"The Day The Music Died": Explosive Report Confirms Loss Of Thousands Of Original Recordings

An explosive New York Times article has lifted the lid on what we could now call one of the biggest incidents in the history of recorded music, eleven years after it actually happened.

It's being reported that a fire that ripped through the Universal Studios lot in Hollywood (in 2008), not only took out the King Kong attraction and a video vault that housed copies of old works, but also took out an archive containing a whole bunch of treasured audio master recordings.

We're talking decades of popular music, lost!

Some of the artists involved include Guns N’ Roses, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Beck, Sheryl Crow, The Eagles, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, The Police and Aerosmith.

Not to mention, lost works by Nirvana and Elton John. Reportedly, pretty much all of Buddy Holly's masters were lost.

In an internal confidential report, Universal Music Group estimated the loss at about 500,000 song titles.

FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND!

It turns out we're only finding out about the extent of the loss now due to some pretty marvellous PR work at the time to manage the crisis.

Considering it was a fire on a movie lot too, it was no doubt overlooked that original music recordings could also be housed there.

Read the NY Times report in full

In any case, the disaster is now being termed as the day the music burned!

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Written by: @dantheinternut