| Bootleg Retrospective | |
| Type: | Compilation album |
| Artist: | the Slits |
| Cover: | Y3LP Slits.jpg |
| Released: | 17 March 1980 |
| Recorded: | various homes and stages, 1977–1979 |
| Genre: | Post-punk |
| Label: | Y Records |
| Prev Title: | Cut |
| Prev Year: | 1979 |
| Next Title: | Return of the Giant Slits |
| Next Year: | 1981 |
Bootleg Retrospective is a compilation album by the Slits. The album is officially untitled. It is also referred to as Y (its record label), Y3LP (its serial number), Y3Lp—The Official Bootleg, (On a Japanese RCA Victor reissue), and, in Greil Marcus' book "Lipstick Traces," A Boring Life, or Once Upon A Time In A Living Room.
The album consists of lo-fi demos and live performances, mostly, in all likelihood from 1977-9, preceding the sessions for 1979's Cut album. Two recordings, "Face Place" and "Or What Is It?", are skeletal, incomplete sketches of songs which appeared in finished form on 1981's Return of the Giant Slits album. A 30-second section of "Bongos on the Lawn" appears at the opening of the promotional video for "Instant Hit" from the Cut album.
In spite of its rough and informal appearance, the album was an authorized release compiled by the Slits, who were signed to Y Records at the time. It was released by Y Records, on or around 17 March 1980, and was distributed by Rough Trade Records.
All tracks written by Viv Albertine, Tessa Pollitt, Arianne Forster (Ari Up) and Paloma Romero (a.k.a. Palmolive)
A CD re-release by Japanese RCA Victor uses the wrong song titles on several of the tracks; this is verifiable by comparing the titles with other appearances of these songs on various studio and live Slits releases.
The performance titled "No More Rock n Roll For You" is a 30 May 1977 live encore co-performance with the bands Subway Sect and the Prefects, from the California Ballroom in Dunstable http://www.punk77.co.uk/groups/prefectsgighistory.htm on the White Riot tour. This track is included on Vic Godard and the Subway Sect's compilation Twenty Odd Years as "We Oppose All Rock and Roll/Sister Ray"; it features extensive lyric quotations from the Velvet Underground song "Sister Ray".
with:
Release date/press release confirmed in Punk Diary: The Ultimate Trainspotter's Guide to Underground Rock, 1970–1982, George Gimarc, p. 307.