Radio LBB: Reimagined – A Concord Series

When I joined the Concord Music Publishing sync team in 2018, full of enthusiasm and fresh out of a summer internship at a much smaller publisher, a few days in I began to freak out slightly – how the hell am I ever going to get my head around such a massive catalogue? It was fairly daunting, with heaps of new tracks coming in every day. But it was the vast back catalogue that posed the biggest challenge for me.

We control some incredible classics that I was of course familiar with – my parents would never have allowed me to grow up without the likes of Genesis and Pink Floyd. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Suddenly I didn’t just have to know their whole repertoire inside out, but I had to understand how they could work in the crazy world of sync.

I was then introduced to Concord’s Reimagined series. Basically, it’s an ongoing project that the sync team have undertaken, whereby we take a part of the catalogue, and give those songs to some of our newer artists to reinterpret in their own individual styles. Why? We’ve all seen the increasing trend for covers in film/TV/advertising, and Reimagined has provided us with some amazing new versions of classics to pitch for these opportunities. For me, it’s also been a great way to engage with these songs and feel connected to them, despite not having lived through them.

For example, last year we celebrated the Apple catalogue – the publishing arm of the Beatles’ label, represent by Concord. It includes the music of legends such as Badfinger, Jackie Lomax and Billy Preston. Our artists came back with some amazing reinterpretations, which we then had them perform at an exclusive event for our clients at The Scotch of St James (shown in the above picture).

Most importantly, these new versions have gone on to land some pretty cool placements. LYRA’s ethereal, building version of ‘New Day’ for example – who would have thought a rock song written by Jackie Lomax in 1969 would make its way in to Love Island?

This year we’re taking on the fabulous '80s. The wheels are in motion, with hits on the table such as Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ and Lionel Richie’s ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ set to be reimagined by a broad spectrum of producers, writers and artists. Watch the space - it’s going to be epic.