A couple of years ago, Universal Music Group faced a terrible event when a fire destroyed their warehouse along with the master records of several artists like Tom Petty, Tupac, Elton John, Nirvana, Aretha Franklin, among others

Universal Music Group's warehouse went up in flames on June 1, 2008, due to a blowtorch

12-Hour Hellfire that Caused a Lifetime Nightmare

The fire lasted over twelve hours, and it took around four hundred firefighters to tame the combustion. However, the nightmare lasted eternally as a lot of precious master records have been completely destroyed and gone for good. Employees with blowtorch unintentionally started the hellfire and sent UMG to a bottomless pit of predicament.

Many artists mourned about the loss of their precious gems, and the latest article from the New York Times cut open the unhealed wounds of several musicians. UMG failed to be transparent about the real damage the fire did to the record company, and the colossal destruction of their archive. Now, thanks to the New York Times article, a brighter view of the real story was revealed, which is dreadful for UMG.

Lawsuit

A group of artists including Tom Petty filed a lawsuit against UMG for the loss of master records and concealing the truth

After learning the awful truth, a couple of artists and their estates, Tom Petty, Tupac, Steve Earl, Soundgarden, and Hole filed a lawsuit against UMG for their shortcoming on protecting the analog audios that caused losses of priceless materials. They are demanding a legal settlement worth $100 million for the lost tapes and for UMG’s effort to hide the real story for over a decade.

The complaint states that Universal Music Group had downplayed and concealed the truth from the artists. UMG falsified the allegations and issued a statement claiming that the New York Times story contains lots of inexactness, contradictions, deceptive statements, and radical misapprehensions of the incident.

Gone Forever

Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club and many other classic hits' master records were burned down to ashes

UMG’s revenue mostly comes from streaming, so the fire didn’t financially hurt them, but for the artists, the loss of master tape is a catastrophe. The analog album master is basically the main source of all the raw versions of their recorded music including the unheard tracks that didn’t make it to the released album.

Artists like Andy Kim only learned the loss of the master records from the New York Times piece. Fortunately, the master copy of his song Rock Me Gently is perfectly safe in Los Angeles, although, he didn’t check his other records yet. But not all singers are fortunate like Kim.

Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club didn’t survive the blaze, and it felt like a terrible nightmare for her. What’s even worse is that she only knew about it when she read the Times article.

Other affected artists include Neil Young, Bryan Adams, David Crosby, and so on.