The Day the Music Burned

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

“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?