In the 90s a host of scenes collided producing a slew of fascinating lps mixing tunes from wildly different sources.
80s breakbeat lps like Ultimate Breaks n' Beats inadvertently introduced the notion that a compilation didn't have to contain just one type of genre.
Bootleggers began creating dancefloor friendly compilations around an axis of Funk, Soul, Jazz and Latin but it wasn't long before they started diggin' deeper...
When new scenes evolved in the mid-90s adventurous DJs and crate-diggers brought choice exotica, Afrobeat, OSTs, easy listening, rock, folk, psych and library music lps to the party.
A wealth of illicit but beautifully compiled lps began to appear in specialist record shops and on market stalls all over the UK.
forumusic presents...
The 90s Boot Boom
During forumusic interviews in 2011 with UK record collectors in their mid-thirties the subject of bootleg compilation lps purchased from city centre market stalls during the 90s cropped up time and time again.
Many cited these compilations as influential in shaping their tastes by introducing them to artists and sounds they would never otherwise have heard.
Tracks on them were hard to find or expensive and few teenage collectors wanted to spend a lot on one lp just to get one good track. To cash-strapped youths hungry for a variety of new sounds ten pounds spent on a bootleg containing a variety of obscurities made sound economic sense.
We knew little about them but a quick rummage in the racks revealed a few from distant trades which had never been played. There was one each from the Dusty Fingers and The Mood Mosaic series plus Diggin’ Deeper 4.
Dimensions In Sound Vol. 1 and 2 sourced from the stall of respected vinyl-fiend and Eclectic Mud DJ Lee Birchall at Leeds Record Fair in June 2011 only served to pique our interest further
Comp. Not On Label. Unofficial
The mixture of library, easy and OST on both volumes of Dimensions was fascinating but researching them online yielded little information so we posted for 90s boot recommendations on that ever-reliable goldmine of information called the VG+ music forum. Strafed with recommendations we found ourselves tailspinning out of control with curiosity about their origins, chronology and context.
With anoraks tightly fastened we began listing lps which Discogs categorises as Comp. Not On Label. Unofficial. Tracklistings seem to mirror the shifting musical taste of 90s UK clubland which existed separately from the globally gluttonous Rave, Trance, Hip Hop and Techno scenes which otherwise dominated the decade.
The number of releases containing the widest range of genres pinpoints the period from 95 to 98 as the Golden Age for 90s Boot lps.
From the mid 80s onwards UK crate-diggers had been seeking out new sounds to fuel the well-established rare groove, jazz-funk, fusion and acid jazz scenes. At the start of the 90s more enterprising types were trawling beyond these genres for exotica, funky orchestral, library records and soundtracks for the rapidly growing easy listening scene.
Cd sales surpassing lp sales plus car boot sales multiplying faster than bacteria equalled a large amount of vinyl to buy cheaply and sift through every weekend. Vinyl had already been pronounced dead and buried by major record labels keen to get the world and his dog to re-purchase their entire collections on cd.
There was treasure trove overground in abundance in the muddy, tyre-tracked fields of Car Boot UK. In a short space of time a new canon of easy listening lps to scour for quickly evolved and record dealers made fast cash selling them on to a new generation of Bacharach-loving, polo-necked punters. Liza Minelli and Labi Siffre lps that were a pound each on Sunday morning would cost a lot more on week days.
The growing popularity of cds released lps in other ways too.
Cds meant radio and TV companies all over the UK celebrated new-found storage space as they discarded under-used, dusty and horribly green ‘Production Music’ lps that were cluttering up shelves.
By the mid 90s the established funk, soul, jazz and latin comps extended their remit to include Afrobeat, library, psych, orchestral and easy listening making compilations which make for great listening today.
Tracklistings contained wildly eclectic selections and even folk and prog rock found their place alongside funky Hammond organ or Moog tracks. An lp aptly-entitled Melting Pot from 95 contains tracks by Pierre Henry, John Schroeder, Lili Lindfors, The Gimmicks, Trinidad and Tobago Steel Band, Ananda Shankar, Lloyd Price, Lalo Schifrin, Alice Clarke and Jose Feliciano.
Wall of 95 names like David Axelrod, Brother Jack McDuff, RAMP and Galt MacDermot are present in abundance across many different compilations. This was unsurprising given that in a very short space of time the bootlegs themselves got bootlegged. Bootleg collectors said the Dexters got Harry'd and we didn't have a clue what they were talking about first time round either.
Fifteen years on is distance enough for some kind of historical perspective on these limited edition releases.
forumusic offers this seven-part series as an introduction to the 90s Lounge Boot Boom but wont be claiming 100% accuracy.
The illegal nature of these lps and how they were pressed and distributed means written clues on the vinyl, labels and sleeves is either scant, non-existent or laughably misleading.
Phone numbers and addresses either don’t exist or lead to unlikely places and scanning the lps barcodes makes for excellent light entertainment.
Many who created these lps are still around today and forumusic have interviewed several of them to illuminate the twilight world of 90s bootlegging...
..but that's for later. Right now you'll have to make do with forumusic; a latecomer to the 90s UK Lounge Boot party; reviewing the lps, inspecting the run-out grooves and forensically filtering fragmentary evidence from sleeve designs, labels and price stickers to build a case for their chronology and their defence.
As already stated, accuracy is not a given and some lps listed here as bootlegs may be completely legal.
If you are a legitimate compiler and feel unjustly tarred by your labour of love lp being referenced here please do not hesitate to get in touch. Rest assured there are plenty more genuinely illicit original compilations that we could review. It’s the context of these unofficial compilations that intrigues us.
As the 90s progressed the output of boots turned from a trickle into a flood as more have-a-go entrepreneurs created compilations after witnessing the earliest boot offerings sold openly on market stalls and record shops with little interference from Trading Standards Officers, though not everyone made a clean getaway.
Did the increasingly professional artwork reflect advances and affordability in graphic design software through the 90s?
...or did the early compilers just make a shedload money? White sleeves and monotone stickers gradually morphed into full colour, professionally designed sleeves replete with psychedelic mission statements as the year 2000 approached. Even the titles of boots grew in confidence over the decade.
Titles like Sound of Funk, Vintage on Vinyl, Cool Classics, Sample This, Heavyweight Grooves and From The Funk Side on earlier compilations matter-of-factly state their content. Later the same decade Space Age Bachelors were persuaded to part with cash by the headier-sounding enticements of Mindbending Nuggets, The Mood Mosaic, Sexopolis and The Mighty Mellow.
Full-breasted covers knowingly mimicked 70s-style porn and less-than-subtle filmic references like Planet Of The Breaks and Beyond The Planet Of The Superbeats reassured potential customers that this was all very clever and well worth buying into.
From a listening point of view it most certainly was and still is..
It isn't pretty to begin with but to present how boots evolved from compilations of sought after club tracks...
...into artfully segued, mixed genre selections compiled by knowledgeable record dealers and crate diggers we have to go back; way back, to the early 90s.
Montone stickers and white label pressings do not make for essential viewing but by listening to them carefully we can trace a thread from funk to funky, from soundtracks to Afrobeat, from easy listening to psych and rock until we reach 1995; the first of four golden years in which the lps became works of art in their own right.
Part 1 surveys 1990 to 1993 when funk, soul, jazz and latin boots boomed, the lounge was just a room where you watched the telly, a library was the place you borrowed books from and easy meant a day skiving off work.
Funk, Soul, Jazz and Latin scenes were thriving in the UK. Acid Jazz was peaking and Hip Hop was being played in jazz clubs despite some initial fuss.. Thousands were out and about raving but not Tim Berners-Lee who created the first web page on Xmas day of 1990.
Meanwhile in UK specialist record shops and on market stalls the number of anonymous plain-sleeved lps with stickers on their sleeves was steadily growing. Hold on to your boots and click your Cuban heels over to:
The 90s Boot Boom: Part 1: Boot Roots: 1990 - 1993
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