Archie Bolton is a Repertoire Insights Analyst at PPL, bringing experience in music licensing, events and data analysis to the role. His route into the music industry began with a school holiday job teaching young people to play and write music.
From music teaching to licensing
Bolton studied chemistry at university and completed a master’s in computational chemistry. He had played guitar since about age 11 and produced electronic music and worked as a DJ since age 16. During school holidays in London, he spent about a year helping children aged 8 to 16 learn covers, write an original track and perform for family and friends.
He joined PPL in 2017 as a Customer Services Advisor, answering businesses’ questions about music licences. At the time, PPL handled those queries internally. Bolton also helped prepare for the launch of PPL PRS Ltd, its joint venture with PRS for Music, which began administering licences for businesses to play music to customers and staff in 2018. PRS for Music collects and distributes songwriter royalties, while PPL does so for performers and recording rightsholders.
Repertoire, events and analytics
After the joint venture launched, Bolton became a Data Quality Coordinator on PPL’s Repertoire team. The team checks recorded music rights data, which is matched with music played in public or on broadcast platforms to calculate royalties.
In spring 2018, he applied for a role in PPL’s Events and Marketing team. His work there involved partners across the music industry, including grassroots events, conferences and regional awards such as the Scottish Album of the Year Award, the Welsh Music Prize and the Northern Ireland Music Prize.
Bolton later studied SQL, a language used to work with database information, and data analytics in his own time. He moved to another company, where he gained experience working with collection societies around the world, before returning to PPL as an analyst.
