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Vault fire destroyed thousands of masters


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Nirvana, Aretha Franklin, Tupac, Elton John & Hundreds More Lost Masters in Universal Music Fire: Report

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Smoke rises over burning structures at Universal Studios on June 1, 2008 in Universal City, Calif.

Janet Jackson, The Eagles, No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and more are also included in a new list compiled by the New York Times Magazine.

A more complete picture of the losses incurred in the 2008 Universal Music Group (UMG) fire has been revealed in a new article published in The New York Times Magazine.

The report includes a list of hundreds of artists whose tapes were seemingly lost in the blaze, from musical icons such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Dolly Parton to historically-significant but lesser-known figures like Les Paul, Captain Beefheart and Alice Coltrane. The list which was compiled from three separate UMG lists obtained by the Times that were prepared for an initiative entitled Project Phoenix, which the company mounted in an attempt to track down replacement copies and duplicates of destroyed masters.

The UMG lists were procured from a series of emails and documents the Times obtained in the course of their investigation into the fire, which broke out on the backlot of Universal Studios and eventually destroyed a warehouse containing a treasure trove of master recordings from UMG’s archives. UMG subsequently sued NBCUniversal for negligence over the fire; the case was ultimately being settled out of court in 2013.

The list published by the Times covers a broad spectrum of musical acts and cultural icons. Modern megastars such as 50 Cent, Nirvana, Tupac Shakur, Mary J. Blige, Nine Inch Nails, Common, Elton John, No Doubt, Beck, R.E.M., Janet Jackson, Sheryl Crow and Guns N’ Roses share space with musical pioneers like Billie Holiday, Muddy Waters, Bing Crosby, Aretha Franklin, Slim Harpo and B.B. King.

Tapes from several notable comedians were also reportedly lost, including Carol Burnett, Chris Rock, Cheech & Chong, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Hope and Rodney Dangerfield. Additionally, the recording of a keynote address given by Martin Luther King Jr. called "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" was also reportedly stored in the warehouse.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8517618/universal-music-fire-nirvana-aretha-franklin-tupac-elton-john-lost-masters

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KURUSHITOVSKA

That's why labels need to get digital masters of everything asap, and release them too in that original quality, because anyway they'll do once the artist dies as they always do (tragic)

¿Qué currículum tiene ésta tarántula?
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PunkTheFunk

This is a MASSIVE loss. The original copies of so many legendary recordings burned in this fire and we didn't even know about it :saladga: 

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Cerny

The modern day burning of the Library of Alexandria. :giveup:

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Madame Goo Goo
31 minutes ago, Tom Daley said:

The thought of not having backups in this digital day and age :wtf:

Well...it was 2008

Lady Gaga doesn't owe us anything
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PunkTheFunk
2 hours ago, sillynate said:

Is it like unreleased material that’s lost?

Both released and unreleased. Another article also mentions multitrack recordings -- so for example if they recorded an isolated piano melody or drum beat or some extra background vocals, that would've been lost too :giveup:

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PunkTheFunk
2 hours ago, Madame Goo Goo said:

Well...it was 2008

2008 is no excuse, there were plenty of ways to backup sound recordings then. This was only 10 years ago.

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2 hours ago, Madame Goo Goo said:

Well...it was 2008

lmao!

 

omg

 

no shade, all pink lemonade: how old are you?

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PunkTheFunk
1 minute ago, Andreu said:

So this happened in 2018 but no one knew about it til this month or what?

It happened in 2008 but Universal Music Group significantly downplayed the damage at the time. It wasn't until this year that a NY Times report exposed what was really lost. 

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Woolfsmck

Many of those artists will have replicas,  but one of a kind and dead artists probably are forever lost

like a cat in a sil, I observe life, moving and still. My words give a clue,look inside to see whats true
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