Uh oh. You know that big fire that ravaged Universal Studios? Well, it turns out that Universal Music had some space in the vault. Deadline Hollywood Daily reports the vault contained “1000’s of original Decca, MCA, ABC recording masters from the last century including a wide range of music from Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters to Judy Garland and The Carpenters.”
We’ll probably never even know all of what was destroyed because Universal “doesn’t yet know what exactly was housed in the storage rented to Universal Music.” As one commenter points out, “They have absorbed so many smaller labels and their catalogues that they really have no idea. You actually had to go pull tapes and play them to find out what was on a roll of tape.”
Burn, Hollywood, burn. But save the music for crying out loud! At least get an intern to document what you’ve got, dummies.
Via Idolator.
Update: Universal Music Group Masters Unharmed In Fire. I guess you can’t believe everything you read on the internet…
I can’t believe they didn’t have an inventory tally of what was in there, even if it was just for insurance purposes. Sheesh.
I firmly believe that labels are possibly the worst stewards for music you could imagine, largely because it’s product, not art. Even if they did have a tally, it was probably kept with the damn tapes.
This is one of those tragic days. Not tragic hurricane Katrina-style granted, but artistically tragic, nonetheless. What this means for a lot of music is, if it hadn’t been released on CD yet, IT ISN’T GOING TO BE. And there are notable absences to this day in the CD canon.
Mother Nature* has a funny way of determining ultimately which will and won’t be preserved, doesn’t she? (*Or whichever circumstances the fire started determine that, I guess.)
Updated.