Reading the list of jazz, soul, and rock artists whose material was lost just made me shudder. If an example of cultural devastation is ever needed, this is it. Jazz greats from the 40s and 50s. Popular music from the birth of rock and roll to the modern day. This is truly a tragedy. Why wasn't this material protected in, at least, a fireproof area, or, better, in some salt cave in the Utah desert?
> Why wasn't this material protected in, at least, a fireproof area, or, better, in some salt cave in the Utah desert?
...because the music business is far more interested in attempting to prevent the unauthorised copying of their material, than in preserving material for the long term?
> because the music business is far more interested in attempting to prevent the unauthorised copying of their material, than in preserving material for the long term?
I guess burning it is the ultimate form of copy protection.
To be blunt, there's a lot of it and it's not actually that valuable. We've had CDs for 30+ years. If there's an album UMG thought it'd be worth digitizing, remastering, and reselling, they'd have done it by now.
Humanity generates information (works of art included) faster than it can be reliably archived, and as that information ages and no one is interested in it, it becomes less relevant. Maybe it's a bit nihilistic, but I've come to accept humanity only has finite memory for a cultural canon, and things will drop out of it over time.
>"To be blunt, there's a lot of it and it's not actually that valuable. We've had CDs for 30+ years. If there's an album UMG thought it'd be worth digitizing, remastering, and reselling, they'd have done it by now."
This is not even remotely true. Albums are re-issued and re-released all the time. Often times there will a renewed interest in an artist or their work from a death, some current artist sighting them as an influence or an artist making a comeback. Master tapes are the most valuable asset a record label has. It is also not uncommon for albums to go out of print for a period and then be released again many years later. And albums go out of print for all kinds of reasons. David Bowie's classic RCA catalog(Heroes, Low, Lodger etc.) were all out of print in the 80s and 90s. They weren't available until Bowie got the rights to his masters back - something called a "reversion"in recording contracts. So a record label could have ownership of the masters for 30 or 40 years before they revert back to an artist. After which an artist will likely reissue them since they generate income.
>"This is a tactic to stay on the charts and drum-up sales."
Uhm yes it's a business, it's called the "music business" for a reason. What's your point? To my point - Queen is there because there was just a huge biopic movie that won 4 Oscars. There is also an Elton biopic that was just released. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had a big summer tour planned that was just cancelled. And Bob Seger is currently on tour. That's traditionally how the music business worked - artists toured to sell records in the markets they were playing in. Pink Floyd being on the charts is nothing new either. It's a constant. They have been on the top 200 for Dark Side since it was released in 1973[1]. And it spent decades on the chart before there were any reissues of it.
There is also no shortage of long tail content that sells well to diehard fans but not enough to chart. Visit Rough Trade Records in Brooklyn/London or Amoeba Records in SF or LA if you want to see just how big of a business "specialty" reissues are - most of which will never show up on any charts.
In total agreement. Much of the material by artists in the 40s and 50s may be of interest to a small portion of the total population of music lovers today but that does nothing to diminish its worth. You don't like Duke Ellington? Fine. Charlie Parker? OK. Their works, none-the-less, are still an integral part of the musical fabric and history of this country and, actually, the world. They deserved much better care. Now, those original recordings are lost forever. It's like driving a stake through the Mona Lisa or knocking the head off of Michaelangelo's David. Yeah, there are replicas around but that, in no way, soothes the pain.
There's actually no shortage of B side tracks that went on to became of the most famous, favorite and popular songs in rock history. Sometimes even eclipsing the A side. [1][2][3]
Everything from Elis "Hound Dog", The Smiths "How Soon is Now" to Zeppelin's "Hey Hey What can I do." B-sides are/were often a chance for an artist to release something the record company rejected for the album but the artist really wanted to release. B-sides are actually often things for the fans.
As a counterpoint, here are the B-sides from that British quartet of yesteryear, most of which were only released as singles (until the discographies were published decades later). Some of these are better than the A-sides. YMMV.
P.S. I Love You,
Ask Me Why,
Thank You Girl,
I'll Get You,
This Boy,
You Can't Do That,
Things We Said Today,
She's a Woman,
Yes It Is,
I'm Down,
Day Tripper,
Rain,
Yellow Submarine,
Penny Lane,
Baby You're A Rich Man,
I Am the Walrus,
The Inner Light,
Revolution,
Don't Let Me Down,
Old Brown Shoe,
Come Together,
You Know My Name
The Anthology series is also a really good example of using archive material effectively. For example, you can see how songs like Strawberry Fields Forever and Day in the Life evolved over multiple sessions.
> Why wasn't this material protected in, at least, a fireproof area, or, better, in some salt cave in the Utah desert?
Because they don't actually care. No one in their right mind in these companies will sign off on releasing this stuff to somebody else. If some performance just happens to include someone famous and becomes worth any reasonable amount of money, the person who signed off will get fired.
The best way to preserve this stuff is to make copyright expire after 10-20 years. That way these companies can't just sit on these things indefinitely. They'll have to monetize it or someone else will likely come along and monetize it.
You don't have any idea how the music business actually works then. The sound recording copyright allows the owner of the master recording to generates revenue from "master use license fees." This is the permission to use the actual recorded version of the song in movies and television. When Martin Scorsese wants to use a Stones song in his movie, he must pay the "master use license fee" to the record company. These companies care a a lot about those fees and the masters that enabled them. I can assure you. The tragedy of this is more the result of two decades of mergers and consolidations of record companies whose headquarter are all in Los Angeles.
>"The best way to preserve this stuff is to make copyright expire after 10-20 years"
That's not actually how it works. The master recording copyright follows the physical media not the owner. What you are suggesting would actually hurt the artist. More especially so at a time when their recording was becoming a "classic."
> In that case, they’d just shred the masters unless someone offered to buy them for enough — and for most stuff, no-one would.
Unlikely. Shredding costs time and money that no one will allocate.
Suddenly you have: "Well, these things are about to come off copyright, so if we don't get money now, we're never going to get any at all." So, someone looking to add a few bucks to his bottom line budget in the company will almost certainly toss them out at a reasonable price.
Contrast to now where the risk is that you sell off "Random Garbage 42" for $10,000 that happens to have a 10 second cameo of Elvis in it, and it becomes worth $250,000.
>"Why wasn't this material protected in, at least, a fireproof area, or, better, in some salt cave in the Utah desert?"
Normally they are kept in at least a climate-controlled vault as the oxide will eventually start flaking off the tape if its not stored correctly. I think the issue here was the sheer number of consolidations that UMG and the record business as a whole. The article mentions that were just a tenant at that point. Since the tapes are the assets that are acquired in a merger I'm sure someone made a call to some storage facility and said "move those things over here now." And eventually it became the purview of some warehouse worker.
