Hello, Chicago! From W be easy Chicago and PRX, this is sound opinions. I'm Jim De Regattis.

And I'm Greg Cot. If you love music like we do, then you've likely got a set of songs that define who you are.

Today, Jim and I share the music that made us.

Plus, we'll talk to journalist Jody Rosen about what was lost when fire ripped through

Universal Music Groups Los Angeles Archives.

That's the thing when you lose the master, when you lose the original, you lose not just the

Sonic richness of the original, but you lose the possibility of all kinds of subsequent information and revelations.

That's all coming up on sound opinions.

This is sound opinions and later in the show we'll be talking about some of the songs that made us who we are.

Every music lover Greg has songs that really define them.

But first we're going to talk about an article has songs that really define them.

But first, we're going to talk about an article that appeared in the New York Times magazine

a couple of weeks ago that has had musicians, fans, and the entire music industry buzzing. That is so true, Jim.

The article is called The Day the Music Burned,

and in it reporter Jody Rosen talks about a fire

that broke out at a Universal Studios Hollywood warehouse in 2008.

Now that warehouse contained archival materials from film and TV,

but also many tapes containing music masters.

At the time, Universal down played the fire and it didn't get much media attention, but

Rosen's extensive reporting revealed a much larger tragedy. He found that hundreds of thousands of original music recordings were lost from artists ranging from Billy Holiday to nirvana.

Now we recently talked with Jody and we started our conversation by talking about specifically

what was lost in that fire.

...