The Day the Music Burned

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.