How Soviet Bootleggers Kept Forbidden Music Alive

In the 1950s USSR, Rock Around the Clock didn’t sound the same to everyone—if they heard it at all. Western music was hard to come by. Rock ‘n’ roll and jazz were considered culturally corruptive, a threat to Soviet values. The State kept it off the airwaves to prevent a youth rebellion. Even the music of Soviet emigres was banned—those who had left were traitors. Turn on a radio, and you’d mostly hear Russian (or under Stalin, Georgian) folk songs.

But people found ways to listen. They turned to Ribs—bootleg records made from discarded X-rays. Also called music on ribs, jazz on bones, or bone music, these were gramophone records etched onto old medical scans. Vinyl was scarce, but X-ray film was easy to get.

Bootleggers would bribe hospital workers or dig through trash for unburned X-rays, then cut them into discs using the edge of a plate. A hole was burned through the center with a cigarette, and grooves were pressed in, creating makeshift records.

It became a booming black market. Bootleggers could roll twenty or more Ribs up a coat sleeve and deal them on street corners. There were no guarantees—you might ask for Rock Around the Clock and get something completely different. But buyers didn’t know what the originals sounded like anyway. They had to take it on faith.

A Look Inside the Body Politic

Propaganda and censorship went hand in hand. The Soviet State didn’t just control what people heard—it controlled who was allowed to profit. Producing and selling Ribs wasn’t just illegal, it was anti-Communist. The State owned the means of production, and private enterprise was a crime. Authorities saw bootleggers as ideological threats. Some were jailed more than once. The official charge? Criminally hooligan behavior.

Even the records themselves were subversive. Most Ribs could only be played five to ten times before they broke down. No two copies sounded the same. Grooves were shallow, recordings were poor, and every version was slightly different. The act of listening became personal. And individuality—the idea that no two people might hear the same thing—was dangerous.

By the mid-1960s, reel-to-reel tapes took over, and Ribs faded. Today, they’re collectors’ items—strange, ghostly relics of an underground culture. Stephen Coates, who has written the definitive history of Ribs, first found one at a market in St. Petersburg. He’s exhibited them worldwide, showing how music, even in its most fragile form, can outlast the systems that try to silence it. This documentary is a great watch for more about the history of Ribs.