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The Day the Music Burned

nytimes.com

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Re: The Day the Music Burned

#71

Post by bsder »

sizzzzlerz wrote: post #8

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 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.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#72

Post by jumelles »

pseudolus wrote: post #23

Over the years the film industry has suffered enormous losses as well, in part because early movies used nitrocellulose based film stock which is highly flammable and susceptible to spontaneous combustion. The 1937 Fox vault fire is one of many examples of film loss that has continued to the present [0]. Sadly, the existence of a large number of silent movies is only known through reviews, film posters and past recol…

Not just Doctor Who; it was regular practice at the BBC to tape over old broadcasts. Also reminds me how there's no audio of de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#73

Post by [deleted] »

aaronarduino wrote: post #41
tigeba wrote: post #37

50 years from now the problem will be that we have preserved digital masters in the form of session files for various DAWs and it will no longer be possible to patch together the correct hardware, OS, plugins, and virtual instruments to recreate the session. Artists and producers are encouraged to create stems or bounces of all the individual tracks for the purposes of long term preservation, but this does not always…

This worries me greatly. I have worked in the music industry and most studios in my area only keep DAW sessions for about a year. Sadly a lot of music is going to be lost in the next 50 years.

[deleted]

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#74

Post by a-afterglow »

tigeba wrote: post #37

50 years from now the problem will be that we have preserved digital masters in the form of session files for various DAWs and it will no longer be possible to patch together the correct hardware, OS, plugins, and virtual instruments to recreate the session. Artists and producers are encouraged to create stems or bounces of all the individual tracks for the purposes of long term preservation, but this does not always…

Besides from being able to fiddle with the multitrack myself at home, whenever I have studio sessions for my band I always ask for the stems. I remember a couple years ago while starting work on an EP at a local studio, the guy just deleted some band's sessions to make space for ours.

He didn't want to give me the stems, but we never released that EP anyway. When/if we get to re-record it, I'll be sure that is clear from the start.

Don't know if I'd have this luxury at bigger studios, but I'm starting to record my own material anyway. Home recording and software gear are incredibly powerful tools.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#75

Post by jumelles »

dddddaviddddd wrote: post #11
easymodex wrote: post #7

I'd actually say the biggest disaster in history of music is what.cd being shut down. They had the largest collection of hard to find music, meticulously curated and in lossless formats. I doubt there will ever be such a complete collection and it was devastating to see it get killed like that.

Is there anything like it left today?

There are indeed trackers trying to fill the void.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#76

Post by sizzzzlerz »

okmokmz wrote: post #53
dehrmann wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nihilis…

They may not have been financially valuable to UMG, perhaps, but I would argue that other value was still lost

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.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#77

Post by zeveb »

bsder wrote: post #71
sizzzzlerz wrote: post #8

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 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 t…

> The best way to preserve this stuff is to make copyright expire after 10-20 years.

In that case, they’d just shred the masters unless someone offered to buy them for enough — and for most stuff, no-one would.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#78

Post by leoc »

tigeba wrote: post #37

50 years from now the problem will be that we have preserved digital masters in the form of session files for various DAWs and it will no longer be possible to patch together the correct hardware, OS, plugins, and virtual instruments to recreate the session. Artists and producers are encouraged to create stems or bounces of all the individual tracks for the purposes of long term preservation, but this does not always…

That's basically the reason Steve Albini gives for staying analogue: https://youtu.be/p-uziD9AvrI?t=822 . That said, in some respects I don't think (not an expert) the situation is clearly worse than it was in the analogue days: it may be difficult to use or replicate some DAW plugin effect in the future, but it's not as if some studio's physical plate reverb unit, for example, was easy to replicate in another place or at a later time either.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#79

Post by leoc »

jumelles wrote: post #72
pseudolus wrote: post #23

Over the years the film industry has suffered enormous losses as well, in part because early movies used nitrocellulose based film stock which is highly flammable and susceptible to spontaneous combustion. The 1937 Fox vault fire is one of many examples of film loss that has continued to the present [0]. Sadly, the existence of a large number of silent movies is only known through reviews, film posters and past recol…

Not just Doctor Who; it was regular practice at the BBC to tape over old broadcasts. Also reminds me how there's no audio of de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June.

IIRC Doctor Who is in fact unusual in that audio recordings (fan tapings?) survive of nearly all the lost episodes.

Re: The Day the Music Burned

#80

Post by sehugg »

DoubleCribble wrote: post #65
freewilly1040 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, most b-sides are b-sides for a reason.

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 L…

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.
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