In June 2019, The New York Times Magazine published an extensive report revealing that a 2008 fire at Universal Studios Hollywood destroyed an enormous number of master tapes by artists throughout the decades. In the latest filing in musicians’ class action lawsuit against Universal, UMG has acknowledged that master recordings of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Elton John, Beck, Soundgarden, Sheryl Crow, R.E.M., and several other artists were damaged or destroyed in the blaze.

The remaining artists listed in the filing, viewed by Pitchfork, are Bryan Adams, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, David Baerwald, Jimmy Eat World, Les Paul, Peter Frampton, Michael McDonald, Slayer, Suzanne Vega, Surfaris, White Zombie, and Y&T. While specific recordings aren’t mentioned, UMG gives a general idea of what was affected and in what instances “digital clones” or “replacements” of the damaged material exists. All the artist-by-artist details are in the document below.

Sonic Youth’s original multitrack master reels of live performances “were affected,” according to the filing. There’s no mention of replacement copies of Sonic Youth’s masters in the filing. Entries for Slayer, Les Paul, Peter Frampton, and Michael McDonald make no mention of replacements or copies, either.

The filing also claims that “certain original master recordings” of Beck’s were affected, however “UMG has replacements of all affected assets.” Last year, Beck expressed concern over full albums of unreleased music being lost in the 2008 fire. He later walked those comments back, saying he’d learned more about what had been affected.

In the case of Elton John’s masters, the document states that “certain original master recordings embodying the performances of this artist were affected, and UMG is still working with the artist to determine the extent of such impact.” The filing also claims that replacements and copies exist for affected Nirvana, R.E.M., Soundgarden, and Jimmy Eat World.

Last June, Hole, Soundgarden, and the estates of Tupac and Tom Petty filed a class action lawsuit filed against Universal Music Group over the incident. Hole was later dropped from the suit after Universal informed the band that none of their masters were lost.

When reached for comment following the new filing, UMG gave the following statement to Pitchfork:

The plaintiffs’ lawyers have already been informed that none of the masters for four of their five clients were affected by the fire — and the one other client was alerted years earlier and UMG and the artist, working together, were still able to locate a high-quality source for a reissue project. Recognizing the lack of merit of their original claims, plaintiffs’ attorneys are now willfully and irresponsibly conflating lost assets (everything from safeties and videos to artwork) with original album masters, in a desperate attempt to inject substance into their meritless legal case. Over the last eight months, UMG’s archive team has diligently and transparently responded to artist inquiries, and we will not be distracted from completing our work, even as the plaintiffs’ attorneys pursue these baseless claims.

In a statement, Howard King—one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the case—said, “Universal claimed 17,000 artists were affected by the fire when they were suing for damages. Now that they face a lawsuit by their artists, they claim a mere 19 artists were affected. This discrepancy is inexplicable.”

Following The Times Magazine’s initial investigation, Universal issued a statement playing down the extent of the losses, saying the incident “never affected the availability of the commercially released music nor impacted artists’ compensation.” Universal claimed The Times Magazine’s story “contains numerous inaccuracies, misleading statements, contradictions and fundamental misunderstandings of the scope of the incident and affected assets.” They provided no concrete examples of those inaccuracies.

This article was initially published on February 13 at 11:28 p.m. Eastern. It was last updated on February 14 at 12:25 p.m. Eastern.