Common Music Group’s 2008 vault fireplace destroyed 500,000 grasp recordings: New York Occasions

Over a decade in the past, on June 1st, 2008, an enormous fireplace scorched Common Studios’ Hollywood lot, together with its theme park, Common Music Group’s vault, and extra. As a brand new investigation by Jody Rosen of the New York Occasions has uncovered, 500,000 grasp recordings of iconic albums by a few of music’s greatest artists have been destroyed within the fireplace.

On the time, protection of the fireplace centered on what was misplaced within the movie and tv realm, significantly on the Common Studio theme park. A consultant for UMG instructed Deadline that there “was little misplaced from UMG’s vault.” The consultant mentioned the vast majority of the music saved in UMG’s vault had been moved earlier within the 12 months “to our different services” and had “already been digitized, so the music will nonetheless be round for a few years to return.”

However Randy Aronson, the Senior Director of Vault Operations on the time, had the actual numbers, talked about above. “It was like these end-of-the-world-type motion pictures,” he instructed the Occasions. “I felt like my planet had been destroyed.”

The Vault Operations division housed recordings from iconic report firms that Common absorbed over the course of its existence, together with Decca, Chess, Impulse, MCA, Geffen, ABC, A&M, Interscope, and smaller subsidiary labels. Among the many materials destroyed within the fireplace have been “nearly all” of Buddy Holly’s masters, most of John Coltrane’s Impulse Data releases, and an authentic grasp of Etta James’ “At Final”.

Additionally misplaced have been basic data by Al Inexperienced, Ray Charles, Elton John, B.B. King, The 4 Tops, Nirvana, Snoop Dogg, Chuck Berry, Tom Petty, Joan Baez, 9 Inch Nails, Neil Diamond, Cat Stevens, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Eric Clapton, R.E.M., The Eagles, Aerosmith, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Barry White, Patti LaBelle, The Police, Sting, Steve Earle, Janet Jackson, Weapons N’ Roses, Mary J. Blige, No Doubt, Snoop Dogg, Beck, Sheryl Crow, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, 50 Cent, and The Roots. It hurts simply studying that record.

Rosen characterizes the fireplace as “the largest catastrophe within the historical past of the music enterprise,” as most of the gadgets misplaced are irreplaceable. She writes: “Aronson recollects listening to that the corporate priced the mixed complete of misplaced tape and ‘lack of artistry’ at $150 million. However in historic phrases, the dimension of the disaster is staggering. It’s inconceivable to itemize, exactly, what music was on every tape or laborious drive within the vault, which had no complete stock. It can’t be mentioned precisely what number of recordings have been authentic masters or what sort of grasp every recording was. However by means of authorized paperwork, inner UMG experiences, and the accounts of Aronson and others conversant in the vault’s assortment go away little doubt that the losses have been profound, taking in a sweeping cross-section of standard music historical past, from postwar hitmakers to present-day stars.”

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