Albums that were OOP/Forgotten Classics that you always wanted to hear but couldn't get them in pre-internet days but finally heard via Napster (or some other p2p)

From the Slave: What Happened?

Listening to Slave - The Concept on Spotify now. I could never find this album (pre-internet days) and the CD was OOP, so I was so chuffed to finally hear it via Napster in 2000.
― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Sunday, 12 April 2009 20:31

Other albums I could finally hear after years of looking in every record shop in Glasgow/Tried libraries etc were
Redd Kross - Neurotica
Neil Young - On The Beach
Tim Buckley - Starsailor
Uncle Tupelo - No Depression (i had the 2nd cd but could never get the 1st)
Neu! (i had italian bootleg cds of the other 2)
Kraftwerk 1 (did get 2 on lp in Tower Records as they had found some copies in a warehouse)

I'm sure there's others that will spring to mind later(such as loads of pfunk spin-offs) but what albums did you all get via p2p, after a long time looking, that hadn't yet been reissued?

No New York

No New York

No New York has been reissued - got a copy on vinyl a year or so ago.

yeah but it hadnt been when Napster started.

It took months and months for people to persuade me to use Napster, but as soon as i found out that there was all this OOP gold on there, i leapt in. I couldnt afford a cd writer at the time, and my comp had like a tiny 5gb HD,so I connected my stereo to the comp, then played albums through the Napster built in media player and recorded to cassette! I had hundreds of tapes. Used to loan them to friends who were just as eager to hear the albums as I was. Obviously the sound quality wasnt great but i didnt care as i could finally hear all these albums I had longed to hear for a long long time.

Bat Chain Puller - Beefheart

oh yeah albums by the likes of Saint Vitus,Obsessed I finally got to hear in 2000 via napster. I only had compilation cds before then.

elephant in the room: Smile!

The Human Switchboard

buckingham nicks, though i did get hold of the vinyl a few months later

there were a bunch of these for me.
the Charalambides "Union" LP (got a copy on vinyl later, for free, thanks to ILX!)
Michael Hurley'a "Hi Fi Snock Uptown" eluded me on LP for years after I got Armchair Boogie..
La Monte Young bootlegs (and Charlemagne Palestine boots.)

La Monte Young seconded

studio west coast

The Great Lost Kinks Album.

(although I found upon hearing it that a good chunk had found its way onto the easily available Kink Kronikles)

true story: the only kinks record my mom owned was the great lost kinks album. so weird.

east village, turns out they're horrible.

wtf dude

James Blood Ulmer - Black Rock and Tales of Captain Black
Hackamore Brick - One Kiss Leads to Another
Bizarros (everything)
The Stark Reality - Discovers Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop
Chrome - The Visitation
Nona Hendryx s/t

and a whole assload of Sun Ra that Evidence never got around to reissuing

James Blood Ulmer - Black Rock and Tales of Captain Black

haha i got them too.
Chrome was something else i got.

Heh, I think ILX users are all really young and grew up with the internet so they don't remember when it was practically impossible to hear a lot of stuff. Napster really did open a lot of doors, it was really exciting. Now everyone just takes it for granted that they can hear anything they want when they like now.

That first Divine Comedy record that has a similar name to one of his recent releases - Fanfare for the Comic Muse?

All the MBV stuff up to Ecstasy and Wine.

Dion "Born to Be With You'
Leonard Cohen "Death of A Ladies Man"
Flame s/t
Funkadelic rarity "The Rat Kissed the Cat"
Beach Boys "Landlocked"
The Great Lost Kinks album
The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands
The Turtles "Turtle Soup"
lots of Too $hort
Milton Nascimento "Milagros de los Peixes", "Cluba De Esquina", "Milton"
Black Sabbath "Mob Rules", "Heaven and Hell"
Nuggets II box set
Arthur Russell "The World of Arthur Russell"
lots of Lee Hazlewood
Lou Reed "Take No Prisoners" (never issued on CD!!)
lots of Jimmie Rodgers
Jorge Ben "Africa Brasil", "Forca Bruta"
Gene Clark "No Other"

almost all of these came from blogs

UMCs "Fruits of Nature"
Showbiz and AG "Runaway Slave"
Big Daddy Kane "Long Live the Kane"

still lookin for that Kwame album lolz

seconding "Born to Be With You", Arthur Russell, La Monte Young

others: "Pacific Ocean Blue" was OOP when I tracked it down back in 2003, Orange Juice's debut, and I count the Jon Brion mix of "Extraordinary Machine", too.

Tracking down a lot of the Opal stuff was what convinced me of the inherent goodness of the Internet.

I love the idea of this thread, but it's hard to think of specific examples. I do recall awhile where I was scared I'd never find Kate Bush's early "Cathy Demos" ever again (someone stole the bootleg CD from me), but of course now I can get them at the drop of a hat. I never really bothered though, because to be honest, much as I love her, they're not that great! :)

I tend to think that what the internet really did for me was more important for informational reasons rather than any particular release. Oh! I just thought of something. The "From Brussels With Love" compilation (before LTM reissued it). The net hooked me up with someone who sold me a copy.

Something kept me from being a part of Napster, can't remember why exactly. I didn't start downloading anything until about 2002 and it was slim pickings. I hadn't found slsk yet.

um i think downloading 2004 soul jazz compliations counts really

chris and cosey- songs of love and lust. shitloads of old noise/drone nurse list stuff through the thing on the doorstep

can't think of any offhand--aside from bootlegs (Tree With Roots, Chrome Dreams, etc.), that is.

I have none of these so I must be too young.

Everything by Armand Schaubroeck
Torrents of garage / psych singles, stuff from the Acid Archives.
The Parlaiments I Wanna Testify
NMH / Jeff Mangum bootlegs
Bog Seger And the Last Herd
Art Phag
A little tune called "Pancake Trees" u may have heard of it.
A whole buncha stuff I'm sure, this could go on.

Not that I knew about any of this stuff pre-Napster, I was too young and too isolated.

Also I just realized I'm rockist.

Flying Burrito Bros 3rd album

Lou Reed "Take No Prisoners" (never issued on CD!!)

Uhhhhhhhhh, what??!?!?!

Napster definitely helped out my Univers Zero and Pentagram collections. Of course, now I know where to find that stuff remastered... but then? Not so much.

"Starsailor" by Tim Buckley, which never impressed me much.
Also managed to find a couple albums by Pezband that I had really been looking for.

First two Raincoats albums
Flipper - Album: Generic
Omni Trio - The Deepest Cut Vol. 1
Buckingham/Nicks
Swans - White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity

Shitloads of (not actually that good after all) Krautrock

I only had a 56k connection back in the heyday of Napster so I couldn't download much of anything, though I did get a few SST gems that were rare at the time (and still are, unless you know the right blogs, etc).

I only had dial-up. So basically had to queue stuff and leave it overnight and hope it didn't crash.

Luckily i didnt have an ISP that disconnected you every 2 hours so I could just stay on.

Cerebral Corps - Attributed To...
Judee Sill/Linda Perhacs
ROIR stuff - Neubauten, Bad Brains, Television
Mission Of Burma
The Young Fresh Fellows
Some Voivod

Uhhhhhhhhh, what??!?!?!

lolz I stand corrected - reissued domestically in 2002

yeah -- it was sorta difficult to track down in the 90s, at least. I remember debating paying out for a ridiculously priced import when I was a kid. But then I found it cheap on record ...

I didn't know Omni Trio's Deepest Cut was an out-of-print/rare record. Didn't it even get reissued at some point with a different cover?

Edgar Froese, Epsilon in Malaysian Pale

Oh boy, someone at Discogs is selling a "near mint" copy of the original Deepest Cut CD for 60 quids! Maybe I should sell my copy too.