A restaurant that removed your favorite item from the menu, a bad cover of a great song… Write a post about something that should’ve been left untouched, but wasn’t. Why was the original better?
Ahahahaha anybody who knows the industry that I work in will probably have two distinct words in their minds:
Cover. Music.
It’s become the bane of our existence, but unfortunately something that we just have to accept and deal with.
Here in ‘Straya, our fitness industry is governed by a few different bodies, one of them being the PPCA (Phonograpic Performance Company of Australia) who impose a tariff on any business wishing to use original music, e.g. A fitness class.
Due to the rates of this tariff, most gyms went through a period where they simply couldn’t afford our justify spending the money to keep their license to play original music, and a solution was required.
This lead to the rise of cover music.
One of the major providers of original fitness music realised that this wad going to become a massive problem, as almost overnight, all their instructors lost the ability to teach any classes. A solution needed to be reached, and fast, so they began producing cover music.
The first few batches of cover music was met with so much backlash. The quality wasn’t that great, and it seemed as though they used the same handful of artists to cover over one hundred songs.
Instructors weren’t happy. Participants weren’t happy. Artists like Britney and Beyoncé were now being sung by men; Justin Timberlake was being sung by a woman. The songs lacked bass, and simply didn’t have enough production value. People weren’t happy, but it was all we had. We didn’t have much of a choice.
Some people choose to break the rules and go back to teaching, and were fired if they got caught, in turn, putting the rest of us under even more scrutiny.
Participants left gyms over the music issue, and even some instructors left as well, however, certain gyms refused to acknowledge that the music issue was the reason behind it. In their eyes, the music was so insignificant, but when group fitness is the largest retention tool and the biggest membership draw card for the gym, and people were only at the gym for group fitness, the music becomes just as important to their workout experience as the class itself. Ruin the music, and you ruin the class.
And who would want to pay money for a negative experience?
Fortunately the tariff was appealed and a much lower and affordable rate was agreed upon. This saw an instant rise in gyms reverting back to original music, making lots of people happy. To others, this now seems like an incentive or benefit to either joining that Club or teaching there.
It’s always better being able to use original music. Always!
adorablyobnoxious 