WOW!
The Day the Music Burned
Probably many of you have read this by now, but The NY Times put out an article recently on the 2008 Universal fire which was kept under wraps for obvious reasons:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html?action=click&m...
So much musical history was destroyed and will never be recovered - the first generation masters are the musical event - everything else is at best a good facsimile. Makes one question the quality/genealogy of the music that is being put out there. After all, for most audiophiles, the foundation of our hobby is the music and pursuit of good sound. Be curious to get others opinions on this topic.
Happy listening!
Gorm
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html?action=click&m...
So much musical history was destroyed and will never be recovered - the first generation masters are the musical event - everything else is at best a good facsimile. Makes one question the quality/genealogy of the music that is being put out there. After all, for most audiophiles, the foundation of our hobby is the music and pursuit of good sound. Be curious to get others opinions on this topic.
Happy listening!
Gorm
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Looks like this one is going to run as more and more affected artists like Sheryl Crow begin to realise. This could run for years and years... "A group of high-profile pop musicians are currently suing Universal Music for $100m (£78m) over the loss of their master recordings. The case was filed last week in Los Angeles by the rock bands Soundgarden and Hole, singer-songwriter Steve Earle, the estate of Tupac Shakur and a former wife of Tom Petty - who accuse Universal of breaching its contracts with artists by failing to properly protect their tapes. They are seeking class action status, which means other affected artists will be able to join the case at a later date." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-48745638 |
Here's a list of the effected artist according to UMG: 38 Special |
Unfortunately because that thread title mentioned Elton John and Nirvana it was all too easy to overlook. The full extent of the loss is incalculable. "Among 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 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." |