On Friday several rock and other popular artists filed suit against Universal Music (the worlds largest distributer of records); for a fire that occurred in a warehouse in 2008. Not only for neglect of such a mass amount of archives, but for hiding the actual damage from the artists. And it wasn’t just 20 or so years that got destroyed in the fire. Decades and decades of music perished in the flames. From the beginning of copy written records in the 20’s all the way through the 2000’s. Pretty much all the way up to the fire.
An insane amount of archival material from deceased and current artists was lost. Which can really hurt the estate side of the business. Many bands, such as Soundgarden, are dependent on releasing live and unreleased material to keep their legacy’s going. If they can’t replace the deceased member, the next best thing is releasing live and unreleased tracks. It’s awesome for fans to get unreleased live and studio work. I for one, can’t wait for ‘Live At The Artists Den’ from Soundgarden in a few weeks. Entire box sets have been made out of unreleased material. Bon Jovi’s ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ comes to mind. And most of all the work of that ilk was destroyed in 2008 from the fire. Many artists have paid the price.
And now many musicians and estates from deceased , musicians are taking action. As well they should. Soundgarden, Hole, the Estates of Tupac Shakur and Tom Petty have all filed suit. And they are pursuing class action status according to an NPR report. The main claim is that Universal failed to secure archives in an adequate venue. In it’s place storing the material in ‘an inadequate, substandard storage house located on the back lot of Universal Studios that was a known fire trap.’ Not only that, but the company disclosed the actual loss of archival recordings. The direct quote is, ‘UMG concealed the loss with false public statements.’ Making statements such as ‘We only lost a small amount of tapes and other material by obscure artists from the 40’s and 50’s.’
This is major! How can an entire record company, much less the biggest in the world, be so negligent? At least they could have been honest about the loss of tapes from the inception of the fire. It’s a huge blow to the rock, punk, metal, pop, disco, hip hop, jazz and any other modern music community. Legacies that were once thought redeemable in an archival sense are now gone. And not just ‘obscure artists from the 40’s and 50’s,’ but many many decades of popular trends. But the worst part of all of it is what the fans are going to miss out on. And it’s a damn shame. Who knows what could have been unearthed from some of the greatest rock and pop acts of all time. All the suits are just in my opinion. Hopefully some justice will come out of this.
