Vivendi ne s'en vente pas : des trésors de masters parti en fumés

Les questions sont (si tu nous laisses un peu de place) :

- les supports étaient magnétiques ou étaient-ce les galettes 'mères' pour vinyl uniquement ?

- pour tous ces grands artistes je suppose que tout a été numérisé ?

si c'est le cas, ce n'est pas un cataclysme... comme dit 'Dubé', nous ne sommes que de passage.. les choses sont comme les mortels et tout est voué à disparaitre... penser l'inverse n'est qu'expression de l'égocentrisme.

Suite aux articles en précédent la liste dressée par le NewYork Times Magazine en fin d'article.

Comme vous le verrez pour ceux qui connaisent bien la musique, il s'agit d'une catastrophe majeure dont l'ampleur a été très sous-estimée notamment en terme d'impact financière.

Les artistes lésés pourraient intenter une action collective comme cela se souvent aux Etat-Unis...

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Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire

NewYork Times magazine | By Jody Rosen | June 25, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/magazine/universal-music-fire-bands-list-umg.html

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Artists Named in UMG Documents

38 Special

50 Cent

Colonel Abrams

Johnny Ace

Bryan Adams

Nat Adderley

Aerosmith

Rhett Akins

Manny Albam

Lorez Alexandria

Gary Allan

Red Allen

Steve Allen

The Ames Brothers

Gene Ammons

Bill Anderson

Jimmy Anderson

John Anderson

The Andrews Sisters

Lee Andrews & the Hearts

Paul Anka

Adam Ant

Toni Arden

Joan Armatrading

Louis Armstrong

Asia

Asleep at the Wheel

Audioslave

Patti Austin

Average White Band

Hoyt Axton

Albert Ayler

Burt Bacharach

Joan Baez

Razzy Bailey

Chet Baker

Florence Ballard

Hank Ballard

Gato Barbieri

Baja Marimba Band

Len Barry

Count Basie

Fontella Bass

The Beat Farmers

Sidney Bechet and His Orchestra

Beck

Captain Beefheart

Archie Bell & the Drells

Vincent Bell

Bell Biv Devoe

Louie Bellson

Don Bennett

Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones

David Benoit

George Benson

Berlin

Elmer Bernstein and His Orchestra

Chuck Berry

Nuno Bettencourt

Stephen Bishop

Blackstreet

Art Blakey

Hal Blaine

Bobby (Blue) Bland

Mary J. Blige

Blink 182

Blues Traveler

Eddie Bo

Pat Boone

Boston

Connee Boswell

Eddie Boyd

Jan Bradley

Owen Bradley Quintet

Oscar Brand

Bob Braun

Walter Brennan

Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats

Teresa Brewer

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians

John Brim

Lonnie Brooks

Big Bill Broonzy and Washboard Sam

Brothers Johnson

Bobby Brown

Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown

Lawrence Brown

Les Brown

Marion Brown

Marshall Brown

Mel Brown

Michael Brown

Dave Brubeck

Jimmy Buffett

Carol Burnett

T-Bone Burnett

Dorsey Burnette

Johnny Burnette

Busta Rhymes

Terry Callier

Cab Calloway

The Call

Glen Campbell

Captain and Tennille

Captain Sensible

Irene Cara

Belinda Carlisle

Carl Carlton

Eric Carmen

Hoagy Carmichael

Kim Carnes

Karen Carpenter

Richard Carpenter

The Carpenters

Barbara Carr

Betty Carter

Benny Carter

The Carter Family

Peter Case

Alvin Cash

Mama Cass

Bobby Charles

Ray Charles

Chubby Checker

The Checkmates Ltd.

Cheech & Chong

Cher

Don Cherry

Mark Chesnutt

The Chi-Lites

Eric Clapton

Petula Clark

Roy Clark

Gene Clark

The Clark Sisters

Merry Clayton

Jimmy Cliff

Patsy Cline

Rosemary Clooney

Wayne Cochran

Joe Cocker

Ornette Coleman

Gloria Coleman

Mitty Collier

Jazzbo Collins

Judy Collins

Colosseum

Alice Coltrane

John Coltrane

Colours

Common

Cookie and the Cupcakes

Barbara Cook

Rita Coolidge

Stewart Copeland

The Corsairs

Dave “Baby” Cortez

Bill Cosby

Don Costa

Clifford Coulter

David Crosby

Crosby & Nash

Johnny Cougar (aka John Cougar Mellencamp)

Counting Crows

Coverdale•Page

Warren Covington

Deborah Cox

James “Sugar Boy” Crawford

Crazy Otto

Marshall Crenshaw

The Crew-Cuts

Sonny Criss

David Crosby

Bob Crosby

Bing Crosby

Sheryl Crow

Rodney Crowell

The Crusaders

Xavier Cugat

The Cuff Links

Tim Curry

The Damned

Danny & the Juniors

Rodney Dangerfield

Bobby Darin

Helen Darling

David + David

Mac Davis

Richard Davis

Sammy Davis Jr.

Chris de Burgh

Lenny Dee

Jack DeJohnette

The Dells

The Dell-Vikings

Sandy Denny

Sugar Pie DeSanto

The Desert Rose Band

Dennis DeYoung

Neil Diamond

Bo Diddley

Difford & Tilbrook

Dillard & Clark

The Dixie Hummingbirds

Willie Dixon

DJ Shadow

Fats Domino

Jimmy Donley

Kenny Dorham

Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra

Lee Dorsey

The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra

Lamont Dozier

The Dramatics

The Dream Syndicate

Roy Drusky

Jimmy Durante

Deanna Durbin

The Eagles

Steve Earle

El Chicano

Danny Elfman

Yvonne Elliman

Duke Ellington

Cass Elliott

Joe Ely

John Entwistle

Eminem

Eric B. and Rakim

Gil Evans

Paul Evans

Betty Everett

Don Everly

Extreme

The Falcons

Harold Faltermeyer

Donna Fargo

Art Farmer

Freddie Fender

Ferrante & Teicher

Fever Tree

The Fifth Dimension

Ella Fitzgerald

Five Blind Boys Of Alabama

The Fixx

The Flamingos

King Floyd

The Flying Burrito Brothers

John Fogerty

Red Foley

Eddie Fontaine

The Four Aces

The Four Tops

Peter Frampton

Franke & the Knockouts

Aretha Franklin

The Rev. C.L. Franklin

The Free Movement

Glenn Frey

Lefty Frizzell

Curtis Fuller

Jerry Fuller

Lowell Fulson

Harvey Fuqua

Nelly Furtado

Hank Garland

Judy Garland

Erroll Garner

Jimmy Garrison

Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers

Gene Loves Jezebel

Barry Gibb

Georgia Gibbs

Terri Gibbs

Dizzy Gillespie

Gin Blossoms

Tompall Glaser

Tom Glazer

Whoopi Goldberg

Golden Earring

Paul Gonsalves

Benny Goodman

Dexter Gordon

Rosco Gordon

Lesley Gore

The Gospelaires

Teddy Grace

Grand Funk Railroad

Amy Grant

Earl Grant

The Grass Roots

Dobie Gray

Buddy Greco

Keith Green

Al Green

Jack Greene

Robert Greenidge

Lee Greenwood

Patty Griffin

Nanci Griffith

Dave Grusin

Guns N’ Roses

Buddy Guy

Buddy Hackett

Charlie Haden

Merle Haggard

Bill Haley and His Comets

Aaron Hall

Lani Hall

Chico Hamilton

George Hamilton IV

Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds

Marvin Hamlisch

Jan Hammer

Lionel Hampton

John Handy

Glass Harp

Slim Harpo

Richard Harris

Freddie Harts

Dan Hartman

Johnny Hartman

Coleman Hawkins

Dale Hawkins

Richie Havens

Roy Haynes

Head East

Heavy D. & the Boyz

Bobby Helms

Don Henley

Clarence “Frogman” Henry

Woody Herman and His Orchestra

Milt Herth and His Trio

John Hiatt

Al Hibbler

Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks

Monk Higgins

Jessie Hill

Earl Hines

Roger Hodgson

Hole

Billie Holiday

Jennifer Holliday

Buddy Holly

The Hollywood Flames

Eddie Holman

John Lee Hooker

Stix Hooper

Bob Hope

Paul Horn

Shirley Horn

Big Walter Horton

Thelma Houston

Rebecca Lynn Howard

Jan Howard

Freddie Hubbard

Humble Pie

Engelbert Humperdinck

Brian Hyland

The Impressions

The Ink Spots

Iron Butterfly

Burl Ives

Janet Jackson

Joe Jackson

Milt Jackson

Ahmad Jamal

Etta James

Elmore James

James Gang

Keith Jarrett

Jason & the Scorchers

Jawbreaker

Garland Jeffreys

Beverly Jenkins

Gordon Jenkins

The Jets

Jimmy Eat World

Jodeci

Johnnie Joe

The Joe Perry Project

Elton John

J.J. Johnson

K-Ci & JoJo

Al Jolson

Booker T. Jones

Elvin Jones

George Jones

Hank Jones

Jack Jones

Marti Jones

Quincy Jones

Rickie Lee Jones

Tamiko Jones

Tom Jones

Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five

The Jordanaires

Jurassic 5

Bert Kaempfert

Kitty Kallen & Georgie Shaw

The Kalin Twins

Bob Kames

Kansas

Boris Karloff

Sammy Kaye

Toby Keith

Gene Kelly

Chaka Khan

B.B. King

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Wayne King

The Kingsmen

The Kingston Trio

Roland Kirk

Eartha Kitt

John Klemmer

Klymaxx

Baker Knight

Chris Knight

Gladys Knight and the Pips

Krokus

Steve Kuhn

Rolf Kuhn

Joachim Kuhn

Patti LaBelle

L.A. Dream Team

Frankie Laine

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

Denise LaSalle

Yusef Lateef

Steve Lawrence

Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé

Lafayette Leake

Brenda Lee

Laura Lee

Leapy Lee

Peggy Lee

Danni Leigh

The Lennon Sisters

J.B. Lenoir

Ramsey Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lewis

Meade Lux Lewis

Liberace

Lifehouse

Enoch Light

The Lightning Seeds

Limp Bizkit

Lisa Loeb

Little Axe and the Golden Echoes

Little Milton

Little River Band

Little Walter

Lobo

Nils Lofgren

Lone Justice

Guy Lombardo

Lord Tracy

The Louvin Brothers

Love

Patti Loveless

The Lovelites

Lyle Lovett

Love Unlimited

Loretta Lynn

L.T.D.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Gloria Lynne

Moms Mabley

Willie Mabon

Warner Mack

Dave MacKay & Vicky Hamilton

Miriam Makeba

The Mamas and the Papas

Melissa Manchester

Barbara Mandrell

Chuck Mangione

Shelly Manne

Wade Marcus

Mark-Almond

Pigmeat Markham

Steve Marriott

Wink Martindale

Groucho Marx

Hugh Masekela

Dave Mason

Jerry Mason

Matthews Southern Comfort

The Mavericks

Robert Maxwell

John Mayall

Percy Mayfield

Lyle Mays

Les McCann

Delbert McClinton

Robert Lee McCollum

Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr.

Van McCoy

Jimmy McCracklin

Jack McDuff

Reba McEntire

Gary McFarland

Barry McGuire

The McGuire Sisters

Duff McKagan

Maria McKee

McKendree Spring

Marian McPartland

Clyde McPhatter

Carmen McRae

Jack McVea

Meat Loaf

Memphis Slim

Sergio Mendes

Ethel Merman

Pat Metheny

Mighty Clouds of Joy

Roger Miller

Stephanie Mills

The Mills Brothers

Liza Minnelli

Charles Mingus

Joni Mitchell

Bill Monroe

Vaughn Monroe

Wes Montgomery

Buddy Montgomery

The Moody Blues

The Moonglows

Jane Morgan

Russ Morgan

Ennio Morricone

Mos Def

Martin Mull

Gerry Mulligan

Milton Nascimento

Johnny Nash

Nazareth

Nelson

Rick Nelson & the Stone Canyon Band

Ricky Nelson

Jimmy Nelson

Oliver Nelson

Aaron Neville

Art Neville

The Neville Brothers

New Edition

New Riders of the Purple Sage

Olivia Newton-John

Night Ranger

Leonard Nimoy

Nine Inch Nails

Nirvana

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

No Doubt

Ken Nordine

Red Norvo Sextet

Terri Nunn

The Oak Ridge Boys

Ric Ocasek

Phil Ochs

Hazel O’Connor

Chico O’Farrill

Oingo Boingo

The O’Jays

Spooner Oldham

One Flew South

Yoko Ono

Orleans

Jeffrey Osborne

The Outfield

Pablo Cruise

Jackie Paris

Leo Parker

Junior Parker

Ray Parker Jr.

Dolly Parton

Les Paul

Freda Payne

Peaches & Herb

Ce Ce Peniston

The Peppermint Rainbow

Pepples

The Persuasions

Bernadette Peters

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

John Phillips

Webb Pierce

The Pinetoppers

Bill Plummer

Poco

The Pointer Sisters

The Police

Doc Pomus

Jimmy Ponder

Iggy Pop

Billy Preston

Lloyd Price

Louis Prima

Primus

Puddle Of Mudd

Red Prysock

Leroy Pullins

The Pussycat Dolls

Quarterflash

Queen Latifah

Sun Ra

The Radiants

Gerry Rafferty

Kenny Rankin

The Ray Charles Singers

The Ray-O-Vacs

The Rays

Dewey Redman

Della Reese

Martha Reeves

R.E.M.

Debbie Reynolds

Emitt Rhodes

Buddy Rich

Emil Richards

Dannie Richmond

Riders in the Sky

Stan Ridgway

Frazier River

Sam Rivers

Max Roach

Marty Roberts

Howard Roberts

The Roches

Chris Rock

Tommy Roe

Jimmy Rogers

Sonny Rollins

The Roots

Rose Royce

Jackie Ross

Doctor Ross

Rotary Connection

The Rover Boys

Roswell Rudd

Rufus and Chaka Khan

Otis Rush

Brenda Russell

Leon Russell

Pee Wee Russell

Russian Jazz Quartet

Mitch Ryder

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Joe Sample

Pharoah Sanders

The Sandpipers

Gary Saracho

Shirley Scott

Tom Scott

Dawn Sears

Neil Sedaka

Jeannie Seely

Semisonic

Charlie Sexton

Marlena Shaw

Tupac Shakur

Archie Shepp

Dinah Shore

Ben Sidran

Silver Apples

Shel Silverstein

The Simon Sisters

Ashlee Simpson

The Simpsons

Zoot Sims

P.F. Sloan

Smash Mouth

Kate Smith

Keely Smith

Tab Smith

Patti Smyth

Snoop Dogg

Valaida Snow

Jill Sobule

Soft Machine

Sonic Youth

Sonny and Cher

The Soul Stirrers

Soundgarden

Eddie South

Southern Culture on the Skids

Spinal Tap

Banana Splits

The Spokesmen

Squeeze

Jo Stafford

Chris Stamey

Joe Stampley

Michael Stanley

Kay Starr

Stealers Wheel

Steely Dan

Gwen Stefani

Steppenwolf

Cat Stevens

Billy Stewart

Sting

Sonny Stitt

Shane Stockton

George Strait

The Strawberry Alarm Clock

Strawbs

Styx

Sublime

Yma Sumac

Andy Summers

The Sundowners

Supertramp

The Surfaris

Sylvia Syms

Gábor Szabó

The Tams

Grady Tate

t.A.T.u.

Koko Taylor

Billy Taylor

Charlie Teagarden

Temple of the Dog

Clark Terry

Tesla

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Robin Thicke

Toots Thielemans

B.J. Thomas

Irma Thomas

Rufus Thomas

Hank Thompson

Lucky Thompson

Big Mama Thornton

Three Dog Night

The Three Stooges

Tiffany

Mel Tillis

Tommy & the Tom Toms

Mel Tormé

The Tragically Hip

The Trapp Family Singers

Ralph Tresvant

Ernest Tubb

The Tubes

Tanya Tucker

Tommy Tucker

The Tune Weavers

Ike Turner

Stanley Turrentine

Conway Twitty

McCoy Tyner

Phil Upchurch

Michael Utley

Leroy Van Dyke

Gino Vannelli

Van Zant

Billy Vaughan

Suzanne Vega

Vega Brothers

Veruca Salt

The Vibrations

Bobby Vinton

Voïvod

Porter Wagoner

The Waikikis

Rufus Wainwright

Rick Wakeman

Jerry Jeff Walker

The Wallflowers

Joe Walsh

Wang Chung

Clara Ward

Warrior Soul

Washboard Sam

Was (Not Was)

War

Justine Washington

The Watchmen

Muddy Waters

Jody Watley

Johnny “Guitar” Watson

The Weavers

The Dream Weavers

Ben Webster

Weezer

We Five

George Wein

Lenny Welch

Lawrence Welk

Kitty Wells

Mae West

Barry White

Michael White

Slappy White

Whitesnake

White Zombie

The Who

Whycliffe

Kim Wilde

Don Williams

Jody Williams

John Williams

Larry Williams

Lenny Williams

Leona Williams

Paul Williams

Roger Williams

Sonny Boy Williamson

Walter Winchell

Kai Winding

Johnny Winter

Wishbone Ash

Jimmy Witherspoon

Howlin’ Wolf

Bobby Womack

Lee Ann Womack

Phil Woods

Wrecks-N-Effect

O.V. Wright

Bill Wyman

Rusty York

Faron Young

Neil Young

Young Black Teenagers

Y & T

Rob Zombie

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Correction: June 26, 2019

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of an artist whose master recordings UMG believed were lost in the fire. He was Frankie Laine, not Lane.

UMG Kept a Secret List of Masters Destroyed In the Fire — The New York Times Just Published It

Paul Resnikoff | June 25, 2019

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/06/25/universal-music-group-secret-list-fires/

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Previously, Universal Music Group had refused to disclose any list detailing its losses in the 2008 Universal Studios fire.

Now, the New York Times is releasing it for them.

Late Tuesday, Times investigatory reporter Jody Rosen released a list of more than 700 artists impacted by the 2008 Universal Studios fire. Those artists were tracked in a confidential list maintained by Universal Music Group, and subsequently leaked.

Rosen wrote the original report on the fire, titled “The Day the Music Burned.” That report contained the names of 100 artists whose masters were believed to have been destroyed in the blaze.

The latest report adds 700 additional names to that original list. Appropriately, the follow-up article is titled “Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire.” Scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll be treated to an exhaustive (and depressing) list of artists whose masters were included in the confidential file.

In total, it’s estimated that half-a-million masters and other recorded materials were destroyed in the inferno.

The forced disclosure follows a promise by Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge to be totally ‘transparent’ to its artists with regards to masters destroyed in the fire.

“So, let me be clear: we owe our artists transparency. We owe them answers,” Grainge stated while downplaying the actual damages.

Since that statement, however, there’s been little disclosure on the affected masters. In fact, Grainge’s statement now looks like part of a continued effort to cover up the catastrophic damages.

Perhaps motivated by Grainge’s deflection, more information leaked.

Rosen unearthed the presence of an internal, confidential tracking effort called ‘Project Phoenix,’ one that quickly circulated in the days after the ’08 fire. That confidential effort was designed to catalog the losses and seek replacements or duplicates to destroyed versions.

“The names were gleaned from UMG’s own lists, assembled during the company’s ‘Project Phoenix’ recovery effort, a global search for replacement copies and duplicates of destroyed masters,” Rosen noted.

Artists were bucketed into an ‘A’ list and a ‘B’ list, based on their perceived importance. Rosen explains:

On one list, artists were assigned letter-grade rankings, with higher marks given to those deemed most important. Artists graded “A” include historic figures (Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell) and best-selling acts of the 1980s, ’90s, and ’00s (Belinda Carlisle, Meat Loaf, Weezer, Limp Bizkit, Gwen Stefani, Blink 182).

Captain and Tennille, Chuck Mangione, Whitesnake, Sublime, White Zombie, Nelly Furtado and the Pussycat Dolls [also] received A ratings. Les Paul, Merle Haggard, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Alice Coltrane, Captain Beefheart, the Neville Brothers and the Roots were given Bs.

The article also interviews key artists whose masters were destroyed in the blaze.

That includes Bryan Adams, who says Universal Music Group was mysteriously unable to locate his collection of masters from his ultra-successful album, Reckless. Adams was attempting to compile a re-release with unreleased tracks and outtakes.

“I called everyone, former A&M employees, directors, producers, photographers, production houses, editors, even assistants of producers at the time,” Adams relayed. “I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that I couldn’t find anything at Universal that had been published to do with my association with A&M records in the 1980s.”

Courtney Love, who is now part of a $100 million lawsuit filed on Friday against UMG, had extremely sharp words for the cover-up. “No one knows for sure yet, specifically what is gone from their estate, their catalog,” Love said. “But for once in a horrible way people believe me about the state of the music business which I would not wish on my worst enemy.

“Our culture has been devastated, meanwhile UMG is online with cookie recipes and pop, as if nothing happened. It’s so horrible.”

Here’s a quick sampling of the artists listed on the Times’ expanded list of 700 artists:

Aerosmith, the Andrews Sisters, Joan Baez, Chet Baker, Count Basie, Beck, Chuck Berry, Mary J. Blige, Blink 182, Dave Brubeck, Jimmy Buffett, T Bone Burnett, Ray Charles, Patsy Cline, John Coltrane, Bing Crosby, Sheryl Crow, Neil Diamond, Fats Domino, Jimmy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Peter Frampton, Aretha Franklin, Judy Garland, Amy Grant, Al Green, Guns N’ Roses, Don Henley, Hole, Janet Jackson, Jodeci, Elton John, George Jones, Toby Keith, Ramsey Lewis, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Louvin Brothers, Loretta Lynn, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Meat Loaf, Charles Mingus, Bill Monroe, Wes Montgomery, No Doubt, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Oingo Boingo, Tom Petty, the Police, Sun Ra, R.E.M., Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Steely Dan, George Strait, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Ernest Tubb, Weezer, Kitty Wells, Howlin’ Wolf, Neil Young and Rob Zombie.

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Second article

Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire

NewYork Times magazine | By Jody Rosen | June 25, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/magazine/universal-music-fire-bands-list-umg.html

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In 2013, Bryan Adams, the Canadian singer-songwriter, found himself facing a mystery. Twenty-nine years earlier, in 1984, Adams reached pop-rock superstardom with the release of his fourth LP, “Reckless,” which topped the Billboard 200 album chart and sold an estimated 12 million copies worldwide. Now, with the album’s 30th anniversary approaching, Adams was attempting to put together a commemorative reissue. He reached out to Universal Music Group (UMG), the world’s largest record company, which controls the catalog of dozens of subsidiaries, including A&M, the label that put out “Reckless” and eight other Adams studio albums.

“I contacted the archive dept of Universal Music,” Adams told me in an email last week. Adams was seeking “the master mixes/artwork/photos/video/film . . . anything,” he wrote. Almost nothing could be turned up by the record company. Adams’s hunt for this material ranged far and wide. “I called everyone, former A&M employees, directors, producers, photographers, production houses, editors, even assistants of producers at the time,” Adams said.

Eventually, Adams located a safety copy of the album’s “unmastered final assembly mix tape” in his own vault in Vancouver. But he remained baffled about the disappearance of so much material: “I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that I couldn’t find anything at Universal that had been published to do with my association with A&M records in the 1980s. If you were doing an archaeological dig there, you would have concluded that it was almost as if none of it had ever happened.”

Two weeks ago, another explanation emerged, when Adams read “The Day the Music Burned,” a New York Times Magazine article detailing the destruction of recordings in a fire at a vault facility on the backlot of Universal Studios Hollywood, where UMG stored original masters and other recordings dating from the 1940s up to the 2000s. In legal documents and UMG reports that I obtained while researching the article, the record company asserted that more than 100,000 masters and “an estimated 500K song titles” had burned in the fire, including works by such towering figures as Billie Holiday, Chuck Berry and John Coltrane. The toll encompassed recordings made for several famous record labels: Decca, Chess, Impulse, ABC, MCA, Geffen, Interscope and Adams’ old label, A&M. A confidential document prepared by UMG officials for a 2009 “Vault Loss Meeting” offered a bleak assessment of the damage: “Lost in the fire was, undoubtedly, a huge musical heritage.”

Today, The Times is offering a broader look at that heritage, publishing an expanded list of artists who were thought by UMG officials to have lost master recordings in the fire. The list adds 700-plus names to the more than 100 artists cited in “The Day the Music Burned.”

The names were gleaned from UMG’s own lists, assembled during the company’s “Project Phoenix” recovery effort, a global search for replacement copies and duplicates of destroyed masters. One of the artists on those lists is Bryan Adams, who said that he first learned about the fire when he read the Times Magazine piece. During his interactions with UMG staff in 2013, Adams said, “There was no mention that there had been a fire in the archive.”

The list that appears at the end of this article provides a fuller sense of the historical scope of the 2008 disaster. The recording artists whose names The Times is publishing for the first time today represent an extraordinary cross-section of genres and periods: classic pop balladeers (Rosemary Clooney, Peggy Lee, Pat Boone), jazz greats (Sidney Bechet, Betty Carter, Roland Kirk), show business legends (Groucho Marx, Mae West, Bob Hope), gospel groups (the Dixie Hummingbirds, Five Blind Boys of Alabama, the Soul Stirrers), country icons (the Carter Family, Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell), illustrious songwriters (Hoagy Carmichael, Doc Pomus, Lamont Dozier), doo-wop and rhythm & blues favorites (Johnny Ace, the Moonglows, the Del-Vikings), ’50s and ’60s chart toppers (Ricky Nelson, Petula Clark, Brenda Lee), bluesmen (Slim Harpo, Elmore James, Otis Rush), world-music stars (Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Milton Nascimento), classic rockers (The Who, Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night), folkies and folk-rockers (Sandy Denny, Crosby & Nash, Buffy Sainte-Marie), singer-songwriters (Phil Ochs, Terry Callier, Joan Armatrading), ’70s best-sellers (Peter Frampton, Olivia Newton-John, Barry Gibb), soul and disco-era stalwarts (the Dramatics, the Pointer Sisters, George Benson), AM rock-radio staples (Styx, Boston, 38 Special), divas and divos (Cher, Tom Jones), British punks and new wavers (The Damned, Joe Jackson, Squeeze), MTV fixtures (Wang Chung, Patti Smyth, Extreme), hip-hop/R&B hitmakers (Bell Biv Devoe, Jodeci, Blackstreet), ’90s rock acts (Primus, Temple of the Dog, the Wallflowers), rappers (Heavy D. & the Boyz, Busta Rhymes, Common), comedians (Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Cosby, Chris Rock), even the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose album “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” a recording of a keynote address given at an A.M.E. church convention, was released in 1968 on Excello, a blues label whose masters were stored in the backlot vault.

The UMG documents from which these names are drawn were organized according to a hierarchy, an effort to establish “priority assets”: those recordings that were to be a primary focus of the search for replacement copies. On one list, artists were assigned letter-grade rankings, with higher marks given to those deemed most important. Artists graded “A” include historic figures (Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell) and best-selling acts of the 1980s, ’90s, and ’00s (Belinda Carlisle, Meat Loaf, Weezer, Limp Bizkit, Gwen Stefani, Blink 182).

The letter-grade rankings provide a snapshot of UMG’s marketplace wisdom circa 2010 — judgments that, at times, favor top-sellers with thin discographies over historically significant figures and critically-lionized innovators. Captain and Tennille, Chuck Mangione, Whitesnake, Sublime, White Zombie, Nelly Furtado and the Pussycat Dolls received A ratings. Les Paul, Merle Haggard, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Alice Coltrane, Captain Beefheart, the Neville Brothers and the Roots were given Bs.

For the past two weeks, as news of the lost masters has reverberated through the music industry, UMG has been roundly criticized by artists and their representatives. On Friday, a lawsuit was filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles by five prominent musicians and estates: the rock bands Soundgarden and Hole, singer-songwriter Steve Earle, the estate of rapper Tupac Shakur, and Tom Petty’s former wife, who owns rights in some of Petty’s music. The suit, which seeks class-action status, accuses UMG of breaching its contracts with artists by failing to protect their recordings and by failing to share any income received in insurance payments and legal settlements from the fire. The plaintiffs are seeking “compensatory damages in an amount in excess of $100 million.”

Universal declined to comment on the lawsuit on Friday. Earlier in the week, Arnaud de Puyfontaine, the chief executive and chairman of UMG’s corporate parent, the French media conglomerate Vivendi, waved aside concerns that revelations of the fire would impact Vivendi’s plans to sell up to 50 percent of the record company, whose value was recently estimated at $33 billion. De Puyfontaine told Variety that the controversy over the fire is “just noise.”

But that noise is growing louder. Last week, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Hole’s lead singer, Courtney Love, spoke bitterly of UMG’s response to the fire. “No one knows for sure yet, specifically what is gone from their estate, their catalog,” she told me in an email. “But for once in a horrible way people believe me about the state of the music business which I would not wish on my worst enemy. Our culture has been devastated, meanwhile UMG is online with cookie recipes and pop, as if nothing happened. It’s so horrible.”

Many artists have commented on social media, expressing indignation in particular over UMG’s failure to inform them about the potential losses to their catalogs. On June 12, the day after the Times article was published online, the singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow tweeted: “shame on those involved in the coverup. Massive fire at UMG 11 years ago, and we’re just hearing about this now??” Geoffrey Downes, the keyboardist for the English prog-rock group Asia, also reacted on Twitter. “This might explain why nobody can find the original Asia album masters,” he wrote. “Very sad, and UMG have kept it quiet for more than 10 years.” Crow released eight studio albums for A&M; Asia recorded four for Geffen. Both received A ratings in UMG’s Project Phoenix documents.

Other artists listed in the documents are offering accounts of interactions with UMG similar to those reported by Bryan Adams, in which the record company appears to have fallen short of complete candor. These incidents are reported by artists to have taken place after many of the executives who presided over UMG at the time of the fire had departed, and well into the tenure of the current CEO and chariman, Lucian Grainge.

Early last year, the alternative rock group Semisonic was preparing a 20th-anniversary edition of its 1998 album “Feeling Strangely Fine.” According to drummer Jacob Slichter, the band was informed by UMG that masters of the album “couldn’t be located.” In an email to The Times, Semisonic’s manager, Jim Grant — whose office requested the masters from UMG — said that the record company “did not reference lost or damaged masters. . . . They did not mention anything about the fire.” Semisonic was included on one of the UMG documents listing artists whose masters were thought to have been destroyed in the fire.

Another leading ’90s band that appears in the documents is Counting Crows, which recorded several albums for Geffen. In a 2016 interview in Diffuser, a music website, the lead singer, Adam Duritz, said that Geffen had “lost the master tapes” for “Recovering the Satellites,” the band’s platinum-selling 1996 release. “Geffen, because they’re a record company, it’s their sovereign right to lose everything,” he said. Duritz could not be reached for comment. It is unclear how he learned about the lost masters or if he was told that the tapes might have been lost in a fire.

One of the only musicians who has said publicly that he was informed about the destruction of his masters is Richard Carpenter of the Carpenters, the star ’70s pop duo. But Carpenter says the admission — by a staff member at UMG’s catalog division, Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) — came only after multiple inquiries and because UMG was forced into it: Carpenter had booked time at a mastering studio to work on a reissue for the label, and the tapes he requested for the session hadn’t shown up. “They didn’t let me know,” he told me last week. “They really didn’t want to get me on the phone to give me this news.” In a deposition given in a negligence suit brought by UMG against NBCUniversal, its landlord at the backlot vault, a former executive for the record company testified that Carpenter’s persistence and “concern” about his masters in the aftermath of the fire had been a subject of consternation among UMG officials.

Asked last week if there had been any systematic effort to inform artists of losses in the 2008 calamity, a UMG spokesperson said that the company “doesn’t publicly discuss our private conversations with artists and estates.” Its apparent success in keeping news of the fire from recording artists may in part be ascribed to the long history of anarchic archival practices in the music business: Musicians have come to expect that labels may not be able to find their masters, which in most cases are owned outright by the labels.

But novel arguments regarding masters and the intellectual property they contain may soon be advanced in cases against UMG. The suit filed Friday is not the only one that UMG is facing. In February, a separate class action was filed against UMG concerning Section 203 of the 1976 Copyright Act, which gives artists a chance to reclaim some rights to their sound recordings after a period of 35 years by serving Notices of Termination to record companies. The plaintiffs in Waite vs. UMG Recordings Inc. include, among others, singer John Waite, members of the California punk-rock band the Dickies and country-rock veteran Joe Ely. (Ely, who released eight albums on MCA between the 1970s and 1990s, appears in UMG’s documentation of losses in the fire.)

The plaintiffs’ lawyers, Evan Cohen and Maryann Marzano, now say that they view any losses suffered by artists in the fire “as a natural component of our claims.” “The destruction of the master recordings caused by the 2008 fire, and UMG’s subsequent failure to notify recording artists that their works were tragically lost, further underscores how little regard UMG has for the rights and property of musicians,” they said in a statement provided to The Times.

Since publication of “The Day the Music Burned,” UMG has been working to reassure artists and the public that losses in the fire were not as substantial as reported. In an interview published last Monday on Billboard’s website, Patrick Kraus, UMG’s senior vice president of recording studios and archive management, asserted that “many of the masters highlighted as destroyed, we actually have in our archives,” citing material by John Coltrane, Muddy Waters and the jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. The article includes photographs, provided by UMG, which appear to show boxes for a Coltrane master tape, the mono master of a Howlin’ Wolf album, a multitrack master by saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders and another master, possibly a multitrack, by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama.

But the broad assurances and scant specifics offered in recent days by Kraus and UMG spokespeople carry echoes of the company’s statements in the days after the 2008 fire, when officials characterized the label’s loss as negligible. It is true that some items thought to have been destroyed in the fire may in fact be safe, for any number of reasons. The item in the vault may not have been the original primary source master. The tape may have been elsewhere when the fire hit, perhaps in a studio for a reissue project. In many cases, UMG’s post-fire recovery effort may have located a backup copy of high-enough quality to muddy the question of whether the company has “a master” of the recording.

But individuals familiar with the contents of the doomed vault, including Randy Aronson, UMG’s senior director of vault operations at the time of the fire, state unequivocally that vast numbers of the masters in the archive were irreplaceable primary-source originals. The voluminous archives of Decca and Chess — the oldest and most historically significant labels in the vault, holding between them a staggering canon of American pop, jazz, blues and rock ‘n’ roll classics — comprised many tens of thousands of tapes, nearly all original masters.

According to Aronson and others, one reason UMG maintained the archive on the backlot in the first place was to keep original masters in Los Angeles, where they could be easily and affordably accessed by the company for reissues and compilations. “It just made sense to keep those tapes in L.A.,” says Mike Ragogna, a former senior director of catalog A&R at Universal Music Enterprises. “We would pull tapes three, four, multiple times for different projects.” Ragogna, who worked on hundreds of reissues for UMe before leaving the company in 2006, says that in 2008, when he saw the news about the fire, he thought immediately of certain precious masters that he suspected had been destroyed: “I was worried about the Neil Diamond tapes, the Joni Mitchell.”

The same characterization of the vault and its contents is found in the record company’s own internal files and in testimony given in legal proceedings after the fire. UMG’s recent statements downplaying the fire’s toll contradict its own copiously documented, multimillion-dollar effort to recover items it believed were lost. These same losses were part of the basis of UMG’s insurance claims in the aftermath of the fire, and of its negligence suit against NBCUniversal. They are the losses about which UMG officials, including some still employed by the company today, testified in sworn depositions.

Last Tuesday, various news outlets published a memo sent by Lucian Grainge, UMG’s chief executive, to the company’s staff. “We owe our artists transparency,” Grainge wrote. “We owe them answers.” Artists are seeking those answers. The lawyer Howard King — managing partner of King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano, one of the firms that filed the lawsuit on Friday — has requested that UMG “promptly furnish us with a complete inventory of all master recordings” on behalf of a number of artists, including Hole, Soundgarden, No Doubt, Joe Walsh and Buddy Guy and the estates of Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker and Tupac Shakur.

But answers and inventories may be difficult to obtain. Aronson says that it was clear in the immediate aftermath of the fire that the company would never have a complete accounting of what was lost. Decades of slapdash inventory practices — the company’s failure to invest in complete records of its holdings — had resulted in an insoluble discographical puzzle. UMG knew what labels’ masters had been stored in the vault; they know, broadly, which artists’ recordings had been on the shelves. But the knowledge got fuzzier when it came down to individual albums or songs, especially given the presence in the vault of an indeterminate number of masters containing outtakes, demos and other recordings that were never commercially released.

UMG’s own lists present riddles. Documents show that the company believed it had lost recordings by one of music’s most zealous audiophiles, Neil Young — whose website offers high-resolution versions of his complete discography, presumably sourced from the original masters. It is unclear if the Young recordings thought by UMG to have been destroyed were safety copies of the four albums he recorded for Geffen in the 1980s or outtakes from the sessions for those albums, or if UMG officials were simply mistaken about Young having had material in the backlot vault.

The Project Phoenix recovery program lasted two years and, by Aronson’s estimate, gathered duplicates of perhaps a fifth of the recordings lost in the fire. The choice to end these efforts may have been a cost-benefit decision; or UMG may have determined that, for the majority of the destroyed masters, duplicates could never be found. Now, in any case, the company is mobilizing another campaign to comb its global vaults. Billboard reported that Kraus, the head UMG archivist, “sent members of his team into the 10 vaults the company keeps around the world to verify the location and condition of its more than 3.5 million assets.” It seems that a second Project Phoenixlike effort is underway — this time, under pressure from both artists and the public.

The list below represents many — but not all — of the acts believed by UMG officials to have lost master recordings in the fire. It is a partial selection, culled from three separate UMG lists prepared for Project Phoenix in late 2009 and early 2010, more than a year and a half after the fire struck. These UMG lists were part of the company’s effort to compile what was referred to internally as “the God List,” a total tally of the material lost in the fire. The lists appear in company emails and other documents, a paper trail that emerged in later litigation. In one court filing in the NBCUniversal suit, UMG’s lawyers characterized the lists as the result of “a resource-intensive project to identify with reasonable certainty the Destroyed Tapes.”

Nevertheless, the names listed below come with several caveats. For the artists named below, it is not possible to assert definitively which masters were burned in the fire, nor can it be said categorically that all of these artists did in fact lose masters. It also cannot be determined exactly how many of the destroyed masters were primary-source originals.

What can be said with certainty is that these are artists whose material UMG believed had been lost in the fire and whose recordings the company spent tens of millions of dollars trying to replace.

Vivendi : le projet UMG reporté à plus tard ?

Actualité publiée le 27/06/19 11:15

https://www.abcbourse.com/marches/vivendi-le-projet-umg-reporte-a-plus-tard-_474531_VIVp

Plus forte baisse du CAC 40, l'action Vivendi perdait près de 4% ce matin à la Bourse de Paris. Selon une information publiée hier par le média californien Digital Music News, le projet de cession de la 'pépite' Universal Music Group (UMG) pourrait subir un sérieux retard.

Digital Music News affirme que la semaine dernière, Vivendi a décidé de suspendre l'opération pour six mois, ce qui la reporterait en 2020. Ce ne serait pas tout car ensuite, le groupe a fait face à l'aggravation des différends avec des artistes quant aux conséquences de l'incendie qui a ravagé Universal Studios en 2008.

Bref, indique une source de Digital Musics News, la cession d'UMG serait maintenant en 'pause pour une durée indéfinie' ('indefinite pause').

Une allégorie du futur de notre civilisation hyper-productrice et peu préservatrice ?

Culture. Depuis 10 ans, Universal Studios dissimule la perte de centaines de milliers d’archives musicales

Courrier International | Amériques Culture États-Unis | The New York Times - New York

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/culture-depuis-10-ans-universal-studios-dissimule-la-perte-de-centaines-de-milliers

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Publié le 12/06/2019 - 18:48

En 2008, un incendie a détruit la quasi-totalité des enregistrements réalisés depuis les années 1940 par les studios Universal à Hollywood, révèle le New York Times.

Cela a été “le plus grand désastre de l’histoire de l’industrie de la musique, accuse The New York Times dans son édition du mardi 11 juin. Mais presque personne ne le savait.” De l’incendie de 2008 déclenché dans les studios d’Universal, le grand public ne se souvient que de la destruction des salles de tournage, de matériels d’enregistrement et de vidéos. “L’article du New York Times à l’époque était classique : il ne faisait pas mention des archives musicales qui se trouvaient dans l’entrepôt dévasté”, retrace aujourd’hui le quotidien américain. En effet, “Universal Studios Hollywood était un studio de cinéma et pas une compagnie de disques”, rappelle le journal. Depuis 2006, Vivendi était propriétaire du label, donc les films et la musique étaient gérés de façon distincte.

Mais d’après le New York Times, qui s’appuie sur des témoignages et plusieurs rapports internes d’Universal Music Group, environ 500 000 titres musicaux, stockés dans le bâtiment 6197 des locaux du label américain, ont brûlé dans l’incendie. “Cet édifice était le principal entrepôt de masters de la côte Ouest, ces enregistrements originaux à partir desquels sont réalisées toutes les copies ultérieures. Un master est un objet unique, la source irremplaçable d’un morceau de musique enregistré.”

Du jazz des années 1940 au rap des années 2000

On ne peut pas dire exactement combien d’enregistrements étaient des masters, ni de quel type de masters il s’agissait. Mais les pertes étaient importantes, recouvrant un large pan de l’histoire de la musique populaire, des grands noms d’après-guerre aux stars d’aujourd’hui.”

Parmi les masters détruits, on retrouve les premiers titres commercialisés d’Aretha Franklin, la discographie complète de Chuck Berry et Duke Ellington ou encore des enregistrements de Louis Armstrong. Des masters d’Eric Clapton, The Eagles, Elton John ou Eminem sont aussi partis en fumée, de même que “des dizaines de milliers de disques de gospel, country, soul, disco, pop, classique”. Les pertes sont estimées à “150 millions de dollars”. “Mais historiquement parlant, l’ampleur de la catastrophe est stupéfiante”, reprend le journal.

Un “secret de polichinelle” gardé depuis des années

Quelques jours après l’incendie, une journaliste a pourtant suspecté que quelques milliers d’enregistrements originaux auraient été brûlés. Le même jour, le porte-parole d’Universal Music Group démentait ces propos dans la revue Billboard. En 2008, la compagnie redoutait la réaction du public, autant que celle des artistes concernés.

Mais selon le journal, “le sort de toutes ces bandes a été un secret de polichinelle pendant des années. Il est étalé aux yeux de tous sur Internet, apparaissant sur des forums fréquentés par des collectionneurs de disques et des ingénieux audio”, sans que l’information ne soit pour autant relayée par les grands médias.

Pour le New York Times, “la situation est critique : c’est une attaque au ralenti contre notre patrimoine musical dont beaucoup, dans l’industrie du disque, et a fortiori parmi le grand public, ne saisissent pas la gravité. Si une perte d’une ampleur comparable s’était produite dans une autre institution culturelle — comme le Metropolitan Museum of Art —, il y aurait eu une plus grande sensibilisation au problème et peut-être même une forme de responsabilisation.”

Source The New York Times - New York

Voilà aussi ce qui arrive quand tout finit par être concentré entre de grosses main plus intéressés par le profit que de préserver leur patrimoine...

ça montre encore que la rationalisation des coûts comme centrer des masters en un lieu unique est tout bonnement une énorme ânerie que seuls peuvent pondre des financiers qui ne voient dans l'entreprise que des lignes de comptes à rationaliser...

Messio 'dames de Vivendi , je vous salue pas car une telle perte vous est en partie imputable sous couvert de guerre des profits...

Archives parties en fumée : Universal doit "la transparence" à ses artistes pour le PDG

Des enregistrements originaux uniques de Louis Armstrong auraient disparu dans l'incendie qui a ravagé des bâtiments d'Universal à Los Angeles en 2008

https://information.tv5monde.com/culture/archives-parties-en-fumee-universal-doit-la-transparence-ses-artistes-pdg-307101?amp

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19 JUIN 2019

Mise à jour 19.06.2019 à 23:00 AFP

© 2019 AFP

Universal Music Group, numéro un mondial de la musique soupçonné d'avoir délibérément caché l'ampleur d'un incendie qui a détruit 500.000 enregistrements originaux dont il avait la garde en Californie, doit la "transparence" à ses artistes sur ce sujet, a déclaré son PDG dans une note interne.

Une enquête du New York Times a récemment révélé que plusieurs décennies de "masters", enregistrements originaux servant à fabriquer vinyls, CD et autres copies numériques, étaient partis en fumée le 1er juin 2008 lors d'un gigantesque incendie qui avait ravagé les installations d'Universal à Hollywood.

Parmi ces enregistrements se trouvaient des oeuvres, parfois uniques, de stars légendaires comme Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny and Cher, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Janet Jackson, Nirvana ou Tupac.

"Je vais être clair: nous devons la transparence à nos artistes", écrit Lucian Grainge, PDG d'Universal Music Group (UMG), dans un mémo publié par la lettre spécialisée Music Business Worldwide.

"Nous leur devons des réponses. Je vais m'assurer que les hauts responsables de cette société s'y engagent, à commencer par moi", poursuit M. Grainge, qui a pris la tête de cette filiale du groupe français Vivendi trois ans après l'incendie.

Les révélations du New York Times sur l'impact de cet incendie ont secoué l'industrie musicale, en particulier les artistes, dont certains ont accusé UMG d'avoir minimisé le désastre pour éviter d'avoir à rendre des comptes.

Howard King, avocat de Los Angeles spécialisé dans le divertissement, est d'ailleurs en train de monter des dossiers au nom de certains artistes et pourrait déposer plainte dès la semaine prochaine, a appris l'AFP auprès de son cabinet.

Selon Lucian Grainge, les informations de presse sur les conséquences de l'incendie "ont suscité des spéculations, et il est complètement inacceptable que nos artistes et auteurs ne sachent pas si ces spéculations sont exactes".

Le PDG appelle donc à "redoubler d'efforts pour préserver le riche héritage culturel sur lequel notre industrie est fondée."

Filiale de Vivendi dont le siège est à Santa Monica, près de Los Angeles (Californie), Universal Music Group est considéré comme l'un des trois géants de la musique dans la monde, avec Sony Music Entertainment et Warner Music Group.

Mais la part de marché détenue par UMG est presque deux fois plus importante que son challenger Sony, grâce notamment à des poids lourds comme Ariana Grande et Drake, ainsi qu'un colossal catalogue d'artistes disparus, tels Frank Sinatra ou Queen.