Thank you for your continued support. As we all get accustomed to the dreary new soundtrack to our exercise routine, it is essential we keep up the feedback.
Last week the CEO of Virgin Active, Dean Kowarski visited my local club, and I had the opportunity for a chat with his team about the music. They are well aware that this is a 'pain point'. Whilst they have made a commitment to Epidemic Sound and will do everything they can to make it a success, they are conscious that they will have to review this policy, particularly before we are due to recommit.
The CEO's team are watching this petition, and reading your comments. They also wanted to better understand what it was about the new music that was not working, so I have collated some of your thoughts below, to express why we miss commercial music so much.
Exercise classes are a shared experience. Dancing together in time to music you love. It is not just physical exercise but an uplifting of the spirits, a shared joy and it is the music that creates the mood and carries that. The new music just doesn’t unite us in our passion.
When you do a class, there is a connection between you and the instructor. You take their lead and feed off their energy. Every time I hear a bodypump track I am reminded of the instructor who first taught me it, or the one who dedicated it to me because they knew it was my favourite song. Other times instructors have played a beloved song for someone whose birthday it was. We are not robots, we are souls interacting, united in our enjoyment and connecting through shared experience.
To dance you need the right music, it’s that simple. Music provides the inspiration and the motivation for a dance. It is at the very core of the movement. The music sets the tempo and rhythm but most of all it sets the mood. Music conveys emotion and it is essential to have the right music. I can tell I am not so motivated by the new music as my calorie usage has dropped considerably, and that's fundamentally because I am not having as much fun.
The new music lacks soul. It doesn't bring us joy like the songs we know and love.
You have stifled instructor's creativity and personality. You have taken away our instructor's individuality and with it, all we so loved about classes. We may as well stay home and watch a virtual class.
I just did a tough class and the instructor said ‘Let the music drive you to the finish’ This is what great music can do. It can give you the adrenaline to push through. Some of the new music is not unpleasant, I’m happy to listen to emerging artists at home on the sofa, but they will never be the driving force behind those last few push ups or that cycle climb when you are almost spent.
I don't get to go out like I used to, now the gym is my party. Spin is my nightclub, which is why we have instructors who are also DJs. Great music is the key ingredient to making exercise fun.