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Since the 1960s the bootleg record industry has shown considerable growth. Generally bootleg records present unauthorized recordings based on unauthorized taping of live performances or radio and television broadcasts, or stolen tapes from unreleased studio sessions of a particular artist or group. Bootleg recordings exist because they have a market: they fulfill fan needs. In this article Gary Warren Melton reports his research on the role of some Beatles' fanzines as an intermediary between the bootleg record industry and the Beatles' fan. Generally, fanzines would appear to provide social integration functions, entertainment functions, and cognitive gain functions through subscriptions to Beatle fanzines such as Beatlefan and Beatles Unlimited. Pertaining to the data base gathered from the readership of Beatlefan, Melton concludes, this fanzine does impact upon popular music consumption by affecting the type and nature of record purchases, especially in the rare recording area. Secondly, fan dependency upon the fanzine is evident but somewhat ambiguous with the small sample and exploratory measures employed. Third, some behavior patterns appeared to be associated with exposure attributes. Fourth, several functions appeared to exist for some fans across several fanzine subscriptions. |
