for fans to purchase and download. In part, artists’ and labels’ decisions to
release official bootlegs both online and offline are motivated by the changes in
technology discussed in the following section.
Changes in Recording and Distribution Technology
Preceding the ubiquity of digital recording and playback technologies, bootlegs were
typically recorded on analog home-taping equipment using poor microphones.
Pre-Internet and before the diffusion of compact-disc technology, the quality of
recordings was low and tapes were traded and sold via word of mouth, at flea markets,
or record shops. Nonetheless, fans who wanted access to more of an artist’s work
turned to bootlegs in spite of their poor sound quality.
Today, bootlegs continue to be a primary means by which artists gain notoriety.
The emergence of new digital technologies has led to a significant increase in bootleg
production. No doubt the sheer volume of unofficial recordings now available has
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forced those previously unconcerned with the presence (or absence) of bootlegs to
take greater notice. This saturation of digital recording and distribution technologies
has led to a number of changes not only for the material bootleg artifact itself but also
for bootleg fan culture and the record industry. However, unlike the poor quality and
time-consuming distribution process of the past, the advent of affordable digital
recording technology has led to significant changes. One important development is
that fans can now generate high-quality recordings of their favorite artists’ concerts
with little effort. These practices were first made possible by portable DAT recorders
but are more recently attributed to the popularity of laptop computers and advances
in microphone technology. The article by Knopper quoted at the beginning of this
essay describes the process by which bootleggers can now obtain high-quality concert
feeds from outside concert venues using wireless radio receivers to capture signals sent
to the in-ear monitors musicians use to hear one another onstage in indoor venues.
Thus, it is now technologically possible for the quality of cheaply produced amateur
recordings to be on par with legitimately released live CDs. Consequently, aware that
the production and consumption of high-quality bootleg recordings is taking place,
labels and artists have begun to tap into the demand for live concert footage and this
previously underground exchange as a way to earn additional profits.
In addition to the improved quality of bootleg recordings, there have also been
significant changes in distribution methods. For instance, in June 2006 the front page
of the website bootlegarchive.com stated, “If you are wanting to download some of the
best bootleg music on the Internet, please click here.” The link directs the user to
another page on the site called “The Bootleg Archive Hub.” In a world where bootleg
recordings can be uploaded to a website or peer-to-peer server within seconds after
a show, it is not surprising that labels and artists are cashing in on the process.
For example, though the site pearljambootlegs.com is no longer up and running, the
first hit on a Google search for “pearl jam bootlegs” takes web users to
https://bootlegs2.pearljam.com, a site that lists a limited number of concerts in
MP3D1 format that can be purchased for $9.99 each. Artists and labels are not only
selling MP3s of live concerts online, but they have teamed up with companies like
DiscLive to sell concert recordings immediately after the show. Online, the
disclive.com header reads, “Disclive: Burn Music. Not Artists” and features a list of
artists who have used the technology on their tours. The record-and-burn-right-afterthe-show approach has proven to be so lucrative that in 2005 Clear Channel engaged in
a legal battle over the patent and exclusive right to the process (Bangeman). In effect,
learning from its battles over illegal downloading in the early 2000s, the industry is
finally beginning to use the capabilities of digital culture to its advantage. Amos is no
exception. In an anticipated move in 2007 a catalog of Amos’s live performances
became available for download at toribootlegs.com for $10 each. Next, we establish the
unique relationship between Amos and her fans before considering her strategic use of
the term “bootleg” to sell these official albums and the marketing strategy employed to
release the Original Bootleg series.
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Toriphiles Online
Over the span of Amos’s career, Toriphiles—or “Tori traders,” as they are sometimes
called—have demonstrated an extreme commitment to Amos and her work and
continued to do so with the Original Bootleg series. Fans feel an intimate connection to
Amos’s music as well as to her personhood. The nature of Amos’s work speaks to a
feminine voice both powerful and vulnerable. Her songs (though sometimes playful)
often deal with deep emotional struggle and experiences women face including: love,
loss, and, perhaps most notably, sexuality and violence. Although not exclusively
female, many of Amos’s devotees are young women who identify first with her music
and ultimately with Amos herself.
One example of how Amos’s music seems to speak to women in a particularly
intimate way is the song “Me and a Gun.” From her first solo album,
Little Earthquakes, the song details Amos’s experience of being raped at gunpoint.
Because of its brutal honesty the song struck a chord in scores of women who had
experienced sexual violence. As a result of the song’s release, the number of women
coming to Amos for support and help was so overwhelming that in 1994 she
co-founded RAINN: The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. The “largest
anti-sexual assault organization” (rainn.org) in the United States, RAINN functions as
a resource for survivors of sexual assault and is regularly supported by Amos through
charity concerts, donations, and the like. It is because of efforts like these, along with
the authenticity of her performative voice, that these women often feel Amos speaks
for them. And they can be fiercely devoted.
As early as 1992 on her tour in support of Little Earthquakes, the press referred to
the “fit . . . her fans are having over her” (Rule 42). Thirteen years later, reviews of her
2005 “Summer of Sin” tour (for her eighth full-length studio release, The Beekeeper)
still referenced this devotional relationship. For example, “To attend a Tori Amos gig is
to be guaranteed a display of reverence from her notoriously rabid fans and tonight
was no different. Some even wept during more tender moments” (Pedder 79).
The uses of terms like fit and notoriously rabid convey the intense loyalty and fervor of
Amos’s fan base. This fervor can be seen to stretch some expectations of sanity to
those looking in from outside this informal collective. Still, that reverence is also
observed indicates that the mania is primarily emotional (some Toriphiles might also
say “spiritual”) and implies the deep admiration most fans feel for Amos. Thus, in
spite of this rabid population, Amos fans, even en masse at concert venues, are in fact
notoriously respectful. These examples, as well as the numerous CD singles Amos
successfully released throughout the 1990s, speak to the view of her fans as cult-like in
their commitment to her work and person.
It is via the collections they amass that Toriphiles distinguish themselves from the
average Tori fans. It is through their cultural collections of not only Tori music, but
also books, posters, and RAINN merchandise, that they define their subcultural
capital and come to think of themselves as part of the Toriphile community. While an
accumulation of officially licensed material and virtual goods acts as tangible evidence
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of one’s commitment to Amos, it is the history of shared bootleg recordings, fan
photographs, and personal stories that has led to the close connection of Amos fans to
each other, and thus their formation of a distinct community.
Similar to other music downloaders, since the advent of the Internet Toriphiles
have relied on the use of peer-to-peer networks (i.e. Napster, BearShare, Ares, etc.)
to find and trade MP3s. There are also numerous sites dedicated to the exchange of
Tori Amos MP3s specifically. For instance, the site toritraders.com coaches users
through the use of BitTorrent to access extensive lists of Amos MP3s, and even less
tech-savvy fans can find Amos MP3s at user-friendly sites such as hereinmyhead.com. Its sub-site “Diagnosed Sounds” has functioned for nearly a decade
as a direct-download source for a tremendous and comprehensive range of live
MP3s of Amos’s songs. Website owner and designer Aubrey Romano does the initial
work of finding the MP3s through peer-to-peer networks, then posts them on her
site for others to download. To a large extent, the importance and role of Tori Amos
bootlegs is connected to her large repertoire of cover songs. More so than most
artists Amos is known for performing an unusual number of covers and
improvisations during her live performances. Over the years, Toriphiles have come
to both covet and collect these remakes. Often the only recording of these covers is a
bootleg and traders like Romano covet such finds. Yet finding (or even recording)
such a gem does not mean one hides it away to increase its value. Instead, most
traders will share the find with others, taking pride in the act of revealing something
previously unheard to another fan.
A sense of community is fostered among Toriphiles as individuals not only
download MP3s, but also post them on sites like Romano’s that solicit “never-beforeheard mp3s.” Significantly, Romano does so by appealing to the sense of collective
identity the fans have or seek, promising the opportunity to “share them with the
entire Tori Amos community!” That Romano uses the term “Tori Amos Community”
rather than “Tori fan” speaks to the idea that fans such as Romano desire an identity
that encompasses both fandom and a collectivity with other like-minded individuals.
It is also noteworthy that she does not employ the popular “Toriphile.” By not
expecting any specific in-group knowledge of the term, she ensures a broader
inclusiveness (one that could potentially lead her to more shared MP3s) that includes
both entrenched and “newbie” Amos aficionados.
It is worth noting that the goal of these MP3 downloaders and traders is not to
take away revenue from Amos, as DiscLive’s slogan “Burn Music. Not Artists”
implies. In an effort to protect herself from liability but also to encourage fans to
purchase Amos’s officially released music, the site owner provides a “disclaimer”
regarding the free access to copyrighted material that the site provides. Generally, the
appeal of peer-to-peer exchanges lies in part in the relative anonymity the medium
offers traders; however, for “Diagnosed Sounds” that anonymity is easily
compromised and Romano becomes more directly liable for issues around legal
(or illegal) distribution of material. Thus, it is not surprising that she posts the
following legal disclaimer: “By making less-than-cd-quality (lossy) [sic ] mp3s
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available, it is not my intention to take any music sales away from Tori Amos and
company.” Additionally, to ensure that any potentially infringed-upon party is not
provoked by the website she qualifies:
I do not provide any officially released album songs. I do not copy, create or
distribute physical media (cds, cdrs, vhs, dvds, etc). I do not personally
bootleg/record live concert shows. I do not distribute mp3s for personal profit. All
rights reserved by Tori Amos, Sword and Stone, Atlantic Recording Company and
Epic Records/Sony Music.
With these two segments of the disclaimer Romano positions herself and the content
of her website as within the (relative) legal space of trading in unofficial live
recordings. For all legal intents and purposes the disclaimer is complete; yet, she also
includes the following to further justify her illegal actions: “For most fans, mp3s serve
to encourage the purchasing of the music we love, with complete respect to the
musician(s). The availability of live mp3s also deters the purchasing of bootleg cds,
which are often of poor quality and great expense” (hereinmyhead.com/sounds/
index.html, emphasis added).
Romano’s words do not so much offer a legal excuse as speak to the social and
moral aspects of MP3 trading. The logic in place is that individuals find these
versions because of a “love and respect” of the artist, and, that if the music is not
made available by loyal fans like Romano, then fans will pursue them elsewhere,
possibly from someone potentially less moral (i.e. someone who would illegally
profit from the work of the loved and respected artist). Thus, while it condones the
illegal downloading of bootleg MP3s, Romano stresses that these are inferiorquality recordings despite the fact that the quality of bootleg recordings is
improving dramatically. Romano continues to use this argument of inferiority
because, like many fans, her intent is not to discourage people from purchasing
Amos’s officially released albums like the Original Bootlegs, that are discussed
below. Long-time fan Romano is not so much invested in her own gain through
these efforts as in the positive impact her work might have on the community
of fans as a whole as well as Amos herself. The fact that Amos no longer relies on
fan-based word of mouth and trading to increase her popularity and air-play seems
lost here.
The Original Bootlegs Series
The initial marketing strategy of The Original Bootlegs strategically employed rhetoric
that spoke to the loyalty of Amos’s fans, many of whom we can assume had access to
bootleg concert recordings of Amos at the time. Initially, the marketing was directed
to her well-established and dedicated fans who actively seek, collect, and in turn value
bootleg recordings of Amos’s music. On 8 August 2005, Amos’s official website,
toriamos.com, offered the following “exciting news”: “After years of paying top dollar
for low quality bootlegs, Tori Amos diehards now have an alternative. Six live bootleg
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recordings are set to be released this fall.” The announcement alerts readers that “[a]ll
six discs will be available exclusively at toribootlegs.com” (emphasis added). Along
with this website posting, the bootleg volumes were advertised only via Tori fan
mailing lists and at the best-known Tori fan site, thedent.com. By visiting
toribootlegs.com, therefore, fans “in the know” could take advantage of special,
low-priced bootleg versions of the 2005 Summer of Sin tour that they were led to
believe would be available only here. The six releases were scheduled to be released at
regular intervals between August and December 2005. By pre-ordering the bootleg
sets, fans were given additional discounts (two bootlegs for $25 instead of one for
$13.98) and those who ordered the first five of the six bootlegs by 15 November 2005,
received the sixth bootleg and a limited edition collector’s box and stickers for free.
However, shortly after the release of the sixth and last volume the entire set (including
the box and stickers) was bundled and available at amazon.com and in music stores
across North America just in time for holiday shopping. Further eradicating the
exclusivity previously advertised, by the beginning of 2006 the series was also available
for download at itunes.com. So, Amos and her label were more than willing to exploit
the consumerist tendencies of her fans by playing on the exclusivity of these releases,
never letting on (until their orders were in place) that these would be generally
available like every other mainstream release. Of course the fans still got the content
paid for but the implied value (both in terms of money and symbolic capital)
plummeted once the series was released more broadly.
A look at the musical material of The Original Bootlegs further illustrates Amos and
her label’s savvy decision to tap into bootleg culture and Toriphiles’ propensity
towards collecting as a means to sell the products. Because these twelve discs (six twodisc sets) are all recordings from the same tour there is a striking pattern of repetition
across the collection. The 104 tracks in the series represent only sixty-eight different
songs (Appendix A). Thus, nineteen of the songs appear on at least two of the
bootlegs. Of course, fans are not required to purchase all six bootlegs; however,
according to the initial information provided, by not doing so they would forfeit the
aforementioned collector’s box and stickers. As well, while the urge to have these
material extras is a significant incentive, Amos furthers the allure of these
often-repetitive recordings by incorporating “Tori’s Piano Bar” into the mix.
Throughout the 2005 Beekeeper tour Amos solicited fan requests for cover songs via
her website. Then, each concert featured Amos’s performance of at least two of her
favorite fan requests.
As previously discussed, Amos is known for performing many different cover songs
in concert. Since the beginning of her solo career, Amos’s covers have distinguished
her as a musician with a sense of musical legacy, range, and interpretation. For
example, her evocative cover of Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit,” which appears on
the single Crucify (1992), quickly became (and remains) a fan favorite. After
establishing a pattern of including covers as B-sides, Amos released an entire album of
covers, Strange Little Girls in 2001. With a certainty of fan interest in such covers,
Amos feeds this need by including covers ranging from the classic “My Favorite
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Things” to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”
across the Original Bootlegs collection. In fact, the twelve cover songs included in the
series comprise the only previously unreleased tracks in the collection and are in many
ways the most valuable of all the tracks. If you can’t be there in person to experience
Tori interpreting a classic, the next best thing is to have a recording.
The Significance of the Live Event
Thus far, we have presented an overview of the history of bootleg recordings and how
they have changed over time, the significance of such recordings among Toriphiles,
and Amos’s release of the Original Bootlegs CD series. Here we theorize reasons why
the belief that a live recording is the next best thing to experiencing an event in person
is not unique to Amos’s fanbase. As we discuss in detail below, recordings of live shows
are meaningful to fans because of the perception that liveness provides access to a
performer’s true, authentic condition. In addition, the desire to collect recordings of
events to be played at a later date satisfies our desire to connect with the past.
As for Amos, she puts a great deal of effort into creating a unique and individual
experience for every live show she performs. Playing live and touring have been
central to Amos’s career and life since her teenage years. Her touring experiences,
which are chronicled in Piece by Piece (2005)—a book of conversations written and
compiled by Tori Amos and music journalist Ann Powers—convey the extent to
which playing live is both necessary and natural for Amos because she deems her
musicianship as “rooted in improvisation and the physical feel of hands on a
piano keyboard” (231). Describing what the live show means to Amos as an artist,
Powers writes:
Varying her selections each night over the years, Amos has slowly developed a way of
creating a story through set construction. The songs she selects (aided by Chelsea
Laird, who sits by her side with a large black pen each night, modifying the list)
speak to one another; falling into an imagistic narrative reflecting the particular
time and place of each performance. (Amos and Powers 212)
Powers goes on to describe the extent to which Amos instructs her manager to read
local papers and gather research about current events in the area close to her
performance date. Using Chicago as an example, Amos explains that these threads
“will give us the clues to what our Chicago tapestry should be . . . every night the set
list is based on the things that cross our path, and we work with a palette . . . cities
have different essences, colors, smells” (Amos and Powers 213– 14). Thus, Amos’s
efforts at personalizing her live shows so that they appeal to the night’s specific
audience reflect her commitment to her audience, which increases the value of any
recording of the show.
The fan activity related to recording and bootlegging Amos concerts strongly
suggests that fans are not only aware of but also value the individuality of her live
shows. To what extent does the fact that this is a collection of live concert recordings
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affect the appeal of the Original Bootleg series? In “Witnessing,” John Durham Peters
constructs a convincing case for why being present at an event, or even witnessing
the event live via broadcasting, matters. Peters eloquently argues that liveness
matters because it “serves as an assurance of access to truth and authenticity” (719).
The price and demand for tickets to sporting events like the Super Bowl or music
concerts such as the concurrent Live 8 benefit concerts of 20052 reflect the consensus
that the most cultural authority comes with being present in the flesh. Peters argues
that being present in time and space offers a forever irreplaceable privileged position
and status. While it can be argued that bootlegs do not offer the same amount of
status within music communities as being physically present at live performances,
the work that dedicated fans such as Toriphiles invest in searching for—in stores or
online—and collecting bootleg recordings of concerts suggests that fans collect these
artifacts for similar reasons. They are willing to put the time and effort into finding
bootlegged versions of concerts as a way to access as much as possible about artists
and their music, or what Peters describes as “its unscripted happenings, chance and
gaffes” (718).
As mentioned above, the recently adopted practice of selling officially sanctioned
recordings of an event to patrons on their way out of the door reflects the further
commodification of the live concert by the entertainment industry as it becomes a
staged performance intended to be recorded, packaged, and commodified. DiscLive’s
success speaks to fans’ willingness to pay $25 for a recording of a live event they just
witnessed so that they can relive their concert experience later while still being able to
say “I was there.” This is not surprising in light of Walter Benjamin’s claim that “the
collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories” (60). To explain the obsession
with not only being there but also reliving the event, Peters states, “the curious thing
about witnessing is its retroactive character, the jealousy the present has for the past”
(722). The popularity of biographies and memoirs of musicians or other similarly
famous folk suggests that this jealousy is very much a part of American culture,
especially for artists with cult followings such as Tori Amos. The only way to access
these pasts is through recordings—be they aural, visual, or written. Consequently,
Amos’s dedicated fanbase and the success of DiscLive provided Amos and her label
with the impetus to release a collection like the Original Bootlegs and market it first to
Toriphiles under the guise of a limited-edition series, before making the series
available to the general public. The consequences of these practices that are shifting
bootleg recordings from the margins to the center of the mainstream record industry
are addressed below.
Destabilizing the Subcultural Capital of the Bootleg
CD sales in the United States have dropped more than 20% since the year 2000
(Howe) with little evidence relating the change to a decline in listenership or music
fans. Since the advent of Napster in 1999 record companies have claimed that the
illegal downloading of MP3s is to blame for a decline in music sales. An increase in
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R. Farrugia and N. Gobatto
the release of officially sanctioned bootlegs—especially of live concerts like Amos’s
CD series and online downloads—is one strategy the industry is increasingly
employing to prompt fans (casual and dedicated alike) to pay for the products they
were once downloading for free. But how does the industry’s co-opting of material
and symbolic subcultural artifacts like bootlegs affect their currency in fan and
music communities?
Highly committed fan bases existed long before the conception of Toriphiles and it
is via their collection of knowledge and material goods that fans gain cultural and
subcultural capital. With respect to music specifically, subcultural capital can be
objectified in the form of well-assembled collections and “insider knowledge”
(Thornton 11). The extreme dedication exhibited by fans cultivates a “shadow
cultural economy” which Fiske describes as a fan culture with its own systems of
production and distribution outside the cultural industries. The economy of fan
cultures primarily revolves around the act of collecting, the value and significance of
which has been well documented (Benjamin; Brown; Hills; Jenkins). In his autoethnographic essay “Unpacking My Library,” Benjamin discusses the importance and
value of the search and effort involved in book collecting. He argues that acquiring a
worthy collection requires a flair for the selection process in addition to expert
knowledge and money. In other words, historically good collections have consisted of
more than simply what the industry makes available to consumers on a mass scale. In
this case, a great Tori Amos collection would likely consist of both official and
unofficial material; however, the fan discourse examined below indicates that some
fans are moving away from and, as a result, devaluing unofficial bootlegs now that the
industry is producing sets like the Original Bootlegs.
While there remains a degree of gratitude for this history of sharing unofficial
material, there is a notable shift in Toriphile fan discourse that now encourages the
production and collection of official material not only in addition to, but also in favor
of, unofficial material. Of the twenty-four customer reviews of The Original Bootlegs
on amazon.com 62% gave the collection (priced between $100 and $150) a perfect
rating of five stars. The longest review is 1,243 words and the shortest is twenty-nine
words. As the star ratings indicate, most of the reviews are very positive and several of
them recommend the box set to Toriphiles rather than to more casual fans as the
following excerpt from one review states:
This is an excellent collection for true Tori fans. Casual listeners may find the
repetitive nature of the discs frustrating. “Original Sinsuality” is the first track of
disc one on each of the six two-disc sets. “The Beekeeper” appears on each of the
second discs. True Tori fans, however, will appreciate the subtle changes she makes
every time she performs a song.
Reviewers who support the repetition on the CDs claim that they enjoy listening to the
same tracks performed differently at various shows but also note that the time and
monetary investment involved most likely limit the box set’s appeal to mainly
dedicated fans.
Popular Music and Society
369
A handful of the reviews also cite the quality of official releases as a reason for longterm fans to invest in the collection, as the following examples indicate:
I will say I have picked up Tori Amos Live bootlegs in the past that were really bad
quality recordings. In this package, you get some excellent soundboard recordings
from 6 shows of the latest tour.
A fairly recent phenomenon, official bootlegs are usually the best bet. Recorded
straight from the soundboard and on to CD, the quality of the recordings are [sic ]
usually quite good and there are no unwanted overdubs are [sic ] studio-rerecordings.
It is significant that only two of the twenty-six reviewers express concern over the
decision to call the releases bootlegs. In one reviewer’s words:
The only issue I take is the idea that these are “bootlegs”. They are of very good
quality and worth the purchase price if you’re a fan, but I get a little insulted when
record companies try to attribute an underground coolness to a studio quality
recording (being sold by the studio). I’d like to think that our society’s a little
smarter than that (even though I did end up buying them).
Even though this reviewer considers the application of the term “bootleg” to these
releases to be problematic, as a dedicated fan she still purchased the box set and gave
the collection a five-star rating. In other words, the fan discourse suggests that the
quality and enjoyment fans gain from purchasing and listening to the CDs far
outweigh any concerns they may have over the industry’s co-optation of the term
“bootleg.”
The production and distribution of officially released bootlegs also complicates
previous scholarly claims about the distinction between “authentic” and mainstream
popular culture artifacts. Writing about fan culture, Grossberg argues that:
the fan is able to discriminate between those forms of popular culture which are
“authentic” that is, which really are art, which really do represent their experience,
etc.) and those which are the result of the efforts of the commercial mainstream to
appropriate these forms and produce tainted versions for the larger audience
(Grossberg 52).
Grossberg’s distinction between authentic products and those that are mass-produced
is an oversimplification with respect to official bootlegs. The dedicated fan reviews
above indicate that there is no longer a clear line between these two categories as
mass-produced CD and MP3 releases are considered valuable, for some even more
valuable than bootlegs, in the Toriphile fan community. Consequently, the music
industry’s decision to package and sell live concert CDs as bootlegs is having an
impact on both the meaning and value of traditional bootlegs, as well as on the
composition of music collections.
It is also important to note that to some degree bootlegs were taken out of the
sphere of the souvenir and turned into commodities traded and bought in the
“shadow cultural economy” (Fiske) long ago. Peters argues that “a home-made
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R. Farrugia and N. Gobatto
bootleg tape is a souvenir, a marker of time and place, but a CD made from the tape is
a commodity, even if they are musically identical” (718). The first is directly tied to the
event while the second is detached from any memories. Following this line of
reasoning, bootlegs once removed from the person recording the event live at the
show have always been commodities; and yet, the official release of bootlegs and the
patented DiscLive process are contributing to the commodification of the bootleg on
a level hitherto unseen.
The theoretical model Bourdieu presents in The Field of Cultural Production
suggests that objects are socially constituted as works of art by the producers of the
material work itself but also by those who give the work the meaning and value that
make it recognizable as such to consumers. In other words, “works of art exist as
symbolic objects only if they are known and recognized” (36). In effect, the industry’s
strategic application of the term “bootleg” to refer to officially sanctioned releases
dilutes the symbolic meaning of the term with reference to unofficial releases. Over
time, as record companies produce and critics endorse products like “The Original
Bootleg” series and DiscLive versions of every concert are available for purchase,
traditional bootlegs will be displaced as the term “bootleg” is increasingly applied to
industry-manufactured commodities.
Consequently, releases like Amos’s Original Bootlegs are destabilizing the value of
bootlegs and their place in fan cultures. A shift in the production of bootleg recordings
from within fan culture itself to the music industry is especially problematic for artists
such as Amos because until very recently her initial and continued success depended
heavily on the commitment of Toriphiles—a commitment grounded in alternative
media and music-trading structures. As demonstrated above, the Toriphile
community has an established history of supporting her multiple tours and trading
live recordings of her shows. By releasing these “bootlegs” Amos undermines the very
nature of her fan loyalty and destabilizes what could be considered a long-standing
symbiotic relationship between her and her fans.
Conclusion
This paper considers the impact of official bootleg recordings, specifically the release
of Tori Amos’s Original Bootlegs CD box set. The release of official bootleg recordings
is changing the role and value of bootlegs in music fan communities. By targeting the
collection’s release only to the Toriphile community before it was released to the
general public, the collection garnered acceptance from Amos’s dedicated fan
community. Fan discourse suggests that fans who purchased or reviewed the Original
Bootlegs do not find the collection’s widespread release or its adoption of the term
“bootleg” to be problematic; rather, they are grateful for the quality and release of the
recordings. The fan community’s acceptance of and high regard for the collection also
suggest that there is no longer an observable distinction between “authentic” and
mass-produced goods in subcultural communities. Currently, Amos’s massproduced, official bootlegs are highly valued by the Toriphile community, perhaps
Popular Music and Society
371
even more so than traditional bootleg recordings, which are sometimes of inferior
quality.
Furthermore, the release of the Original Bootlegs also contributes to the music
industry’s discursive and material co-optation of the term “bootleg.” By choosing to
call these releases “bootlegs” Amos ultimately undermines—and in the process
destabilizes—the bootleg as a genre. These actions on Amos’s part are especially
problematic because her success relies on an emotionally invested fan base with
independent roots. As this paper shows, both fans and the music industry have
invested in advances in digital recordings and distribution sites. Digital technologies
are not only providing the means for fans to gain access to better bootleg recordings
but are also creating additional profit opportunities for major record labels and the
industry as a whole. Consequently, future research could address two issues. First, it
could examine the ways in which the intent to record live concerts for future
distribution is affecting the live concert performance. Second, one might consider what
is replacing the value of the subcultural capital that was once acquired via collecting
bootlegs in fan cultures like the Toriphile fan community. Despite the co-optation and
changes to the “bootleg” currently under way, dedicated fans and fan cultures will
continue to assign subcultural capital to material artifacts and discursive practices of
their choosing, in their continued efforts to maintain subcultural economies and
distinguish themselves from more casual fans and dominant culture alike.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the anonymous Popular Music and Society reviewers for their feedback on
this essay. Earlier versions were presented at the 2006 Canadian Communication Association
Conference at York University, Toronto; and the 2008 International Association for the Study of
Popular Music—US Conference in Iowa City, IA.
Notes
[1] An MP3D is a video coding scheme that offers good compression performance at low bit rates.
[2] The website superbowl.com boasts that more people watched Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005
(133.7 million viewers) than voted in the 2004 US presidential election (Brandt). Live
broadcasts of the Live 8 concerts were streamed on AOL and televised uninterrupted in the US
on MTV, MTV2, MTVU, and VH1.
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Discography
Amos, Tori. Little Earthquakes. Atlantic, 1992.
———. Original Bootlegs. Sony, 2005.
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Popular Music and Society
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Appendix A
Tori Amos The Original Bootlegs Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, 15 April 2005
Royce Hall Auditorium, Los Angeles, 25 April 2005
Paramount Theatre, Denver, 19 April 2005
Manchester Apollo, Manchester, 5 June 2005
Hammersmith Apollo, London, 4 June 2005
B of A Pavilion, Boston, 21 August 2005
Songs titles (listed by original release)
Y Kant Tori Read?
Cool on Your Island
Little Earthquakes
Leather
Mother
Silent all these Years
Tear in Your Hand
Winter
Under the Pink
Bells for Her
Cloud on my Tongue
Icicle
Pretty Good Year
Space Dog
Yes, Anastasia
Boys for Pele
Beauty Queen
Caught a Lite Sneeze
Doughnut Song
Father Lucifer
Hey Jupiter
Horses
Little Amsterdam
Marianne
Not the Red Baron
Putting the Damage On
Twinkle
From the Choirgirl Hotel
Liquid Diamonds
Playboy Mommy
1
2
3
3
3
3
3
4
5
6
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
(continued)
374
R. Farrugia and N. Gobatto
Appendix A Continued
Songs titles (listed by original release)
To Venus and Back
Spring Haze
Suede
1000 Oceans
Strange Little Girls
Rattlesnakes
Scarlet’s Walk
Amber Waves
Carbon
Pancake
Strange
Your Cloud
The Beekeeper
Barons of Suburbia
The Beekeeper
Cars and Guitars
Hoochie Woman
Jamaica Inn
Martha’s Foolish Ginger
Mother Revolution
Original Sinsuality
Parasol
The Power of Orange Knickers
Ribbons Undone
Sweet the Sting
Toast
Witness
Singles/B-Sides Previously Released
Angie
Apollo’s Frock
Cooling
Garlands
Honey
Never Seen Blue
Ruby through the Looking Glass
Take to the Sky
Previously Unreleased Songs
All through the Night
Circle Game
1
2
3
4
5
3
3
6
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
(continued)
Popular Music and Society
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Appendix A Continued
Songs titles (listed by original release)
Don’t Look Back in Anger
Dream On
Father Figure
I Ran
Like a Prayer
Livin’ on a Prayer
My Favorite Things
Operator
Suzanne
Total Eclipse of the Heart
1
2
3
4
5
6
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
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