Hi all,
 
Just thought thought I'd put my penny's-worth in over this bootleg issue.  The fact is, I love music, and most of all, I love Madness.  So from being 13 to present day I have collected pretty much everything they've ever recorded.  The only way for me to go after this, would be to buy a vinyl player, and re-purchase all the albums etc. to hear what they sound like digitally un-remastered.  To be fair, I know there's a few alternate b-side cuts that never made it on to CD, and I buy these whenever I can.  Despite, as I say, not having a vinyl player.
So where to go?  What to buy?  Then you can buy live bootlegs, and let's face it, these are never going to be released after Madstock and Universal, so if I see a CD of a concert in Hamburg from the early 80s, do I buy it?  Yes I do!  Do I like it?  Yes, I do!  Do the band get any money from it?  No they don't!  But if they were to ever release any of this stuff officially I would be the first person in HMV on Monday morning, one hand on my wallet, the other on my car keys.
As for The Lost, �38 seems a bit steep, seeing as how the 3CD The Business was only �22.  If I wasn't so horrifically in debt though, I have to say I couldn't stop myself.  What's more, I certainly wouldn't feel guilty about buying rarities my favourite band in the world, in fact I'd be quite chuffed.
So some little geek gets money from our guy's hard work.  Well, maybe he'll be caught, castrated, and thrown down a well sometime in the future.  In the meantime, it's the only place I can get these recordings and to be honest, if he's risking his balls to sell them, well...cheers.
By the way, I probably never would have paid the hundreds of pounds I have to Madness and their record company, had it not been for buying a bootleg of Divine Madness in 1993 and thinking they were great.   
Just my opinion, thought I'd drop it in there, peace and love,
 
The Hunter.
 
 

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