The Day the Music Burned

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.