+ Les Mills’ programme directors put together a wish list of songs for every new release
MUSIC MAESTROS Licensing music for group exercise playlists can be a complex process, especially when you’re negotiating global rights. Josh James and Kendall Farmer of the Les Mills music team talk us through the process When creating playlists for your workouts, what music rights do you need to secure? JJ: We have to clear both the publishing and master rights. The underlying composition – lyrics, sheet music, melody and everything else that goes into writing the song – is the publishing side. The master rights belong to the label – the record company that paid the artist to come in and make the recording. 44
RIDE HIGH April 2020
I look after the major labels and have relationships with Sony, Warner and Universal. We request tracks in batches and the labels give us feedback: yes, no, maybe but there are additional side artists who need to be cleared. We feed that back to the programme directors, they make a few more track suggestions if needed, and we keep working through until we have a confirmed track list.
