{"id":487191,"date":"2019-06-19T10:29:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T16:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=849995"},"modified":"2019-06-19T10:29:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T16:29:20","slug":"universal-music-chief-says-label-owes-artists-transparency-over-vault-fire-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/universal-music-chief-says-label-owes-artists-transparency-over-vault-fire-losses\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Music Chief Says Label Owes Artists \u2018Transparency\u2019 Over Vault Fire Losses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Universal Music Group<\/a> CEO Lucian Grainge told employees to be transparent with any artist asking about whether their recordings were destroyed in a 2008 fire<\/a> at Universal Studios, the Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

In an internal memo circulated to employees (and obtained by the LA Times<\/em>), Grainge said, \u201cLet me be clear: we owe our artists transparency. We owe them answers. I will ensure that the senior management of this company, starting with me, owns this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grainge also outlined proper protocol should an artist get in touch about the status of their recordings. He said artists should be put in contact with UMG\u2019s Senior Vice President of Recording Studios and Archive Management, and added that the SVP had formed a team to \u201cfield these requests and respond to them as promptly as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

An estimated 500,000 recordings \u2014 including irreplaceable master tapes and unreleased material\u2014 were allegedly lost in the fire, according to a recent story in The New York Times Magazine<\/em><\/a>. The damages reportedly covered a swath of artists ranging from Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James and Chuck Berry to Elton John, Nirvana, the Roots and Janet Jackson.<\/p>\n

While the fire was widely covered in 2008, UMG downplayed the destruction, with one spokesman claiming at the time, \u201cIn a sense, nothing was lost.\u201d Following the New York Times<\/em> story, the label again disputed the extent of the damage, claiming the piece contained \u201cnumerous misleading statements, contradictions and fundamental misunderstandings of the scope of the incident and affected assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his memo, Grainge continued to suggest that the damage was not so great, though he did admit any kind of loss was painful. \u201cEven though that event happened more than a decade ago, and while I\u2019ve been somewhat relieved by early reports from our team that many of the assertions and subsequent speculation are not accurate, one thing is clear: the loss of even a single piece of archived material is heartbreaking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Grainge also seemed to suggest the likely loss of a trove of unreleased and unheard recordings from legendary artists, writing, \u201cEven though all of the released recordings lost in the fire will live on forever, losing so much archival material is nonetheless painful. These stories have prompted speculation, and having our artists and songwriters not knowing whether the speculation is accurate is completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of Grainge\u2019s memo comes after reports that attorneys Howard King and Ed McPherson planned to file lawsuits<\/a> against UMG on behalf of numerous artists in the coming weeks. The pair reportedly sent<\/a> a joint letter to Grainge in which they asked for \u201ca complete inventory\u201d of all recordings destroyed in the fire. \u201cIt is important to all artists who may have been affected by this calamity to know the truth regarding the condition of their master recordings stored by Universal,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge told employees to be transparent with any artist asking about whether their recordings were destroyed in a 2008 fire at Universal Studios, the Los Angeles Times reports. In an internal memo circulated to employees (and obtained by the LA Times), Grainge said, \u201cLet me be clear: we owe our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-487191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 11:41:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}