The Day the Music Burned

I couldn’t find another good thread to post this on. This article about the 2008 destruction of UMG’s vault of original master recordings was shocking, especially how well the company was able to cover it up:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html

Yeah, it's a grim read. How on earth can companies be persuaded to start taking this stuff much more seriously?

They can't.

Buy more deluxe reissues!

Thanks for posting this

Yet the news has never reached the broader public. In part, this represents a triumph of crisis management. In the days following the fire, officials at UMG’s global headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., and in New York scrambled to spin and contain press coverage.

That's how you put all those undelivered artist royalties to work.

related article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/master-recordings-universal-fire.html

"Decades ago, employees of CBS Records reportedly took power saws to multitrack masters to sell the reels as scrap metal."

:O

Damn. That was fascinating but hard to read. And as for their so-called "Project Phoenix":

UMG began Project Phoenix in October 2008. The plan was to gather duplicates of recordings whose masters were lost. ... The project lasted two years and, by Aronson’s
estimate, recovered perhaps a fifth of what had been lost .... Copies were placed in storage holds on both coasts: at an underground vault in Boyers, Pa., and a high-rise facility in Hollywood. Both vaults are run by Iron Mountain, the global information-management and storage giant.

...well, I hope they read up on the company first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Mountain_%28company%29#Data_losses

(we, ah - just don't mention that name in front of my old boss) (not in a music-related job)

one last note, for music journalists who follow me: there's no indication that artists and estates were told about any of this. some definitely knew; others may be finding out about it this week. in other words: there are a LOT of musicians to be asked what they think.

— Nitsuh Abebe (@ntabebe) June 11, 2019

it's quoted in the piece, but much of this is an expansion upon this talk from the 2014 EMP Conference

http://www.andyzax.com/goodbye

I mean you can drop the needle just about anywhere in this piece and hit some heartbreaking information but this fucking killed me:

Most of John Coltrane’s Impulse masters were lost, as were masters for treasured Impulse releases by Ellington, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders and other jazz greats

I was wondering about the Sun Ra tapes, though. I believe Sun Ra's masters have always resided with Sun Ra's estate -- the Lost Reel Collection series, among other releases, suggests as much. With the exception of Space Is The Place, his ABC/Impulse recordings were reissues of Saturn material. That is, there's a chance that the now-destroyed Impulse tapes for Astro Black and Pathways To Unknown Worlds could have been copies of the Saturn masters.

I have Sugar Pie DeSanto singles comp on Kent where in the liner notes it's mentioned in passing that all of her unreleased Chess masters had been destroyed in that fire. The one outtake included came from an acetate that iirc came from a private collection.

You can’t really force people to take better care of their stuff, I’m sure that the fate of millions of manuscripts and mountains of architects drawings isn’t much better.

I was just reading last night, in a book about Marvel Comics, about how most original artwork from 1960s comics was destroyed after publication (in the context of a rare/surviving original Ditko cover illustration).

it's quoted in the piece, but much of this is an expansion upon this talk from the 2014 EMP Conference

Those of us there in the room will remember the literal vocal agony we all went through when hearing about this. The full details of the fire's toll weren't talked about by Andy as much as in Jody's piece but yeah...that was not a good twenty minutes (and given all the other stories Andy was telling, that was just a part of it). There was definitely a sense of 'can this information leave the room?' about the whole thing, so reading in Jody's piece about how it was talked about, just in a way that wasn't getting any kind of real shine anywhere, was sadly illuminating.

just finished reading this piece. gutted.

Postscript to @jodyrosen's article: Charles Wright made A Lil' Encouragement in '75. ABC Records cancelled its release after making a few 8-track cartridges. The album masters burned in the Universal fire; this tape--the only known copy--is now the sole evidence of its existence. pic.twitter.com/9qqJfM26vw

— Andy Zax (@andyzax) June 11, 2019

The lawyers will be gearing up

REMHQ is receiving inquiries from many people concerned about the New York Times article on the Universal Music fire 11 years ago. We are trying to get good information to find out what happened and the effect on the band’s music, if any. We will detail further as and when.

— R.E.M. HQ (@remhq) June 11, 2019

For over a decade, @Holerock didn't know a warehouse fire destroyed their master recordings https://t.co/mZrDI1jFvU

— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) June 11, 2019

fuuuuuck

This might explain why nobody can find the original Asia album masters. Very sad, and UMG have kept it quiet for more than 10 years. https://t.co/eWMaEcoBRC

— Geoffrey Downes (@asiageoff) June 11, 2019

Holy shit!

There's a third-party version of this story going around social media claiming in the headline that Eagles masters where among those destroyed.

So there's that...

The story leaves it unclear. Azoff was shown tapes but were they the tapes, etc.

I'll bet Elton John'll have something to say about his masters getting torched.

XP I think what they meant were Henley's solo albums.

And I guess Frey's too?

Eagles tapes should be w/Warner Music.

Apparently what Azoff took were Steely Dan tapes.

Fun Fact: Azoff was the head of MCA Records in the mid-'80s.

UMG's lawyers are having a fine day, I'm sure. This was a really rough read, but gripping. Scary to realize how fast this stuff can disappear.

It is sad to read this. The decline of the SACD format aside, this is another reason we won’t ever get more high-definition reissues of Coltrane’s Impulse albums than we already have.

Most countries in Europe, I imagine, would’ve already declared these recordings historic and placed them under preservation laws funded by the government. Would America do the same?

the Eagles are mentioned in the apocalyptically large and awful list of artists mentioned from the article

mong the incinerated Decca masters were recordings by titanic figures in American music: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland. The tape masters for Billie Holiday’s Decca catalog were most likely lost in total. The Decca masters also included recordings by such greats as Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five and Patsy Cline.

The fire most likely claimed most of Chuck Berry’s Chess masters and multitrack masters, a body of work that constitutes Berry’s greatest recordings. The destroyed Chess masters encompassed nearly everything else recorded for the label and its subsidiaries, including most of the Chess output of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley, Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and Little Walter. Also very likely lost were master tapes of the first commercially released material by Aretha Franklin, recorded when she was a young teenager performing in the church services of her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, who made dozens of albums for Chess and its sublabels.

Virtually all of Buddy Holly’s masters were lost in the fire. Most of John Coltrane’s Impulse masters were lost, as were masters for treasured Impulse releases by Ellington, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders and other jazz greats.

...

The list of destroyed single and album masters takes in titles by dozens of legendary artists, a genre-spanning who’s who of 20th- and 21st-century popular music. It includes recordings by Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, the Andrews Sisters, the Ink Spots, the Mills Brothers, Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Clara Ward, Sammy Davis Jr., Les Paul, Fats Domino, Big Mama Thornton, Burl Ives, the Weavers, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Bobby (Blue) Bland, B.B. King, Ike Turner, the Four Tops, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Joan Baez, Neil Diamond, Sonny and Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, Captain Beefheart, Cat Stevens, the Carpenters, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Al Green, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Elton John, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Buffett, the Eagles, Don Henley, Aerosmith, Steely Dan, Iggy Pop, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Barry White, Patti LaBelle, Yoko Ono, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Police, Sting, George Strait, Steve Earle, R.E.M., Janet Jackson, Eric B. and Rakim, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Guns N’ Roses, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Sonic Youth, No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Dogg, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Hole, Beck, Sheryl Crow, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, 50 Cent and the Roots.

(the comments are also full of "why didn't they digitize them?" which is an especially bleak chaser, considering 50 million digital songs were reported lost in a separate incident just two months ago)

That's weird. The Eagles' catalogue is with Warner Music, who weren't using that wearhouse.

holy shit, this is horrifying

The REM tweet and Hole comment sort of confirm what I was thinking while I was reading that I bet most of these artist have no clue this happened

Yes, and Geoff Downes trying to locate the masters for his own album, completely unaware that they may have went up in smoke. Clearly, nobody told him that it might have even been a possibility.

Unsurprisingly, there seems to be very real tears shed over this over at the Hoffman boards. An effect of this, of course, is that a lot of recordings issued post-2008 on reissue labels for audiophiles may not have come from first generation masters, which is very embarrassing for those labels.

Most countries in Europe, I imagine, would’ve already declared these recordings historic and placed them under preservation laws funded by the government. Would America do the same?

― Naive Teen Idol, Tuesday, June 11, 2019 10:44 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

From my research into early recordings for centuries of sound, easily the best archive of acoustic era recordings is that of UCSB, in terms of scope of collection, preservation quality and ease of access for the public, there is nothing even approaching it anywhere in Europe. I love the British Library, but they have nothing to compare. UCSB is what, 100 miles from the Universal Studios lot? So I think this is less to do with the lack of a national culture of preservation, and more to do with these assholes at UMG.

This Twitter thread is interesting:

Looking back, the massive loss of music master tapes at Universal seems like a secret hiding in plain sight. The label's reissue division slowed considerably in the past decade, releasing very few of the deluxe and expanded editions they offered during the 2000s.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine (@sterlewine) June 11, 2019

What it made me think about is that the recent cheapo catalog boxes, 5 CDs for $20, which started rolling out in roughly 2010-2011, all came from the other two majors, Sony ("Original Albums Series") and WMG ("Original Album Classics") - Universal never had their own line like those, and maybe this was why.

An effect of this, of course, is that a lot of recordings issued post-2008 on reissue labels for audiophiles may not have come from first generation masters, which is very embarrassing for those labels.

I was wondering about this. Sundazed, for instance, has done a ton of UMG reissues on vinyl and CD in last several years that were pitched as coming from original tapes and such.

XP UMG did a number of those boxes, usually branded "# of Great Albums" (the number usually being 3-5), but they weren't as widely marketed, and some of them were poorly put together (like, say, three KISS or Skynyrd albums paired w/Greatest Hits covering the same period).

xp yeah and at least the mono Safe As Milk was a total hack job/scam:

http://www.zappateers.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=30559

XP Those UMG boxes were also pretty much exclusively Rock and R&B albums that had been remastered prior to the fire.

the fire actually explains a lot about why that particular reissue (Safe As Milk) was so badly botched, they had nothing to work with

Yeah I'm not sure that the situation is much better in Europe. First there's WW2 where most efforts were made to save old works, and also after that you read story after story of wiped and reused tapes, water damage (like the recent Bob Marley finds), etc.

This is like the saddest thing I have ever read

I brought this up over on a Sonic Youth thread not too long ago, but I had looked into the library of UMG Deluxe Editions, which did slow down to a halt Stateside in the early '10s. The line kept going for a few more healthy years in the UK, but with almost exclusively UK artists (Thin Lizzy, Sandy Denny, Uriah Heap etc.) whose tapes presumably weren't stateside.

Chronological Discogs List of UMG Deluxe Editions

Most of the last several pages are European Artists/Editions.

That’s five of my albums up in smoke

— Maria Mckee (@realmariamckee) June 12, 2019

Yeah reading between the lines of the article it seems pretty clear that UMG had a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy with regard to artists and their tapes - some seem to know, but seems like UMG wasn’t proactively informing artists who were affected. Like all coverups, now it seems like the blowback from having kept it secret all these years will be worse than if they had just come clean in the first place.

Something I’m curious about (and I may have missed it in the article) is to what extent NBCU — owner of the studio lot — was on the hook to UMG (the tenant) for the damage caused by NBCU’s fire.

UMG sued NBCU over the fire, and they eventually came to a settlement. In the article she says that most of the info that’s been made public about the fire was from various documents from the court case.

Ah, yeah — thanks. Then I guess on some level I wonder why UMG went to such lengths to cover it up, rather than point fingers at NBCU and say “it’s their fault.” I guess the fact they had to sue answers that question to some degree.

And having been involved in a corporate separation, I know how the paperwork between former sister entities (which are now unrelated) can be thin...

Nirvana's bassist, responding to a question about the whereabouts of the Nevermind masters. https://t.co/R4mQdMo4HR

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) June 12, 2019

For everyone asking why Do You Want More & Illdelph Halflife wont get reissue treatment https://t.co/Vs0ykRcyAK

— Questlove De La Rose (@questlove) June 11, 2019

Doesn’t sound good for R.E.M.

They sent someone to check out the vault log and then it hit them: B-F & O-S artists took a hit the most. I think everything else was salvaged

— Questlove De La Rose (@questlove) June 11, 2019

this is so terrible

The Curse of The First Letter!

If true, than Maria McKee and Lone Justice should be okay?

N(irvana) comes before O

The Nirvana thing is weird, because Nevermind and In Utero were among the last UMG Deluxe editions released stateside earlier this decade. What did they use for those?

I wonder though if Novoselic is merely referring to the multitracks when he says "Masters".

That said, I can see now why the label didn't proceed with seemingly No-Brainer Special Editions of stuff like Live Through This and Tragic Kingdom.

OK, so here's a question: Tom Petty is listed as an artist affected, but his estate just released that giant boxed set of unreleased material. Was that sourced from somewhere else?

I'm glad y'all are asking these questions because I was thinking the same thing last night wrt REM and all of their recent deluxe remasters.

I also wondered the Nirvana thing. Questlove’s info could be incomplete. That said, the statement that UMG issued in its defense y’day:

...goes on to cite “the tens of thousands of back catalog recordings that we have already issued in recent years – including master-quality, high-resolution, audiophile versions of many recordings that the story claims were ‘destroyed’...

Hmm, "master-quality" does not equal "directly sourced from the original master tapes"...

Yeah, they’re obv. still being slippery... But somehow they did the Nirvana reissue, maybe they had made special dubs of those masters?

all three of those adjectives modifying "versions" are suspect

my impression is that the real loss is things we've never heard and now never will, artists known and largely unknown.

Regarding their defense, to what degree is this "master quality" business true? We've had high fidelity digital for years. So why are there constantly remasters and remixes of relatively recent recordings? The fidelity of the transfer doesn't necessarily speak to its quality, if I'm getting the picture at all.

Wonder if they would've done digital backups of all isolated tracks for things they have reissued recently. If consumers are holding the best of the best that still exists of all this stuff... that's nuts

"many" is also suspect

Regarding post-2008 deluxe editions and remasters, if they're newly-remastered, we don't know what tapes were used, despite what's on the packaging; there's been numerous reissues since the beginning of the CD era touted as "from the original master tapes!" that weren't. And the bands and producers might not even know -- they may have tried to locate the two-track masters only to be given a safety copy or other low-generation copy and told it was the "best available source."

The fire mostly destroyed two-track masters, not multitracks (though there are apparently exceptions, like the possibility the article mentioned of Steely Dan multitracks of unreleased songs supposedly destroyed). So if the R.E.M. and Petty releases contained unreleased material, those could have come from multitracks that were never mixed down, and that were never in the UMG vault. If they included live material, those tapes might've been held onto by the bands/management/someone else rather than the label -- the 1984 Chicago show on the Reckoning deluxe was recorded for a local radio station, and it seems unlikely that I.R.S. would own that tape.

It’s impossible to itemize, precisely, what music was on each tape or hard drive in the vault, which had no comprehensive inventory.

my impression is that the real loss is things we've never heard and now never will, artists known and largely unknown.

It’s impossible to itemize, precisely, what music was on each tape or hard drive in the vault, which had no comprehensive inventory.

imo this whole thing says a lot about bad archival practice as well as mismanagement

Thanks Tarfumes. I'm getting multitracks and two track masters mixed up a bit.

The piece goes on about how playback technology lags recording technology. But are we now at a place where archivists consider digital transfers to capture the "full" content of master tape? To the extent that "remastering" in 10 and 20 years can be done from digital copies made today?

Asking for a friend's warehouse.

It’s odd to consider in the age of Trump and everything else going on, but this should absolutely compel the government to step in and declare remaining tapes historic artifacts – and fund their ongoing preservation. There’s no question if these were paintings this already would’ve been done.

But even taking into consideration that popular music hasn’t really been taken as seriously as art historically and (as noted previously) that Americans tend to be very laissez faire compared to other countries about stuff that actually is taken seriously, this shouldn’t be remotely controversial.

imo this whole thing says a lot about bad archival practice as well as mismanagement

Yeah, the Universal archivist is portrayed in a v sympathetic light, but I couldn’t help but think/wonder whether he really did the best job (or maybe he did the best he could).

There’s no question if these were paintings this already would’ve been done.

How, other than putting them in the Smithsonian or something?

It’s odd to consider in the age of Trump and everything else going on, but this should absolutely compel the government to step in and declare remaining tapes historic artifacts – and fund their ongoing preservation. There’s no question if these were paintings this already would’ve been done.

But even taking into consideration that popular music hasn’t really been taken as seriously as art historically and (as noted previously) that Americans tend to be very laissez faire compared to other countries about stuff that actually is taken seriously, this shouldn’t be remotely controversial.

― Naive Teen Idol, Wednesday, June 12, 2019 10:08 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

even if you discount everything else about the Trump administration, Donald Trump is probably in the lower 5th percentile of people caring about music

(which is not usually how political decisions work, but, well, it's him)

does he do readings of his audiobooks? Hmmmmmmm

As Siegbran said above, “You can’t really force people to take better care of their stuff.” Universal has lots of $$$, I’m not sure they needed a federal grant to store all those tapes someplace safer (or that a grant would have compelled them to do so). Seems like this is really on them.

How, other than putting them in the Smithsonian or something?

The Library of Congress' National Audio-Visual Conservation Center has the technological know-how. The question is would they have the logistical and manpower resources to handle the job.

Real bailout hours

I was more responding to the idea that the gov’t would “step in” and declare privately-held works to be historical artifacts, and fund their preservation.

(xpost)

This is absolutely about resources. It takes a lot of them to preserve historic artifacts appropriately and, in theory, an organization like UMG should have been an ideal actor to do it. The problem is that these assets are not particularly profitable at this point in the music industry. Even worse, they weren’t such a liability that the firm would sell them, but also not a growth asset in any sense of the term. Put another way, UMG would have approached this very differently had they believed there was a clear and compelling reason to.

As a result, this was almost the worst possible place for these recordings to live – controlled by a powerful entity that had little motivation to ensure their long-term preservation and to sell them to someone who did.

Again, this is why we have preservation laws. My point about Trump was not whether he cares about this but rather that we ostensibly have more important things to preserve (such as the republic itself). But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it all the same.

Preservation laws?

http://forum.savingplaces.org/learn/fundamentals/preservation-law/federal

I guess I’m not connecting the dots to the recordings.

What are you wrestling with? Is it philosophical? Or just what the government is “supposed to do” to preserve tapes?

I guess yeah, what is the gov’t “supposed to do”... I’m not clear what’s being proposed.

Oh, the legal aspect of preserving these artifacts--by force if necessary--would be bloody difficult in the current environment. (How did Disney NOT get copyright protections extended for another decade?)

And it would be very easy for opponents to spin a narrative of millionaire recording artists and billionaire record labels letting the government do their dirty work. (Yes, I know most recording artists are 1) not millionaires and 2) subject to the whims and vagaries of their record labels.)

Then again, Obama administration did nothing about this for its entire duration. Sad. Step up Donny'by

Yeah, the Universal archivist is portrayed in a v sympathetic light, but I couldn’t help but think/wonder whether he really did the best job (or maybe he did the best he could).

Don't dump on him without the full information. Wearing my professional library guy hat here: it is all about resources in general, commitments from the larger organization, clear budgets, dedicated processes, etc. Without knowing further, my sense is that he did the best with what he had with an organization that wasn't prepared to fully and consistently commit as it should.

Anyway, two useful threads for the morning.

Thought I'd add some post-scripts to this piece—a quick survey of a few music preservation topics/questions that wound up on the cutting room floor. These things are worth thinking about & (in a couple of cases, at least) might be profitably followed up on by journalists.

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) June 12, 2019

Something I've been pondering as I'm absorbing @jodyrosen's article about the Universal fire. (It's here, if you haven't read it yet--and if you're interested in pop culture at all, you should. https://t.co/KlWB7T1KkL)

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine (@sterlewine) June 12, 2019

There’s no question if these were paintings this already would’ve been done.

I think this is a bit of a different situation. With famous paintings, the one original work in all its 'fidelity' captured the imagination of the world. Art lovers and scholars flocked to museums or private collections to study the subtlety of the brushstrokes, etc. People then understandably make great efforts to preserve this one unique artifact.

With music, the supposedly amazing sound quality of the original masters or the limitless potential to dick around with the individual multi-track material were not what made Coltrane or Nirvana famous, those things did not leave their mark on a generation of listeners, critics and other musicians - it was the copies: crackling mono vinyl, radio transmissions laced with static, the mastering job on the original CD edition. It is a shame we lost these originals, but (and I'm opening myself up to get taken down as challopsy fucker) I don't particularly feel the loss of the master tapes of records that are already well absorbed by humanity (and where the copies are still around in relative abundance) is such a huge loss at the end of the day.

All those unreleased and unsung artists however, I think we lost a lot more there. With the proverbial tree falling in the forest, in this case there *was* someone around to hear it, it did happen, and this archive held the possibility for humanity to redeem itself and discover whatever it missed first time around. These recordings have now been now made equivalent to unrecorded live performances, lost forever in time.

The man helped save the Motown tapes from salad dressing. I think he was doing what he could. He wasn't an executive.

It probably doesn't help that a lot of big-ticket remasters were bungled or weak. Like maybe people would have a better appreciation for a master recording if the Nirvana remasters didn't sound like dogshit

Also, relaunch Pono

I heard from someone in the know that Pono went up in flames a few years ago.

It is a shame we lost these originals, but (and I'm opening myself up to get taken down as challopsy fucker) I don't particularly feel the loss of the master tapes of records that are already well absorbed by humanity (and where the copies are still around in relative abundance) is such a huge loss at the end of the day.

I noticed that artists I’ve seen tweeting have sounded fairly sanguine about the situation (i.e., the follow-up tweets of the artists in this thread). What they gonna do, I guess... their take seems to be that it’s a bummer, but the music is still out there, and life goes on. (Obviously, Bo Diddley and many others aren’t around to tweet.)

I know it's not for everyone but my personal

Giant Steps

Yank Crime

Thank buddha it got a remaster treatment prior to the fire.

(haha, sorry about the tags)

those things did not leave their mark on a generation of listeners, critics and other musicians - it was the copies: crackling mono vinyl, radio transmissions laced with static, the mastering job on the original CD edition.

Apply that to literally any other artform and see if you agree with yourself. "It's unimportant to preserve the original master prints of Citizen Kane because the generation who fell in love with it in the 50s discovered it via static-y latenight TV broadcasts and scratched-up prints in French rep houses, and everyone who likes it has already fully absorbed it."

pipe your music through an old radio for the authentic mark-leaving effect

Someone more knowledgeable about this than me should jump in, but it seems to me part of the problem with loss of the master tapes is that many artists and estates are/were working towards acquiring ownership of said masters, and now alot of their time, money, and effort is down the drain.

Yep, as a result of the late-70s change in copyright law:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/record-biz-braces-for-legal-battles-over-copyright-law-249630/

In 1976, U.S. copyright law was amended to give artists the right to regain the rights to their work after 35 years. The first batch of albums, those created on or after January 1st, 1978, become eligible for so-called “termination rights” from the record companies in 2013. Henley says the Eagles have not yet filed termination paperwork but are considering their options. “It’s very simple,” he says. “We created these records, we paid for them. I want to pass those things along to my children. It’s part of their heritage.”

xxp I know you were just citing Citizen Kane as an example, but it's already being preserved in the National Film Registry: https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/

Even then, the LoC doesn't take ownership of the films it registers/preserves. They add 25 films per year, which is maybe a drop in the bucket, but there is so much more music than film. I guess we would need a new law akin to the National Film Preservation Act for music to be addressed.

No this works for other artforms too. I don’t think that these super recoloured, re-re-remastered and cgi improved versions of Star Wars really really add much over the original 1977 theater prints, no. Or fixing the original prints of novels with more palatable language to please modern readers, or with added paragraphs and chapters from the original manuscript. It’s nice, sure, as an add-on - but essential?

more like Galaxybran

I mean if you have a well preserved good quality original theater cut of Citizen Kane, in my view that’s good enough for humanity. Everyhing else on top is gravy.

Star Wars is a perfect example - the endlessly-fucked-with versions of SW that pollute the marketplace are just continued examples for why it's important to preserve an as-perfect-as-possible copy of the original. Saying "we dont need to preserve these famous things bc they are already famous" turns preservation over to the marketplace and thats how you get

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/L6hZc3_r2ns/hqdefault.jpg

Star Wars is also in the Film Registry (tho again, I know it's just an example)

Saying "we dont need to preserve these famous things bc they are already famous" turns preservation over to the marketplace and thats how you get
This is not at all what I'm saying tho.

you guys know there are no existing prints of the original cut of Star Wars right

(obviously all prints of all Star Wars material should probably be destroyed for the good of humanity)

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jizz

I'm scrolling back in my twitter feed trying to find something I saw earlier this morning about visual media that was lost in the fire. Something about entire classic tv shows that were lost, for example. Anyone have that info handy?

I think most early tv is gone

xxxp to morrisp yeah sorry if I’m being unclear - my point was that the natl film registry for example is good and important, despite the fact that many of the films it preserves are famous and popular and have many extant copies in the world. But doing the same thing with popular sound recordings seems to be a harder sell for some reason.

I'm scrolling back in my twitter feed trying to find something I saw earlier this morning about visual media that was lost in the fire. Something about entire classic tv shows that were lost, for example. Anyone have that info handy?

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Wednesday, June 12, 2019 2:31 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No specifics, but was this what you're looking for?

Sources tell me that tell me the film & video losses in the backlot fire were HUGE—far greater, in raw numbers terms, than those suffered by UMG, in its music vault. Something like 5/6th of that building was devoted to the storage of NBC Universal film/video assets.

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) June 12, 2019

fwiw I agree w Siegbran and was wondering if someone was going to make that point. What's being mourned here isn't the music itself (most of which is widely available in a variety of both high and low quality formats) but the loss of historical artifacts/primary sources. I don't really need any more remasters of anything because I am not an audio nerd, even if it is sad (I guess) that now we will only have copies of copies rather than copies of originals. This is lamentable but hardly unusual in human cultural history.

also kind of odd that 100+ posts in and no one has delved into why this thing that happened 10 years ago is just being brought to light now

That's exactly it! Thanks.

I thought the idea was Jody R. digged through those litigation documents, interviewed the archivist, etc.; but the info was already generally sort of "out there"

Adding to the cover-up, I seem to recall that at the time Universal claimed most of the film/video that was destroyed were backup copies and repertory prints as apposed to original negatives and masters.

It should be noted that in recent years Universal has faced criticism re: overly scrubbed Blu-ray transfers, which makes you think that maybe they were doing that to cover inferior elements.

xp

...except it wasn't?

many of these bands appear to have never heard of the loss of their masters

iow the coverup (or, more charitable, lack of proactive followup) is part of the story here

sure but what tipped Jody R. off, why was the archivist able/willing to talk now (is he no longer employed by UMG, who surely would've tried to shut him up?), how is it none of the impacted artists (and their laywers) went looking for their masters in this period and figured it out, etc.

xp

everybody wringing their hands like they're never going to hear A Love Supreme or The Great Twenty-Eight again (or in as perfect fidelity as possible) seems to be missing the point imo

speaking for myself it's the loss of all the unreleased/unheard material that really hurts here

yeah that's def a bummer

The archivist is indeed no longer employed by UMG; he moved up north a few years back (this is covered in the article). Maybe a follow-up piece will focus on artists' (and their reps') reactions... at least one prominent figure (Irving Azoff) demanded info after the fire, as is detailed in the article.

he read articles on Wookieepedia, taking note of Jizz among others

Don't dump on him without the full information. Wearing my professional library guy hat here: it is all about resources in general, commitments from the larger organization, clear budgets, dedicated processes, etc. Without knowing further, my sense is that he did the best with what he had with an organization that wasn't prepared to fully and consistently commit as it should.

I didn't intend to "dump" on him (and I did acknowledge that maybe he did he best the could), but he does admit to stuff like this:

“For a long time, I was seduced by the lot,” Aronson says. “It was like being in Narnia. I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger in a dress smoking a cigar. There were camels and elephants walking past. I was so in love with being on the lot, I hadn’t thought through the dangers.”

It also goes on to talk about the "compromise" he eventually reached with Universal, where a bunch of "reels and multitracks" were moved to PA, but all those masters stayed. Anyway, clearly there's not much to be gained by casting blame at this point.

I think most early tv is gone

Much of the really early stuff was simply not recorded because the existing technology was cumbersome and the decisionmakers didn't see the value of making extensive recordings.

Other programming was recorded but not retained (consider what the BBC wiped, or the DuMont archives that were dumped into the East River).

At the time of the 2008 fire, film archivists were told that no films had been irretrievably lost, but it's possible they weren't telling the complete truth.

everybody wringing their hands like they're never going to hear A Love Supreme or The Great Twenty-Eight again (or in as perfect fidelity as possible) seems to be missing the point imo

Would you rather have the version of Metropolis that came out of that Argentinian archive in 2008, containing footage that hadn't been seen in decades, or the previously available cut? We are talking about the luxury of entertainment, but the idea of careless archiving depriving us of the best possible versions of these luxuries hurts.

I mean, also with the obvious stuff, it’s like I don’t mourn the fact that I can’t personally hear the coughs and studio chatter and false starts in, say, Nevermind or A Love Supreme , but it’s upsetting that scholars and biographers have permanently lost a resource that may have been illuminating

Like, take it completely out of the realm of the consumer and ... it still sucks!

Re "could the archivist guy have done more": Has anyone in this thread besides me ever actually worked for a major record label? Getting anyone to do anything is the equivalent of trying to pass a bill through Congress singlehandedly. I remember when Roadrunner moved offices from downtown (near the Flatiron Building) to midtown (Rockefeller Plaza; they've since moved again). There was a big walk-in closet where old retail copies of back catalog were stored and a ton of that was just being thrown away - I went in there and grabbed a couple of cardboard boxes worth of "notable but never gonna be reissued" titles and took them uptown with my stuff. Fuck only knows where the actual master recordings were being stored. And it's not just about the audio, either - tons of CD reissues have artwork scanned from old LPs because the original art has long since been lost or destroyed.

I mean, also with the obvious stuff, it’s like I don’t mourn the fact that I can’t personally hear the coughs and studio chatter and false starts in, say, Nevermind or A Love Supreme , but it’s upsetting that scholars and biographers have permanently lost a resource that may have been illuminating

― space invaders are smokin penises!!!! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, June 12, 2019 3:39 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Someone on the Hoffman forums (where they are indeed wringing their hands over potential lost fidelity on some future reissue) made the point that, not only is the tape itself gone, but so are other things that could conceivably have provided insight into a recording: whatever was written on the tape box, the type of tape used, splices and the location(s) thereof...

> The Eagles' catalogue is with Warner Music, who weren't using that wearhouse.

Probably the reunion albums (on Geffen and Lost Highway)

<single tear of joy>

I didn’t realize (when spouting off above) that there actually is a National Recording Registry (in addition to the National Recording Preservation Foundation mentioned in the article — a nonprofit org established by Congress).

I seem to remember it being a news item (on, er, Pitchfork probably) when Daydream Nation was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2005. Not sure why big-name Brits (Beatles, Floyd, Stones) are on this predominantly and appropriately American list of recordings.

...not to mention OK f’in Computer!

Just the most recent slate of inductees alone (from a few months back) is pretty bomb:

https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/recording-registry/registry-by-induction-years/2018/

also kind of odd that 100+ posts in and no one has delved into why this thing that happened 10 years ago is just being brought to light now

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, June 12, 2019 2:50 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not sure what there is to delve in besides "major corporation lies like a motherfucker"

sure but what tipped Jody R. off, why was the archivist able/willing to talk now (is he no longer employed by UMG, who surely would've tried to shut him up?), how is it none of the impacted artists (and their laywers) went looking for their masters in this period and figured it out, etc.

On the Hoffman forums, there are a couple of quotes from liner notes in which the fire is mentioned, like this one from a Sugar Pie DeSanto compilation: "It was reported recently that her Chess masters were among those destroyed in a fire at the tape storage facility in 2008". There's also a Richard Carpenter interview in which he mentions the loss of multi-tracks in the fire.

I brought up that bit about the DeSanto masters upthread. That's one of those things that only came to light because Kent was doing the comp when they did it (released in 2009).

Part of how they were able to cover it up for so long is that the fire so closely coincided w/the downturn in physical media. UMG could dial back their reissue projects and provide lesser masters to streaming services where the audio issues wouldn't be so obvious listeners where already conditioned to lower quality audio.

Just noticed on the AMG that UMG did a digital-only comp of all the Chess Sugar Pie DeSanto stuff (35 tracks in total) a couple years ago.

A local film guy I follow wrote a blog post about the fire back in 2008. Interesting to read in retrospect:

https://hellonfriscobay.blogspot.com/2008/06/universal-fire.html

how is it none of the impacted artists (and their laywers) went looking for their masters in this period and figured it out, etc.

a bunch of them did! this was a pretty open secret in the business. it's been talked out here and there, written about here and there, it's just that no one thought to (or had the time and money to) tell it as a story with a capital S in the new york times magazine before. this is not uncommon.

seen elsewhere:

from someone on the ARSC listserv: "I headed one of the NYC teams that did some of the transfers back in 2010. As soon as the insurance money ran out, the plug was pulled on the entire operation, which is why so little of the holdings were transferred. They just were not going to spend their money."

Worth a read:

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByqCioill0S/

It's wild to think how much history they could have saved for, like, the price of not signing Iggy Azalea

Surely they would've had less money without Iggy?

I was just listening to Mike Mills' interview on the goofy R U Talkin REM Re:Me podcast, and it reminded me that Monster was slated to be reissued October 2019. The announcement was made months ago, so you'd think it'd be a little more clear by now whether or not the masters were available.

finally a chance to hear that impossible-to-find CD!

that instagram post is beyond nuts, wtf

XPS Monster was a Warner Bros. album, so it shouldn't have been in the fire. I believe it's the IRS albums that may or may not have been destroyed.

Yeah correct

If his conscience bothered him, why didn’t he just ask someone if he could take them. They were in the trash ffs.

Ah, that's right. I just assume UMG owned everything.

Xp Me, I would have that in my bag in no time.

re: that Instagram post, there are many stories of bootlegs being released that originated as tapes found in the trash. The Who had to negotiate with some dumpster-diving bootleggers in order to retrieve a multitrack master for a reissue project back in the early '90s.

Hey Tarfumes...was this you just now? (Good thread!)

1/12 Ahoy! Here's a long-arse thread about @jodyrosen's expertly-reported NYTimes piece on the Universal Music Group tape vault fire.

— Matt Weston (@tarfumes) June 14, 2019

Indeed it was! (And thanks!)

You guys are so weirdly obsessed with the B-F, O-S thing

Well, Jody himself addressed it just now w/r/t the thread:

Nothing my reporting suggests there's validity to this claim. Backlot vault held all Decca tape-era masters. All Chess masters. ABC, MCA, A&M, Geffen, Interscope. And many sublabels of all/above. UMG didn't divide up what was archived where based on alphabetization. https://t.co/C4cBduSuc7

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) June 14, 2019

Just trying to correct/verify the claim. Questlove made it sound like someone took physical inventory post-fire and came to that conclusion.

It begins.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-umg-fire-recordings-lawsuits-universal-studios-20190613-story.html

https://twitter.com/extinctophonics

Cool account but how is this person even sourcing this?

Or should I say, Cool idea for an account, but what basis is any of it rooted in fact instead of presupposition

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8516256/umg-archivist-interview-universal-fire-masters-tapes-litigation

UMG person sez:

The extent of the losses was overstated. Many of the masters that were highlighted as destroyed, we actually have in our archives -- the Impulse [Records]/[John] Coltrane stuff, Muddy Waters, [jazz pianist] Ahmad Jamal, [gospel label] Nashboro Records, Chess Records, to name a few. Those are some of the things we've gone through. Just in the last two days, we've found those examples in the archives.

so now it's he said/she said former archivist vs. current archivist

this whole story is weird

Could “we actually have in our archives” there mean “we have a good copy in our archives but it isn’t the masters”?

Gee, a big Billboard feature that accepts/amplifies one of the big three record labels' spin on a subject that could throw said label's entire business into a death spiral? Why wouldn't I trust this guy and take his word for it?

whiney RE: Extinctophonics, that account was sent to me by an archivist who i trust but that's all the sourcing i got

"Just in the last two days" strikes me as a very weird thing to say there

it marks the moment in which they've been coached to pretend to care

Could “we actually have in our archives” there mean “we have a good copy in our archives but it isn’t the masters”?

yeah isnt that exactly what they said last time in the article - not specifically talking about masters but saying things like "nothing was lost that we dont have a backup of" or something like that?

Like, isn't there a database that corresponds to what they have? It shouldn't take two days to look, it should take two minutes!

Like, isn't there a database that corresponds to what they have? It shouldn't take two days to look, it should take two minutes!

Nope. There is no massive digital database of everything a label has released, never mind what they own. It's all written down, shoved in a file cabinet somewhere, and nobody cares because their minds are on whatever they're putting out this quarter.

I mean think of all the tape generated by just a single recording session; I can see how keeping track of all the historical assets of an entity like UMG would be a mammoth undertaking.

Could “we actually have in our archives” there mean “we have a good copy in our archives but it isn’t the masters”?

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, June 18, 2019 2:58 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Likely. It would take far longer than two days to determine if This Tape is The Master Tape, to say nothing of "all the Coltrane stuff" and "the Chess masters."

Kraus, who spoke with frustration and wonky passion

why not just schedule the full glamour photoshoot

Thanks for the new dn!

you guys are remarkably credulous. basically there's two archivists - neither of which has a comprehensive picture of what happened or what was destroyed or what exists elsewhere - disagreeing. no clarity will be forthcoming, not for years.

It would take far longer than two days to determine if This Tape is The Master Tape, to say nothing of "all the Coltrane stuff" and "the Chess masters."

they've had 11 years!

maybe they didn't have an easy to navigate written record of every last tape in every last warehouse, but one would like to think that sometime in the 11 years between 2008 and 2019 someone at the company would have said, "fuck, did we lose all the impulse and chess masters?" and that someone would have followed up by actually checking.

the "two days" comment from the current archivist strongly suggests this wasn't, in fact, ever done. which is mind-boggling.

Internal memo from UMG's head (nothing really new in it): https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8516565/universal-music-group-lucian-grainge-vault-fire-owe-artists-transparency

hands up, how many people armchair archiving in this thread have ever cataloged a tape vault

*raises hand*

one would like to think that sometime in the 11 years between 2008 and 2019 someone at the company would have said, "fuck, did we lose all the impulse and chess masters?" and that someone would have followed up by actually checking.

Except that they more or less shuttered their reissue domestic reissue divisions in the years after the fire. Upthread it's mentioned that the so-called "Project Phoenix" stopped the minute the last penny from the insurance settlement was spent, laving many projects in permanent limbo. I can imagine when it came to creating streaming masters they just ripped stuff close at hand from harddrives or even CDs.

I can imagine when it came to creating streaming masters they just ripped stuff close at hand from harddrives or even CDs.

When I worked at Roadrunner (a division of WMG, not Universal), I put together four "digital box sets" from their catalog:

Extreme Metal 101, Vol. 1

Extreme Metal 101, Vol. 2

Extreme Metal 101, Vol. 3

Extreme Metal 101, Vol. 4

All of those were ripped from CDs, some of which had been out of print since the late '80s or early '90s.

I can imagine when it came to creating streaming masters they just ripped stuff close at hand from harddrives or even CDs.

Then sent it to Spotify iTunes et al but not before applying audibly disfiguring watermark technology to it

Aka this is now the second reason for me to despise UMG.

haha Jon I was waiting for you to bring that up, it's been on my mind as well

Then sent it to Spotify iTunes et al but not before applying audibly disfiguring watermark technology to it

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, June 18, 2019 6:09 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Where can I hear this?!

WOW, forgot all about that...

https://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark

It damages some kinds of music more than others, but you should still be able to hear it on any UMG-owned track which was supplied to streaming and download vendors prior to mid 2013. Ensemble vocals, pianos, acoustic guitars and strings played quietly are the most harmed in my experience.

If the same track appears on a reissue or remaster issued later than mid-2013 (iirc - older posts by me will have this date correct) it will sound better. They either stopped using the watermarks or dialed it back to be virtually inaudible.

wow

In the classical realm, this is why recently issued massive box sets along the lines of “such and such pianist - the complete Deutsche Grammofon recordings” have been very welcome on Spotify- even if not remastered, (and such things usually aren’t, they’re just straight up recompilations) they have been reconverted from UMGs lossless files for the occasion and thus are absent the nasty distortion which was formerly SOP.

Xp to self

Still hoping the complete Alfred brendel Decca box will appear on Spotify, for example, cause vast tracts of his recordings are only on there in shit form.

End of digression

hands up, how many people armchair archiving in this thread have ever cataloged a tape vault

*raises hand*

I haven't read the thread or posted until now, but I've catalogued film and video and tape vaults, and made slightly successful and wildly unsuccessful efforts to get a large organisation to undertake subsequent preservation actions

hands up, how many people armchair archiving in this thread have ever cataloged a tape vault

*raises hand*

HI DERE

Taking sides:
1. cataloging the archive of a behemoth major label that's absorbed multiple labels over many decades.
2. cataloging the archive of a research/experiment group of an academic department that had been collecting data for years and then published - only now it's ten years later and someone needs to go back over the data. btw, the group disbanded and the data is all in a format you can't read.
3. cataloging the 30+ year archive of a indie record label that was also run by an occasionally paranoid, full-time druggy, hoarder.

Is it any wonder the original Apollo 11 television tapes were lost?

was there more to this https://twitter.com/extinctophonics account than shows up now?

Yes, as the text of the one tweet there now indicates.

Y'all oldtimers will remember how I big-upped a synthpop "one man band" called Language, really a project by percussionist and singer Steven Hale that also included Gang of Four lead singer Jon King's sister Debbie and Eddi Reader, before she went on to fame in Fairground Attraction ("Perfect"). They were very short-lived, releasing one EP and a few singles, all produced by Alan Shacklock (chosen because he produced Junior's "Mama Used to Say", which Hale was a huge fan of). In fact, I almost reverted back to one of my old display names for the summer, "Goodbye Indian Summer", which was the name of the first Language song I ever heard, before choosing this one. Language were an A&M recording act, and after seeing how A&M were one of the impacted labels I PMed Mr. Hale (a FB friend of mine) to ask if he'd ever heard anything about this and if he knew where his masters were. Of course he didn't know a thing about what had happened and I have yet to hear back from him after PMing him a link to this article. This could be an example of one of those lesser-known artists impacted by this fire, a recording artist that would have been best served by a remaster because of how under-appreciated they were and how much better their music would sound if it were remastered in crystal clear digital sound. I'm really hoping Mr. Hale comes back to me saying that the masters are located elsewhere, because it would be a real shame if they ended up being lost to the flames. Also, while you're at it, look up "Goodbye Indian Summer" and "We're Celebrating" (and the music video for "Touch the Radio Dance", which was once displayed at MoMA) because Mr. Hale's music was really, really good.

Hmmm....

It appears that the Steve Hoffman Forum thread on Jody Rosen's The Day The Music Burned was pulled from the site today after it reached 67/68 pages.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine (@sterlewine) June 19, 2019

they knew too much?

couldn't let it get too nice

Steve Hoffman himself now in undisclosed location.

i assume someone made safety copies of him in case he can't be found.

They did, but apparently that copy has after the fact harmony overdubs by the Picks, so it's just not the same.

What an unimaginable loss

I’d been keeping up with that thread, more-or-less, and Hoffman only chimed in to say, “Should we keep the thread going or not?” It seemed like there were potential legal issues for Steve in keeping it going (or so Steve thought). In the years after the fire and before the Times piece, threads about what might’ve been lost in the fire were routinely deleted.

Really? Insane. I'm surprised the users didn't start a new board over that.

Thread is still there in the ‘Off Topic’ section at time of posting.

Of course it may now be a back-up copy rather than the original master.

lmao

original timestamps lost forever

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-universal-music-fire-lucian-grainge-memo-lawsuits-20190618-story.html

Genuine contrition, or damage control?

At least UMG is up 2 something kewl:
https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/youtube-music-and-universal-music-group.html

xpost -- gotta be the latter.

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/vivendi-universal-music-group-fire-noise-arnaud-de-puyfontaine-1203248649/

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/universal-music-fire-zero-impact-on-company-value-1203249173/

https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/childs-play-review-1203248744/

(Just seeing if you’re paying attention with that last one)

Chucky, firestarter.

seems like UMG is basically legally backed into a corner here where they have to deny deny deny now; even a well-meaning and more circumspect upper management can't realistically take steps to retroactively address this. In a saner world, this is where the government would step in and have library of congress or smithsonian start a taxpayer backed archiving process but i'm not holding my breath.

it appears that thread just got moved to Off Topic and not deleted on SHF for whatever weird reason.

Could somebody link that Hoffman thread? I don't know their site that well, particularly when it comes to them hiding/burying stuff.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-day-the-music-burned-article.849828/

you have to be logged in to see the other forums.

In a saner world, this is where the government would step in and have library of congress or smithsonian start a taxpayer backed archiving process but i'm not holding my breath.

Ppl keep saying this, but I still don’t get what is being suggested... The gummint’ can’t force UMG to hand over their tapes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain_in_the_United_States

(yes, they can, and they should)

Good luck extending eminent domain to recordings; I’ll be watching the cases with interest.

it won't happen, but stop being so obtuse. of course the govt can seize private property.

I don’t think I’m the one being obtuse here, lol

My suggestion is that the government bails these guys out and BUYS the masters at an obscene premium (with 50-70% to be divvied among artists) but with limited reproduction rights. Effectively a national archive.

Cheap at a billion and better use than another stealth bomber but certainly not a priority for this administration.

xxp

fair enough, I just think there's plenty of existing precedent for this kinda thing as forks notes, but that assumes willing parties on all sides which is not exactly the case here from what I see

and on the legal side I guess this is more related to forfeiture, ianal

or yeah, what forks just said as well

And here we go.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/business/media/universal-music-fire-lawsuit.html

yay!

(?)

Oh it's a definite yay, believe me.

BREAKING: Class action complaint against Universal Music Group filed in U.S. District Court in L.A., in response to 2008 fire that destroyed master recordings. Plaintiffs: Tupac Shakur’s Trustee, Hole, Soundgarden, Steve Earle, Jane Petty (Tom Petty’s ex-wife). pic.twitter.com/5zrNSunFYs

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) June 22, 2019

Interesting list of initial artists... makes me realize that those Hole and Soundgarden albums never have been reissued. (OTOH, the 2010 deluxe ed. of Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes was supposedly “Digitally remastered from the original analog master tapes”... of course that’s just one Petty album.)

There's deluxe Soundgarden reissues of Badmotorfinger and Superunknown.

... although maybe not from the original tapes.

Re:Tom Petty--I wonder if this is why they stopped his reissues with Long After Dark?

xp Really (re: Soundgarden)? I had checked on Amazon before posting (maybe not very well?)

Yup.

https://www.discogs.com/Soundgarden-Badmotorfinger/release/9434237

https://www.discogs.com/Soundgarden-Superunknown-Super-Deluxe/release/5790240

Both appearing in the last five years.

Yep, found it now on Amazon. $249.99 (Prime eligible!)

You think they may have an email trail of the band saying, “Why don’t we use the original masters?” and the label saying, “Uh, we’ll use a better-sounding tape...”

XP There are less-deluxe editons out there as well. A Superunknown double-disc was among the last domestic releases in that line.

FWIW, I have the single-disc Damn The Torpedoes from 2010, and it sounds great!

So are the plaintiffs suing for damages or do they want to void their still-existing contracts or are they demanding a return of the masters or all the above? Or is it not clear as of yet?

i mean, i see the damages listed but i'm curious if they can argue for breach of contract? do record contracts promise to maintain viability of masters in any way?

i am a bit naive about this element of the industry so please be gentle

Since they did 5.1 mixes of those two Soundgarden albums, you would think UMG had access to multitracks.

OTOH, nothing's happened w/Louder Than Love and Down On The Upside (and Cornell's Euphoria Morning), so...

Some of the lawsuit might be about loss of revenue streams. Take Hole for example: Deluxe Editions were never done for Live Through This & Celebrity Skin, even though there probably was a market for them, and most likely lots of out-takes, B-Sides, live stuff, demos etc. that could have been bundled into reissues. If those materials were destroyed, there's no incentive to do reissue of albums one can find pretty easily used or in a bargain bin.

Since they did 5.1 mixes of those two Soundgarden albums, you would think UMG had access to multitracks.

Yeah, I was thinking/wondering that same thing. (I searched around a little and didn’t find anything explicitly saying/claiming that the original masters were used...)

One more thing about Hole: The second disc of LTT already came out as a Europe-only release called My Body, The Hand Grenade in 1997. It's also the only official Hole comp ever released on physical media.

i mean, i see the damages listed but i'm curious if they can argue for breach of contract? do record contracts promise to maintain viability of masters in any way?

I’ve never seen a recording contract, but my guess (just a guess) is that they don’t say anything about how masters will be stored... or, at most, maybe some make a reference to something like “the customary standards of care in the recording industry.” (Total speculation here)

Anecdotally I've socially known two very successful indieish recording artists who owned their own master tapes of at least one album. They both kept them in piles of household miscellany, and one left hers behind when she moved out of a shared apartment and happily was able to reclaim it years later from the ex-roommate who was still there and hadn't bothered to toss it out.

Stories like that remind me of this: I Am The Proud Owner Of The Original Master Tape Of Color Me Badd's "We Can Do The Nasty"!!

We have an update, sadly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/magazine/universal-music-fire-bands-list-umg.html

Note that the loss of the Cadet/Cadet Concept masters by Terry Callier, Rotary Connection, Marlena Shaw and Phil Upchurch et al also meant the destruction of virtually all the major works of a hero of mine who’s not on the list: the genius producer/arranger Charles Stepney. https://t.co/qX6fNCBR3N

— Andy Zax (@andyzax) June 25, 2019

https://blog.discogs.com/en/the-discogs-top-50-best-selling-records-of-april-2019/

It’s bullshit. This is all bullshit, and you all know it. Look at it. Look at this. Reissues of reissues and barrel scrapings by faded artists of years past. It’s as if the great music of the world burnt up in some big fire {link to NYT article} and there just wasn’t enough to go around anymore. We let this happen. This is our fault. We let a tiny handful of individuals take away our collective musical heritage, bribe our government representatives to ensure we’ll never get it back, and they burnt it. We did this when we bought the same old trash over and over and over. You should be angry. Be angry right now. Do better, damn it. Stop supporting this trash and self-release and support independent artists and labels.

conflating a few different things there and being very hyperbolic, but ppl are mad about this!

This part of the story is so unnecessarily petty, it’s hilarious

The letter-grade rankings provide a snapshot of UMG’s marketplace wisdom circa 2010 — judgments that, at times, favor top-sellers with thin discographies over historically significant figures and critically-lionized innovators. Captain and Tennille, Chuck Mangione, Whitesnake, Sublime, White Zombie, Nelly Furtado and the Pussycat Dolls received A ratings. Les Paul, Merle Haggard, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Alice Coltrane, Captain Beefheart, the Neville Brothers and the Roots were given Bs.

How dare UMG think they might sell more copies of Sublime than Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

This paragraph address a point made above (re: Neil Young):

UMG’s own lists present riddles. Documents show that the company believed it had lost recordings by one of music’s most zealous audiophiles, Neil Young — whose website offers high-resolution versions of his complete discography, presumably sourced from the original masters. It is unclear if the Young recordings thought by UMG to have been destroyed were safety copies of the four albums he recorded for Geffen in the 1980s or outtakes from the sessions for those albums, or if UMG officials were simply mistaken about Young having had material in the backlot vault.

It really is stunning how much better off we’d be right now if Pono had taken off

scrolling through that list took an eternity.

we are truly in the worst timeline.

This happened in 2008, how far back are you looking to retcon?

Oh word, you are right

Look at it. Look at this. Reissues of reissues and barrel scrapings by faded artists of years past.

I wonder if Young's people didn't acquire/rip copies of the Geffen recordings for the Archives at some point before the fire (possibly when assembling Lucky 13 back in the early '90s)?

Surprised Randy Newman isn't on the list for Bad Love at least, given his Dreamworks contemporaries (Wainwright and Furtado) showing up here.

Bad Love Burned (But He Don't Know It)

38 Special
50 Cent
Colonel Abrams
Johnny Ace
Bryan Adams
Nat Adderley
Aerosmith
Rhett Akins
Manny Albam
Lorez Alexandria
Gary Allan
Red Allen
Steve Allen
The Ames Brothers
Gene Ammons
Bill Anderson
Jimmy Anderson
John Anderson
The Andrews Sisters
Lee Andrews & the Hearts
Paul Anka
Adam Ant
Toni Arden
Joan Armatrading
Louis Armstrong
Asia
Asleep at the Wheel
Audioslave
Patti Austin
Average White Band
Hoyt Axton
Albert Ayler
Burt Bacharach
Joan Baez
Razzy Bailey
Chet Baker
Florence Ballard
Hank Ballard
Gato Barbieri
Baja Marimba Band
Len Barry
Count Basie
Fontella Bass
The Beat Farmers
Sidney Bechet and His Orchestra
Beck
Captain Beefheart
Archie Bell & the Drells
Vincent Bell
Bell Biv Devoe
Louie Bellson
Don Bennett
Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones
David Benoit
George Benson
Berlin
Elmer Bernstein and His Orchestra
Chuck Berry
Nuno Bettencourt
Stephen Bishop
Blackstreet
Art Blakey
Hal Blaine
Bobby (Blue) Bland
Mary J. Blige
Blink 182
Blues Traveler
Eddie Bo
Pat Boone
Boston
Connee Boswell
Eddie Boyd
Jan Bradley
Owen Bradley Quintet
Oscar Brand
Bob Braun
Walter Brennan
Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats
Teresa Brewer
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
John Brim
Lonnie Brooks
Big Bill Broonzy and Washboard Sam
Brothers Johnson
Bobby Brown
Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown
Lawrence Brown
Les Brown
Marion Brown
Marshall Brown
Mel Brown
Michael Brown
Dave Brubeck
Jimmy Buffett
Carol Burnett
T-Bone Burnett
Dorsey Burnette
Johnny Burnette
Busta Rhymes
Terry Callier
Cab Calloway
The Call
Glen Campbell
Captain and Tennille
Captain Sensible
Irene Cara
Belinda Carlisle
Carl Carlton
Eric Carmen
Hoagy Carmichael
Kim Carnes
Karen Carpenter
Richard Carpenter
The Carpenters
Barbara Carr
Betty Carter
Benny Carter
The Carter Family
Peter Case
Alvin Cash
Mama Cass
Bobby Charles
Ray Charles
Chubby Checker
The Checkmates Ltd.
Cheech & Chong
Cher
Don Cherry
Mark Chesnutt
The Chi-Lites
Eric Clapton
Petula Clark
Roy Clark
Gene Clark
The Clark Sisters
Merry Clayton
Jimmy Cliff
Patsy Cline
Rosemary Clooney
Wayne Cochran
Joe Cocker
Ornette Coleman
Gloria Coleman
Mitty Collier
Jazzbo Collins
Judy Collins
Colosseum
Alice Coltrane
John Coltrane
Colours
Common
Cookie and the Cupcakes
Barbara Cook
Rita Coolidge
Stewart Copeland
The Corsairs
Dave “Baby” Cortez
Bill Cosby
Don Costa
Clifford Coulter
David Crosby
Crosby & Nash
Johnny Cougar (aka John Cougar Mellencamp)
Counting Crows
Coverdale•Page
Warren Covington
Deborah Cox
James “Sugar Boy” Crawford
Crazy Otto
Marshall Crenshaw
The Crew-Cuts
Sonny Criss
David Crosby
Bob Crosby
Bing Crosby
Sheryl Crow
Rodney Crowell
Pablo Cruise
The Crusaders
Xavier Cugat
The Cuff Links
Tim Curry
The Damned
Danny & the Juniors
Rodney Dangerfield
Bobby Darin
Helen Darling
David + David
Mac Davis
Richard Davis
Sammy Davis Jr.
Chris de Burgh
Lenny Dee
Jack DeJohnette
The Dells
The Dell-Vikings
Sandy Denny
Sugar Pie DeSanto
The Desert Rose Band
Dennis DeYoung
Neil Diamond
Bo Diddley
Difford & Tilbrook
Dillard & Clark
The Dixie Hummingbirds
Willie Dixon
DJ Shadow
Fats Domino
Jimmy Donley
Kenny Dorham
Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra
Lee Dorsey
The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
Lamont Dozier
The Dramatics
The Dream Syndicate
Roy Drusky
Jimmy Durante
Deanna Durbin
The Eagles
Steve Earle
El Chicano
Danny Elfman
Yvonne Elliman
Duke Ellington
Cass Elliott
Joe Ely
John Entwistle
Eminem
Eric B. and Rakim
Gil Evans
Paul Evans
Betty Everett
Don Everly
Extreme
The Falcons
Harold Faltermeyer
Donna Fargo
Art Farmer
Freddie Fender
Ferrante & Teicher
Fever Tree
The Fifth Dimension
Ella Fitzgerald
Five Blind Boys Of Alabama
The Fixx
The Flamingos
King Floyd
The Flying Burrito Brothers
John Fogerty
Red Foley
Eddie Fontaine
The Four Aces
The Four Tops
Peter Frampton
Franke & the Knockouts
Aretha Franklin
The Rev. C.L. Franklin
The Free Movement
Glenn Frey
Lefty Frizzell
Curtis Fuller
Jerry Fuller
Lowell Fulson
Harvey Fuqua
Nelly Furtado
Hank Garland
Judy Garland
Erroll Garner
Jimmy Garrison
Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers
Gene Loves Jezebel
Barry Gibb
Georgia Gibbs
Terri Gibbs
Dizzy Gillespie
Gin Blossoms
Tompall Glaser
Tom Glazer
Whoopi Goldberg
Golden Earring
Paul Gonsalves
Benny Goodman
Dexter Gordon
Rosco Gordon
Lesley Gore
The Gospelaires
Teddy Grace
Grand Funk Railroad
Amy Grant
Earl Grant
The Grass Roots
Dobie Gray
Buddy Greco
Keith Green
Al Green
Jack Greene
Robert Greenidge
Lee Greenwood
Patty Griffin
Nanci Griffith
Dave Grusin
Guns N’ Roses
Buddy Guy
Buddy Hackett
Charlie Haden
Merle Haggard
Bill Haley and His Comets
Aaron Hall
Lani Hall
Chico Hamilton
George Hamilton IV
Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds
Marvin Hamlisch
Jan Hammer
Lionel Hampton
John Handy
Glass Harp
Slim Harpo
Richard Harris
Freddie Harts
Dan Hartman
Johnny Hartman
Coleman Hawkins
Dale Hawkins
Richie Havens
Roy Haynes
Head East
Heavy D. & the Boyz
Bobby Helms
Don Henley
Clarence “Frogman” Henry
Woody Herman and His Orchestra
Milt Herth and His Trio
John Hiatt
Al Hibbler
Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks
Monk Higgins
Jessie Hill
Earl Hines
Roger Hodgson
Hole
Billie Holiday
Jennifer Holliday
Buddy Holly
The Hollywood Flames
Eddie Holman
John Lee Hooker
Stix Hooper
Bob Hope
Paul Horn
Shirley Horn
Big Walter Horton
Thelma Houston
Rebecca Lynn Howard
Jan Howard
Freddie Hubbard
Humble Pie
Engelbert Humperdinck
Brian Hyland
The Impressions
The Ink Spots
Iron Butterfly
Burl Ives
Janet Jackson
Joe Jackson
Milt Jackson
Ahmad Jamal
Etta James
Elmore James
James Gang
Keith Jarrett
Jason & the Scorchers
Jawbreaker
Garland Jeffreys
Beverly Jenkins
Gordon Jenkins
The Jets
Jimmy Eat World
Jodeci
Johnnie Joe
The Joe Perry Project
Elton John
J.J. Johnson
K-Ci & JoJo
Al Jolson
Booker T. Jones
Elvin Jones
George Jones
Hank Jones
Jack Jones
Marti Jones
Quincy Jones
Rickie Lee Jones
Tamiko Jones
Tom Jones
Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five
The Jordanaires
Jurassic 5
Bert Kaempfert
Kitty Kallen & Georgie Shaw
The Kalin Twins
Bob Kames
Kansas
Boris Karloff
Sammy Kaye
Toby Keith
Gene Kelly
Chaka Khan
B.B. King
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Wayne King
The Kingsmen
The Kingston Trio
Roland Kirk
Eartha Kitt
John Klemmer
Klymaxx
Baker Knight
Chris Knight
Gladys Knight and the Pips
Krokus
Steve Kuhn
Rolf Kuhn
Joachim Kuhn
Patti LaBelle
L.A. Dream Team
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
Frankie Lane
Denise LaSalle
Yusef Lateef
Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé
Lafayette Leake
Brenda Lee
Laura Lee
Leapy Lee
Peggy Lee
Danni Leigh
The Lennon Sisters
J.B. Lenoir
Ramsey Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis
Liberace
Lifehouse
Enoch Light
The Lightning Seeds
Limp Bizkit
Lisa Loeb
Little Axe and the Golden Echoes
Little Milton
Little River Band
Little Walter
Lobo
Nils Lofgren
Lone Justice
Guy Lombardo
Lord Tracy
The Louvin Brothers
Love
Patti Loveless
The Lovelites
Lyle Lovett
Love Unlimited
Loretta Lynn
L.T.D.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Gloria Lynne
Moms Mabley
Willie Mabon
Warner Mack
Dave MacKay & Vicky Hamilton
Miriam Makeba
The Mamas and the Papas
Melissa Manchester
Barbara Mandrell
Chuck Mangione
Shelly Manne
Wade Marcus
Mark-Almond
Pigmeat Markham
Steve Marriott
Wink Martindale
Groucho Marx
Hugh Masekela
Dave Mason
Jerry Mason
Matthews Southern Comfort
The Mavericks
Robert Maxwell
John Mayall
Percy Mayfield
Lyle Mays
Les McCann
Delbert McClinton
Robert Lee McCollum
Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr.
Van McCoy
Jimmy McCracklin
Jack McDuff
Reba McEntire
Gary McFarland
Barry McGuire
The McGuire Sisters
Duff McKagan
Maria McKee
McKendree Spring
Marian McPartland
Clyde McPhatter
Carmen McRae
Jack McVea
Meat Loaf
Memphis Slim
Sergio Mendes
Ethel Merman
Pat Metheny
Mighty Clouds of Joy
Roger Miller
Stephanie Mills
The Mills Brothers
Liza Minnelli
Charles Mingus
Joni Mitchell
Bill Monroe
Vaughn Monroe
Wes Montgomery
Buddy Montgomery
The Moody Blues
The Moonglows
Jane Morgan
Russ Morgan
Ennio Morricone
Mos Def
Martin Mull
Gerry Mulligan
Milton Nascimento
Johnny Nash
Nazareth
Nelson
Rick Nelson & the Stone Canyon Band
Ricky Nelson
Jimmy Nelson
Oliver Nelson
Aaron Neville
Art Neville
The Neville Brothers
New Edition
New Riders of the Purple Sage
Olivia Newton-John
Night Ranger
Leonard Nimoy
Nine Inch Nails
Nirvana
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
No Doubt
Ken Nordine
Red Norvo Sextet
Terri Nunn
The Oak Ridge Boys
Ric Ocasek
Phil Ochs
Hazel O’Connor
Chico O’Farrill
Oingo Boingo
The O’Jays
Spooner Oldham
One Flew South
Yoko Ono
Orleans
Jeffrey Osborne
The Outfield
Jackie Paris
Leo Parker
Junior Parker
Ray Parker Jr.
Dolly Parton
Les Paul
Freda Payne
Peaches & Herb
Ce Ce Peniston
The Peppermint Rainbow
Pepples
The Persuasions
Bernadette Peters
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
John Phillips
Webb Pierce
The Pinetoppers
Bill Plummer
Poco
The Pointer Sisters
The Police
Doc Pomus
Jimmy Ponder
Iggy Pop
Billy Preston
Lloyd Price
Louis Prima
Primus
Puddle Of Mudd
Red Prysock
Leroy Pullins
The Pussycat Dolls
Quarterflash
Queen Latifah
Sun Ra
The Radiants
Gerry Rafferty
Kenny Rankin
The Ray Charles Singers
The Ray-O-Vacs
The Rays
Dewey Redman
Della Reese
Martha Reeves
R.E.M.
Debbie Reynolds
Emitt Rhodes
Buddy Rich
Emil Richards
Dannie Richmond
Riders in the Sky
Stan Ridgway
Frazier River
Sam Rivers
Max Roach
Marty Roberts
Howard Roberts
The Roches
Chris Rock
Tommy Roe
Jimmy Rogers
Sonny Rollins
The Roots
Rose Royce
Jackie Ross
Doctor Ross
Rotary Connection
The Rover Boys
Roswell Rudd
Rufus and Chaka Khan
Otis Rush
Brenda Russell
Leon Russell
Pee Wee Russell
Russian Jazz Quartet
Mitch Ryder
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Joe Sample
Pharoah Sanders
The Sandpipers
Gary Saracho
Shirley Scott
Tom Scott
Dawn Sears
Neil Sedaka
Jeannie Seely
Semisonic
Charlie Sexton
Marlena Shaw
Tupac Shakur
Archie Shepp
Dinah Shore
Ben Sidran
Silver Apples
Shel Silverstein
The Simon Sisters
Ashlee Simpson
The Simpsons
Zoot Sims
P.F. Sloan
Smash Mouth
Kate Smith
Keely Smith
Tab Smith
Patti Smyth
Snoop Dogg
Valaida Snow
Jill Sobule
Soft Machine
Sonic Youth
Sonny and Cher
The Soul Stirrers
Soundgarden
Eddie South
Southern Culture on the Skids
Spinal Tap
Banana Splits
The Spokesmen
Squeeze
Jo Stafford
Chris Stamey
Joe Stampley
Michael Stanley
Kay Starr
Stealers Wheel
Steely Dan
Gwen Stefani
Steppenwolf
Cat Stevens
Billy Stewart
Sting
Sonny Stitt
Shane Stockton
George Strait
The Strawberry Alarm Clock
Strawbs
Styx
Sublime
Yma Sumac
Andy Summers
The Sundowners
Supertramp
The Surfaris
Sylvia Syms
Gábor Szabó
The Tams
Grady Tate
t.A.T.u.
Koko Taylor
Billy Taylor
Charlie Teagarden
Temple of the Dog
Clark Terry
Tesla
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Robin Thicke
Toots Thielemans
B.J. Thomas
Irma Thomas
Rufus Thomas
Hank Thompson
Lucky Thompson
Big Mama Thornton
Three Dog Night
The Three Stooges
Tiffany
Mel Tillis
Tommy & the Tom Toms
Mel Tormé
The Tragically Hip
The Trapp Family Singers
Ralph Tresvant
Ernest Tubb
The Tubes
Tanya Tucker
Tommy Tucker
The Tune Weavers
Ike Turner
Stanley Turrentine
Conway Twitty
McCoy Tyner
Phil Upchurch
Michael Utley
Leroy Van Dyke
Gino Vannelli
Van Zant
Billy Vaughan
Suzanne Vega
Vega Brothers
Veruca Salt
The Vibrations
Bobby Vinton
Voïvod
Porter Wagoner
The Waikikis
Rufus Wainwright
Rick Wakeman
Jerry Jeff Walker
The Wallflowers
Joe Walsh
Wang Chung
Clara Ward
Warrior Soul
Washboard Sam
Was (Not Was)
War
Justine Washington
The Watchmen
Muddy Waters
Jody Watley
Johnny “Guitar” Watson
The Weavers
The Dream Weavers
Ben Webster
Weezer
We Five
George Wein
Lenny Welch
Lawrence Welk
Kitty Wells
Mae West
Barry White
Michael White
Slappy White
Whitesnake
White Zombie
The Who
Whycliffe
Kim Wilde
Don Williams
Jody Williams
John Williams
Larry Williams
Lenny Williams
Leona Williams
Paul Williams
Roger Williams
Sonny Boy Williamson
Walter Winchell
Kai Winding
Johnny Winter
Wishbone Ash
Jimmy Witherspoon
Howlin’ Wolf
Bobby Womack
Lee Ann Womack
Phil Woods
Wrecks-N-Effect
O.V. Wright
Bill Wyman
Rusty York
Faron Young
Neil Young
Young Black Teenagers
Y & T
Rob Zombie

NEVER HEARD OF uh wait

Joe Jackson and The Four Tops. :'(

Ashlee Simpson
The Simpsons

That's weird about Joe Jackson, because Intervention Records has been doing vinyl reissues of his A&M stuff "From The Original Tapes".

You know, the original cassette versions.

The “caveats” before the list mean it’s basically pointless, and that the headline is straight-up false.

Complaints complaints

Harold Faltermeyer!

F’in NY Times, I swear

it's a large but incomplete list of artists who had material that umg believed with "reasonable certainty" had been "destroyed." that seems worth publishing.

I disagree, especially under that headline. With those caveats, it’s a worthless list.

Then one day morrisp is buried under all the tape ashes, dim cries of 'fake news' are heard from its depths.

Fake news, right. Try me...

My point here is — if I jump right to the list (which is what most readers will probably do, skipping or merely skimming the article) and see my favorite artist, “The Simpsons,” all I know is that in 2009-10, UMG believed that some of that artist’s masters may have been lost in the fire — despite the label’s “insoluble discographical puzzle,” and the fact they were wrong about Neil Young, etc. I haven’t actually learned anything of value, and the definitive-looking monolith of names implies certainty and gravity that the article takes pains to undercut as a prelude (probably b/c they know exactly how the list will come off).

None of this is to let UMG off the hook; but printing that list, especially under that headline, is stupid and bad.

“If I don’t read the article I may draw the wrong conclusions from it, therefore they should not have published it.”

I read the article. R.E.M. is on the list — does that mean they lost only the master tape of “Voice of Harold,” or their entire IRS discography? Or nothing at all? We won’t know until it’s investigated further. So what have I learned?

Melissa Manchester :(

The problem in many ways is simply that a negative can't be proved. A slew of items were lost, a large amount, with no accounting of exactly what it all was. Assume though that UMG somehow accounts for everything else it has access to elsewhere (doubtful obv but this what they claim to be doing right now). Theoretically you could then claim that whatever else is missing based on what label holdings they had equals what is actually gone.

For all my cracks, morrisp ain't wrong on the one hand, but spelling out the implications -- via a monolith, if you like -- has a role. And if UMG was already sorting, prioritizing and assuming, that itself is a sign.

And if UMG was already sorting, prioritizing and assuming, that itself is a sign.

and if umg also spends 11 years covering up what happened, not even telling many of its own artists, then someone has to do the work of sifting through those ashes. if not for the nytimes' reporting, there'd be no lawsuit, there'd be no public awareness, and a lot of artists would still have no idea where there masters were.

*their* masters, d'oh

does that mean they lost only the master tape of “Voice of Harold,” or their entire IRS discography? Or nothing at all? We won’t know until it’s investigated further. So what have I learned?

you -- and quite possibly rem -- have learned that *something* has been lost. there'd probably be no way to get to the next step, the step of itemizing that loss, without going through this step, the step of acknowledging the loss, first.

We won’t know until it’s investigated further. So what have I learned?

good point, we should wait until UMG release the results of the investigation. shame on Rosen for rushing to print so soon after the disaster.

you -- and quite possibly rem -- have learned that *something* has been lost. there'd probably be no way to get to the next step, the step of itemizing that loss, without going through this step, the step of acknowledging the loss, first.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, June 26, 2019 12:53 AM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If every artist on that list lost exactly one non-essential song ... it would still be a huge loss!

we should wait until UMG release the results of the investigation. shame on Rosen for rushing to print so soon after the disaster.

Snark noted — but you have it backward, IMO. It’s been 9 years since that list was put together; we know it’s inaccurate in at least certain respects, and UMG is now undertaking a new inventory and also getting sued by a bunch of artists, which will result in discovery etc. Why publish this particular list now (especially under that heavily misleading headline)... why not, yes, continue to report on the lawsuit(s) / investigations and what is actually confirmed about lost tapes, rather than fuel speculation.

Btw I take fcc’s point that this info may spur certain artists or estates, who were previously on the fence about pursuing any claim against UMG (due to costs etc.), into taking the plunge and doing so (by seeing the name on this old list).

(I also have no problem with the chunks of names included in the text of the article itself, in the context of “artists with losses may include and be as diverse as...” — but something about the implied authority of the solemn, alphabetical list printed in its entirely, especially under that headline, really bugs.)

the reason i posted this list is two fold. first i assumed most on ILM have been following this story and have read said article. second, NYT only gives like three complimentary articles per month and i always get block out of that site for reaching their limit. i was happy i didn't go over my limit this month and reposted the list for reference, without having to go back to that article time and time again.

sorry morrisp for upsetting you.

Snark noted — but you have it backward, IMO. It’s been 9 years since that list was put together; we know it’s inaccurate in at least certain respects

We don't know anything of the sort, unless we're making assumptions about it that are contradicted by the article that contains it

(I have no idea what the headline is, and likely didn't read it, but/as it's highly unlikely that Rosen wrote it)

The Hollywood Flames

http://www.impawards.com/2007/posters/things_we_lost_in_the_fire.jpg

L: Jane Petty R: Jody Rosen

Cheech & Chong

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Up_in_Smoke_%28soundtrack%29.jpg

(Released by Warner Bros. Records, so one of the not-lost ones fyi)

But this one was on MCA...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Survivors#/media/File:StreetSurvivorsFlames.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/StreetSurvivorsFlames.jpg

Fwiw the headline is "Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire"

The list is preceded with "What can be said with certainty is that these are artists whose material UMG believed had been lost in the fire and whose recordings the company spent tens of millions of dollars trying to replace."

Seems fine imo

(the article, not the fire. fire bad, imho)

sorry morrisp for upsetting you.

You didn’t! I already saw the list in the article, lol... it was useful to have it here for discussion

We don't know anything of the sort, unless we're making assumptions about it that are contradicted by the article that contains it

Yes — Neil Young; the other caveats about the list in the article itself. Universal also claims to have found certain tapes in the intervening 9 years (maybe that’s BS)

Fwiw the headline is "Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire"

Exactly — not “Believed” Destroyed, just “Destroyed”. The lack of that (necessary) qualifier makes it indefensibly inaccurate (you don’t agree?), and the headline + list printed in its entirety feel like a clickbait exercise meant to generate “oh, no” reactions even though knowledge of actual losses remains thin.

Remove Bookmark from this Thread

Ah but there's an update

In memo, UMG archivist says the company has assembled a team of "70 professionals...responsible for timely and open responses to artists about the status of musical assets under our care, as well as the extent to which certain assets were lost." https://t.co/S6Ybv5crm5

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) June 26, 2019

Full story here:

https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/universal-musics-chief-archivist-explains-companys-post-fire-artist-outreach-plan-exclusive-1203253708/

How the prospect of lawsuits concentrates the mind wonderfully.

speaking of odd headlines:

"Universal Music’s Chief Archivist Explains Company’s Post-Fire Artist Outreach Plan" would be more accurately rendered as "Universal Music’s Chief Archivist Explains Company’s Post-Article-About-Fire Artist Outreach Plan"

Ever so minor details!

I was not kidding with this post, this is an actual headline, via Alternative Nation

This is an actual headline about the Universal archive fire. NOT THAT YOU COULD TELL. pic.twitter.com/LZrdDZCyPS

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) June 27, 2019

The power of the press

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/06/26/vivendis-sale-umg-indefinite-pause/

Every artist who has been cursing the majors' terrible inventory practices for decades must now be praying that they were so bad there still may be a chance their recordings survived.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbyowsinski/2019/06/27/vivendi-feeling-the-heat-over-umg-music-vault-fire-as-shares-tumble/#1ea5bcebe6e6

finally read the articles, and thus, this thread

as i scrolled through the complete list of artists i thought to myself this is a bee ok post, guaranteed and lo(l)

I just noticed this obit. Mickey Kapp, who ran Kapp Records for many years, died on June 11. The masters for nearly the entire Kapp discography were destroyed in the June 2008 fire at the UMG vault on the Universal studios backlot. https://t.co/3fZqVRQcWF

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) July 9, 2019

i dunno if you can beat "made mixtapes for astronauts" as an epitaph

UMG files motion to dismiss, arguing (among other things) that the destroyed tapes were its own property: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/universal-fire-motion-dismiss-soundgarden-hole-tupac-tom-petty-1203270567/

Also (FWIW), a long new memo from the label’s head archivist: https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/universal-music-fire-damage-update-masters-archivist-internal-memo-read-1203270621/

I suggest reading this thread from Jody Rosen in response:

In a new Variety piece, Universal Music Group offers an update on efforts to tally its losses in the fire that struck its Hollywood tape vault in 2008. UMG also pushes back—again—on @NYTmag reporting on the fire & losses incurred. https://t.co/e2MvM8A642

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) July 17, 2019

As well as this separate follow-up tweet:

Hours after UMG pushes out a memo downplaying its losses in the '08 fire, its lawyers file a motion to dismiss lawsuit by artists...bc the statute of limitations has expired & after all UMG "publicly stated that hundreds of thousands of recordings were destroyed" in '09. Wild. pic.twitter.com/shsOCs3hFk

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) July 18, 2019

New thread just now as well

Universal Fire update: I thought I'd devote a few tweets to highlighting some rather extraordinary discordances between the message that Universal Music Group is pushing in public statements & the assertions that the company has made & is continuing to make in legal filings.

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) July 18, 2019

Separately but relatedish, this thread is making the rounds:

Warner Music Group has halted ALL archiving globally, except ultra-specific Abbey Road projects, until at least Oct 1. No indication was given if archiving would continue after that. Archivists received an email on July 1, indicating a 3-month minimum lay-off would begin July 10. pic.twitter.com/ZX6TzK2D7f

— Zachary Jaydon (@ZacharyJaydon) July 18, 2019

Internal documents provided to me, indicated archivists were to keep this information out of the press, & not to discuss past mastering projects or losses of Master Recordings, due to damaged or lost tapes, & acknowledged the company has over a million “assets” left to archive. pic.twitter.com/pSOTqBkHdp

— Zachary Jaydon (@ZacharyJaydon) July 18, 2019

“We do not need @JodyRosen calling,” indicating WMG are aware of the press that UMG is currently receiving, criticizing their lack of accountability for the 2008 fire that gutted the company of more than 150,000 Master Recordings from some of the best-selling artists in history. pic.twitter.com/kdNKz4Fd6e

— Zachary Jaydon (@ZacharyJaydon) July 18, 2019

Jody shared it but notes:

THREAD.

If true, this is quite weird. Also, I think it's fair to say, poorly timed. https://t.co/W0UxR0qU8F

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) July 18, 2019

ffs, UMG is handling every aspect of this, and every subsequent step, in the dumbest way imaginable.

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/universal-music-fire-hole-many-suing-artists-masters-not-damaged-1203306883/

Hole is off the suit, other changes etc.

https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/universal-music-refutes-soundgarden-lawsuit-claims-2008-fire-dismissal-1203315143/

“We told you six years after it happened!”

More artists pull out of the lawsuit: https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/tupac-soundgarden-universal-music-fire-lawsuit-1203533645/

Everyone should stay in a lawsuit demanding their rights back due to mishandling of assets, rather than specific damages suffered

Jody Rosen of NY Times tweeted in response to Variety article: Next time UMG passes along an internal memo for publication, @Variety might require on-record answers to follow-up Qs. Here's 1: The vault destroyed in the '08 fire held 10s of 1000s of historic master recordings on the Decca & Chess labels. Any update on the fate of those tapes?